Affirmative Action (Canada government hiring policy) RANT

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A few weeks ago, there was a job opening for a judicial clerk which stated that all is required is a high school education, but a paralegal diploma would be an asset. I have a paralegal diploma and completed the 2 year course with good standing on my GPA without accomadations. When I applied for this position, since it was a government position, I put yes for the disability part with respect to AS, since with affirmative action it would increase my chances of getting hired. I was wrong..I later found out that a NT girl from my class got the job because she was native. She has lower grades than me and drinks alot. She got drunk and assaulted me and my friends in a drunken rampage in April. We all agreed not to press charges at the time since we didn't want to deal with a bunch of court proceedings while preparing for exams. How is it possible that someone like that has more rights than me? Is it because the Alberta government doesnt want aspies getting meaningful employment besides pushing shopping carts or is it because Native rights trump disability rights? One solution to this problem would be to do away with affirmative action since all it is doing is pitting one group against another. If we did away with it I might have had a better chance at the job based on my qualifications alone even without disclosing AS and just hiding it once I get the job.

Who says it's an Aspie vs Native decision? You assume, you don't know anything about what actually occurred, all you see are a few results.

You have the option to not disclose AS, and depending on what your specific diagnosis is you have consequences that can arise from a lack of disclosure as well. This isn't a cripple fight, the solution to the problem is changing how you perceive the problem itself, there more than likely is no simple solution to such a problem because the problem itself exists only in your mind. The real world is never that simple.

Thats the problem with affirmative action, organizations are hog-tied into hiring less qualified people because they are a member of a certain group. I want a job based on my personal merits, not on my skin color or disability status.

I agree with the self-respect ideas here, but I have to add something. I think you didn't get the job because you're not the flavour of the month. They might already have somebody with AS and they're trying to spread their choices. Before I retired, I noticed we seemed to have one of everything, including a dwarf. There are tax breaks for that sort of thing. I hope you won't let it deter you.

Wish I could simply do that but a bit hard since I do some poorly in interview and I got other health troubles added on the top, which give me much higher absence rate at work then usual worker, so got to declare or I tend to not find job, be fired after a few or only able to get job that drive me crazy after a week or two.

And declaring worked well for me, until now, for been having the same job since may 2008, never had a job for more then 2-3 month before, it also the best job I ever had, through I admit it still a bit of a dull job, at least it is clerical work on computer so I am actual able to deal with it, even if if hard at time. Just wish I could finish my study and actually work in a field I want to, just hard to return after been in depression most of the time from 18 to 25 years old.

Don't know how the Canadian system works, but since you disclosed disability and were perfectly qualified and they hired a lesser qualified, I'd file a complaint with the authorities for discrimination.

Native or not, they discriminated against you for someone less qualified. If you had no minority status, I could see how she got hired over you, but you are a minority as a disabled person and in that case, the best qualified person should have been hired.

I can't speak to the Alberta public service, but in the federal public service, there is no such thing as "less qualified." Either you make it into the pool or you don't. Managers can only staff positions from the pool established for that position, or for another position with the same statement of merit criteria.

You cannot make it into the pool if you do not have all of the "essential qualifications" listed in the "Statement of Merit Criteria" for the competition that you are entering. Similarly, you cannot be held out of the pool if you have all of the essential criteria but lack "asset qualifications."

After that point, it is up to the hiring manager (different departments have different practices at this stage). Most managers will list the criteria in order of importance, and HR will go through the pool and pick out the candidates that present the best fits to the criteria. One of those criteria may very well be the department's abiltity to mee the Aboriginal Employment Policy.

For all you know, the hiring manager may be under the gun because of previous audits of staffing practices. He may have a performance agreement that has specific objectives relating to employment equity targets.

This is not a case of her having "more rights" than you. This is a case of both of you qualifying for a competition, and the hiring manager making a choice that was within the manager's discretion.

Sounds like the same "affirmative action" BS we have/had in the USA where numerous blacks and Latinos who were barely qualified were hired/promoted over more fit whites just to ensure "ethnic diversity."

The end result was a generation of incompetent workers who really could not do the job expected of them. Many government entities now use "double blind" screening techniques to ensure an applicant is reasonably well-qualified before they can be aware of their ethnic origins. They might still get sued for not having a representative diverse staff, but they can argue that their hiring practice is not at all prejudicial and that if a minority didn't score well enough to get interviewed, that is not their failing. The courts now recognize that an employer's right to have capable workers is more important than addressing ethnic diversity in the workplace...so if a minority can't show they are capable of doing the job, their status as an ethnic minority won't automatically carry them over the finish line ahead of more qualified applicants.

Again we have the reactionary, inflammatory language.

Barely qualified--How are you in a position to assess the qualifications of a new hire? Affirmative action (at least in this country) does not serve to hire or promote unqualified people. If you don't have the qualifications, you don't make the cut. If you do make the qualifications, then you make them. End of story.

more fit whites--The same objection, from the opposite perspective. Who is to judge who is, "more fit?"

a generation of incompentent workers--A gross generalization that is not borne out by any objective analysis. The United States and Canada, in both their private and public sectors, demonstrate strong productivity. We are not languishing under the yoke of incompetence, despite what the reactionary right would have us believe.

The balance of your second paragraph is an apt description of what currently occurs in public sector hiring in Canada. The only time that employment equity considerations enter into the picture before the pool is established is if a Department is authorized to conduct a competition limited to Aboriginal applicants. (And only a few Departments, like Indian and Northern Affairs Canada are permitted to run these).

I think a debate about whether hiring preferences are good public policy is valuable--but not if the debate is predicated on the assumption of "unqualified" or "barely qualified" applicants benefitting from the policy.

I'm sorry you see it that way.

First, most all public service jobs list qualifications in terms of MINIMUM standards. If you can do these tasks, you are by no definition the best qualified for the job. Often, these minimum standards are set so low that most anyone could meet them. By no standard would any employer want to choose someone who only meets the MINIMUM standards.

Second, "more fit whites" means exactly that. Someone who well exceeds the minimum standard, perhaps has more education, more job-related experience, proven ability, references etc. To hire someone who meets only the minimum standards and lacks anything more OVER someone who offers much more makes no business sense. It rewards someone who fails to apply themselves. I've seen minorities complain about not being able to make the "minimum" score on tests when they are given a study manual and 2 weeks to study for the test (and the answers to the test are in the manual). It really is quite insulting to see people who choose to be that lazy act as if they are a victim of someone else's grand design.

Third, I've seen government incompetence across the board here in the USA. Yes, you have a few who can get incredible things done, but overall, they carry the weight of a bloated majority that do as little as needed to keep their jobs. Just dealing with the government will show you how many people hold jobs that otherwise would have been fired if they had to prove their worth. Between trade unions and civil service rules, the slackers know how to work the system to not earn their paycheck but also not be fired. With minority preference, firing a minority who was not doing their job always brings the risk of a claim for discrimination. Even if the complaint is empty, defending against it is costly. The corporate world is just as bad, although they have more effective tools to deal with it. Any strong productivity is the product of the system being designed to compensate for the laziness of a majority of workers.

Is it possible she's a better brown noser?

That certainly is true for most any job.

That is the fault of the standards, not affirmative action programs. But if I need a data entry clerk, then high school graduation, the appropriate official language ability, and basic computer skills are pretty much the skill set that I am going to need. How can I justify saying that I need someone with a one year college certificate for a job where that education is not going to be called on?



Why is an overqualified person seeking to take up an employment position that could be made available to another?

Let's go back to my data entry clerk. If the theory is that anyone could be a data entry clerk, but only a smaller group could be data analysts, than a person qualified to be an analyst should not be working as a data entry clerk and depriving a person who is only qualified to do the data entry job from taking it.

Further, why should I waste time with an overqualified employee? If you are just looking at this job as a stepping stone to something better, than you are likely to be gone in 12 - 24 months, taking all of the training and development resources that I have spent on you, and forcing me to run another competition. (Which, by the way, I have to do off the side of my desk).

Laziness is not a minority monopoly. There are plenty of lazy "whites" out there, too, and plenty of them have great victim stories. But perhaps, just perhaps, there is something to culturally-biased testing. Perhaps there is something to higher incidence rates of learning disabilities among people living in poverty. And perhaps there is something to the higher poverty rates among minority populations.

Public policy can rarely look only at the instant case--it must take the broader view. By ensuring that employment in the public service reflects the demographic makeup of the labour pool, we strive to ensure that the employment wages of those public service jobs are spread as fairly as possible among those demographic cohorts.



Is this about public service competence or affirmative action. Even if I accept the former, there is no causal link between the latter and the former.

You seem to not grasp the concept that employment is not a matter of fitting a square peg into a square hole.

If I need a data entry person, I might need 5 specific skills in a candidate. I certainly would not hire someone who does not possess them. I certainly would wonder why I should hire someone who vastly exceeds those 5 specific skills.

H-O-W-E-V-E-R

Employment is more than just meeting minimal needs. I might need a data entry person who meets 5 specific skills, but I may have 5 additional skills I'd like them to have but could live without if necessary. In that case, if one candidate meets the 5 minimum skills and no more but another meets those 5 and 3 of the additional skills, why would I pick (or should be forced to pick) someone who only meets them minimum skills sought?

In a job market where there is a glut of supply and little demand, an employer can be very selective and specific about "minimum" standards, but where supply is limited and demand is high, they can't be too picky.

In reality, many minorities have been employed by meeting only the bare minimum of standards over other candidates who had more to offer because the concern was aimed at avoiding claims of racial discrimination in hiring. The holding of earlier courts (now largely reversed) was that the promotion of ethnic diversity in the workplace was a higher priority than the selection of the most capable candidate, and this promoted the hiring of minorities purely as a way to avoid potential litigation. This problem continued on to promotions where even recent lawsuits were filed over minorities who came nowhere near the top 10% of the promotion roster scoring being promoted over candidates who were the top contenders based solely on race.

While employers don't want "overqualified" candidates, possessing more than the minimum qualifications DOES NOT mean you are "overqualified." An overqualified candidate is someone who vastly exceeds all of the needs an employer might ever have for a given position, and that includes factoring in promotional potential for that candidate within the company. Someone with a doctorate degree might be vastly overqualified for a data entry position but in 5 years could be promoted to a more appropriate opening within the company. Many higher positions are frequently filled from within the company or direct recruitment from another company...companies and government do not tend to hire someone off the street for a higher ranking position unless all other trustworthy sources have failed to produce a desirable candidate.



You can choose not to believe there is a relation, but I've seen from both dealing with various public and corporate entities and dealing with people who do hiring for businesses that while Affirmative Action does not automatically mean a hired minority is going to be lazy, the fact is that employers were pushed via threat of litigation to hire people who were minimally qualified (sometimes even unqualified), turn away more appropriate candidates, and tolerate a lack of productivity simply because they feared the legal consequences that were possible when they expected ALL employees to be exceptional candidates for hiring and promotion and they tried to exercise their right to terminate any employee who was not doing the work expected of them.

Simply put, it was easier and cheaper to adapt the office environment to compensate for the laziness of the useless people while depending more on the productive people. This prevented one group of problems, but it created a net negative effect on issues of office morale, overall productivity and it even created various other legal issues because typically the lazy worker spends their time working whatever tools are available to them (civil service rules, union contracts, EEOC complaints) to gain promotions that are undeserved and avoid accountability that any other employee would be subjected to. Indeed, it's most cost-effective to basically "pay off" the person leaching off the system then to fight it in court.

I don't believe for a minute that a person of any nationality, color, gender or creed is "disadvantaged" to the point that they need preferential treatment in hiring and promotion. Protection against documented bias and discrimination, yes, but preference? No. If a person of color cannot get in a job field against a member of the majority because he or she did not study hard in school (or bother going to school), I don't see why they should obtain a job over someone else who did. If a person of color does not work hard and show they have the ability to be prime promotional material, they should not be promoted over someone else who has proven themselves. If a person of color is unreliable and looks for every way to avoid doing their job, they should be subject to discipline and termination as any other worker who is as unreliable or lazy.

Affirmative Action was misguidedly crafted in a time when people of color were so behind the curve against whites that a whole generation had no chance of competing on equal footing, but the law was easily abused by many so they could get jobs they weren't willing to work to earn and promotions they clearly were not deserving of. Today, there really is no disparity. For every disadvantaged person of color you show me, I could easily find 20 or more "whites" who are just as disadvantaged. There is no protection against discrimination based on wealth, and wealthy whites have oppressed poor whites since man began. The same is true for every other race out there. Negros were not sold into slavery just by whites but also by their own Negro countrymen (the wealthy ones, of course). To promote a system that defends the rights of disadvantaged people of color but excludes white people is inherently racist in and of itself.

affirmative action policies are stupid. They are only there to benefit women, single moms, natives, and other visible minorities. Not AS people. Let alone a middle class white AS male like myself!

It bears noting that I am a public service manager, and I know all about hiring the staff that report to me.

As for your example of skill sets, that's what "asset qualifications" are all about. (Read above). As a manager, I decide which asset qualifications are most important. Second language ability, experience working with particular types of data or software, bringing employment equity characteristics. Whichever those may be, those are the added extras that I make choices about. But if a candidate is does not have the essential qualifications, then that candidate isn't going to be in the pool and I will not be able to hire that candidate, regardless of the candidates employment equity profile.

In words of one syllable: I can not hire a guy that does not have the skills. Period.



This is pure conjecture. There is not one iota of evidence in this piece. It might be plausible, but that does not mean that it is in any way a reflection of the labour market in the United States.



You clearly don't have any experience hiring in the public service. As a manager, I am not permitted to consider what good a particular candidate is going to do for the department in 5 years time. I set the Statement of Merit Criteria for the job, and I am only allowed to consider those criteria.

It is not fair to applicants to assess them in areas that they have not been told they are going to be assessed in, and it is not fair to assess them for positions that they might take up in the future. Whether I am hiring an Admin Assistant, a Clerk or a Senior Negotiator, it is only against the SMC of the job that I am hiring for that I can assess an applicant.



This doesn't even amount to anecdotal evidence. If management is too lazy to do its job properly, then they are going to get the employees that they deserve. I manage to hire qualified staff, meet employment equity goals, and have a capable productive staff. I'm not an HR rocket scientist, and I'm not hiring into unique positions. So how is it that I have managed to avoid this disaster that you posit.

I think the reality is that you have taken the possibility of abuse, and some examples of management incompetence, and projected them onto the whole structure.



Until participation in the work force is comparable with the demographic profile of the labour pool, you continue to have a systemic disadvantage, and that disadvantage extends down to the next generation, especially in areas of the United States where quality of public schools is strongly tied to the local tax base of their catchment areas.

Incidentally, Space, in Canada, public service employment equity includes AS. (But, ironically, not sexual orientation.)