Lucie wrote: I never got why people were so hung up about companies having certain 'quotas' that they needed to fill. Sometimes it can be the only way to change things!
You are going for a job. You're in a waiting room with someone from an ethnic minority. You get chatting, and it's clear (s)he is underqualified for the job, and you're going to get the post easily. Two weeks later, you find that the other person got it because the company had to fill the quota.
Bad for you cos at the end of the day, you wasted your time applying and going for the interview, which was reduced to a formality because as soon as the other person's CV hit the desk, the job was theirs. And it's bad for the company because they're not getting the best person for the job.
Then, when that person is in the job. They may be very good, but everyone knows thay were only in the job because of the colour of their skin, causing resentment. If YOU are trying to move within the organisation, you and your friends will feel resentment which will spread. In the end, you could end up CREATING racism problems because everyone in the office will feel anti-whatever that person is.
I'm in favour of personnel depts. removing all ethnic, age, name and disability information from CVs, and people hired purely on merit. Positive discrimination can be as detrimental as negative.
Oddly enough, a friend of mine in Botswana says that in his large organisation they resent white people because having a white person on-staff is quite a status symbol, so they're hired with better money and perks. It's causing big rifts in that organisation..
So you see, +ve discrimination can cause big problems unless carefully controlled.
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