Affirmative Action (Canada government hiring policy) RANT

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I cannot speak for what happens in Canada, but I can assure you that if you went to any major city in the USA (and many of the smaller cities), you would see what I'm talking about in most every municipal and state government. I believe the recent economic crisis (last 10 years) and recent court rulings (last 20 years) that recognize the reality and illegality of "reverse discrimination" (preferring a lesser qualified minority over a superior qualified majority) and upholding the legal right of employers to make hiring/promotion/termination decisions based on candidate quality and not "ethnic diversity" has empowered municipalities and corporations to change their practices for the better.

I have witnessed first hand Negros, Hispanics and others who had minimal passing scores be hired over white males who were have vastly superior scores and credentials. There is no justification for that except minority preference, and if you look at the quality of government services, a large portion of the decline in quality runs directly to the caliber of those they hire.

The employer could raise the "minimum standards" but that risks being sued saying that expecting someone to pass a test with a minimum of 90% instead of 70% is inherently discriminatory (odd since civil service exams are amazingly easy to prepare for regardless of actual education). The most effective strategy I've seen employed is "double blind" hiring. This is where candidates are assigned numbers and subjected to objective tests where their scores are compiled and listed only by the assigned numbers. The next stage in hiring has no idea who is whom based on numbers and by civil service rules, only the top X scoring candiadates are interviewed. This seems to survive allegations of racism because there is no way you can allege race was a factor for exclusion from hiring because those who knew your race could only tabulate objective tests and the selection for more subjective interviews was based on a numeric roster that was devoid of racial data. In short, for a minority to be hired, they have to score near the top...no more being in the 50th percentile but being chosen first for hiring.

You ask for "objective" data, but I doubt there is any you would accept. The few sources that might provide proof of what I've seen first-hand might be accused of anti Affirmative Action bias, and certainly most all state organizations that say Affirmative Action is a success are politically motivated to say so. I do not know if there is a respected neutral party (and "bipartisan" does not equate to "neutral") who had made a definitive study on the benefits and detriments of Affirmative Action hiring.

I can tell you that although the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has historically come to fight for the rights of most any "obvious" minority who alleges discrimination (Negro, Hispanic, female, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc.), but in other ways the law prohibits discrimination (religion, national origin, etc.) they are very one-sided. White people come in all nationalities. White people have different religions (Christian is not Catholic. Baptist is not Lutheran. Etc.) and the EEOC takes the position that WHITE = WHITE...which is in and of itself racist. So, EEOC is a joke...a government program that blatantly enforces the right of equal opportunity for the "obvious minority" but turns a blind eye to open discrimination where white people are involved, even when it's documented.

Pull out some macroeconomic data.

What is the trend analysis over the last 50 years of minority participation in the public sector work force as a ration of minority representation within the labour pool. If that gap is narrowing, then the overall goal of employment equity is being met.

For better certainty, it's a good idea to chop the data at functional levels, so that you see employment equity group participation at the various levels. Having a bunch of women clerks, while the Deputy Ministers are all men doesn't really advance employment equity for women.

If the gap is narrowing, is there a correlation with poverty levels in minority populations? By ensuring that the public sector salary dollars are more equitably distributed through the population, the public sector winds up improving life chances in disadvantaged communities.

Is there a corresponding improvement in educational attainment? The higher the number of minority learners who graduate from secondary school, the better the prospects for sustainable economic success in minority communities.

Meanwhile, examine public service productivity. Is the public service living up to the commitment to do more with less? Almost every government department will have published figures related to the number of people it employs, the number of dollars that it spends on salaries, and its ability to meet its legislated program objectives. Factoring for constant dollars, I think you will find that public sector productivity has steadily risen in every OECD country, including the United States.

While macroeconomic data does not disprove that abuses are occurring (and I readily acknowledge that they do), I suggest that it would disprove your notion that there is a crisis of competence and productivity in the public service.

Having time to think on this, I have another observation.

I can see your position about hiring people who meet a list of established credentials and say its appropriate. I've seen situations where you need a person for a limited time and hiring exceptionally qualified people means nothing. I've seen situations where you will hire several people and the simple fact is that most of them will NEVER find promotional opportunity in your agency, so why look for people who exceed expectations. Someone has to stay at the bottom of the food chain.

However, both civil service and corporations do themselves a disservice to aim so low.

First, it's a bad practice in a society that claims to value education. Most graduates (even before the current economic crisis) did not get employment in the fields they specifically trained for. If you hire to a list of skills and dismiss those who are similarly skilled but not a precise match or those who are "overqualified" you consign those who worked to better themselves to be unemployable because you don't want more than what you are asking for.

Second, by disregarding the "overqualified" you loose out on some of the best workers. People who have developed themselves tend to be more responsible than those who did not. Yes, that guy with a MA in economics might do better than to bag groceries at the grocery store, but in a bad economy, does he not have a right to earn a paycheck? Yes, he'll move on if he finds something better, but in a bad economy, how soon will that likely be? How much turnover do you have when you hire people with lesser credentials? That you'd get someone who will show up on time, work without constant supervision, and give fair notice if they get a better job is by itself to consider hiring them.

Third, by disregarding the "overqualified" you loose out on what intangibles you might gain because you are operating with limited vision.

Using myself as an example, I have a J.D. degree. I've had to lie on applications to "dumb down" so I'd have a paycheck. My current situation running my own business came from someone who hired me (someone grossly overqualified) for a job. He needed a secretary. I could do the job, I was there, and he was too lazy to take the time to do a long interview/application process to pick a "best suited" person. Since coming to work for him, he's gained benefits from my knowledge of office hardware and computers. He went from a Dell PC using floppies and an old 386 laptop to two networked PCs and one laptop, wireless broadband, digital imaging for e-mail, archiving, etc. and digital document production. All WITHOUT having to pay some "expert" to come in and do all this for him. His one-man practice enjoys technical resources you don't see at firms 10 times larger than his own. We changed our relationship from employer/employee to client when I started developing the system for digital file archiving (reducing file cabinets of files to single folders with no more than 2 DVD-Rs in them). I'm currently configuring a two-terminal setup for the courthouse's law library. NONE OF THIS would have happened if he followed your practice of hiring someone "ideally" qualified based on a list of minimum standards. By not limiting himself, he got someone who did much more for him than any "secretary" would have ever been capable of.

I agree with you in so far as Statements of Merit Criteria have to be properly crafted to properly identify the Essential Criteria (the "must haves") and the Asset Criteria (the "nice to haves"). And I certainly don't disagree that employers can discover "hidden gems" within their workforces that will open up all sorts of advantages for them. (I have two degrees in Math, an LL.B. and an M.D. I'm the king of hidden gems!)

The difficulty comes when you create a policy of general application at a high level, and then have to implement that policy on the ground. While individual hiring decisions may look unreasonable, taken across the broader perspective, the organization may still be stronger with the policy than without it.

I suspect that we are dealing with two very different approaches to employment equity. In the Canadian public service, membership in an employment equity group is almost always an "asset critierion" (except for aboriginal only competitions where it is an essential criterion). Managers have the discretion to set their priorities when drawing from a pool, and employment equity might, or might not be a pressure that they are facing at that time. The circumstances that you describe appear to be much more proscriptive and take away a lot of discretion from hiring managers.