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Robin H. Johnson wrote: |
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> On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 10:56:36AM +0000, Steve Long wrote: |
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>> Ryan Hill wrote: |
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>> > I agree, though year of birth might be interesting. Income and |
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>> > children are a bit too private. |
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>> > |
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>> ++ in general although I do think parenthood (if responsible) is as |
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>> relevant as age. A 28 year old with a 5 year old kid has a lot to show a |
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>> 35 year old doctoral student with no kids, even if it's not all |
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>> technical. # of kids isn't relevant. |
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> I put # of kids in there as a lark, perhaps it might be better as 'do |
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> you have children', with an eye to seeing how it affects their package |
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> choices - see games and education packages for kids, plus the previous |
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> USE=offensive debate on the desktop backgrounds with scantily-clad |
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> woman. |
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> |
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Heh yeah, we often get people using inappropriate language in #gentoo-chat |
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and have to explain that, well some of us have children who can see the |
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screen. I highly recommend gcompris for anyone with younger kids btw. |
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>> Maybe it's not something you want to ask the users, but it would be more |
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>> interesting wrt devs, as would statistics on standard Equal Ops |
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>> monitoring (a legal requirement on employers in the UK, even if the |
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>> person declines to answer, which is ofc their right.) |
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> Go some good links on that? They might have good question wording we can |
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> borrow? |
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> |
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Can I firstly apologise as I appear to have misunderstood (I am not a |
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lawyer, I'm a coder.) The requirement is on public authorities and, I |
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think, publically funded organisations. I worked at a Students' Union (as |
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full-time staff) in the early 90s, and it was impressed upon me (when I sat |
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on an interview panel) that we had a legal obligation to actively *promote* |
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Equal Opportunities. |
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The main organisation in the UK for this now is the new Equality and Human |
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Rights Commission at http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/ |
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Bradford University's Equality Unit have an excellent site at |
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http://www.brad.ac.uk/equality/ |
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with policies and summary of relevant legislation at |
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http://www.brad.ac.uk/admin/equalopp/policies/ |
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The Higher Education Funding Council for England's Equality and diversity |
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unit has a good site at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/lgm/divers/ |
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Employers have a duty under the legislation discussed above not to |
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discriminate. All of this comes under the umbrella term "Equal |
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Opportunities", best-practise for which comes from the public-sector. It is |
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harder for larger organisations to defend a discrimination case if they do |
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not monitor aiui: |
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"The purpose of monitoring is to enable you to examine how your policy and |
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action plan are working. If your policy is fully effective and has been in |
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operation for some time your workforce should be broadly representative of |
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the population of the geographical area from which it is drawn or |
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demonstrably moving in that direction. Monitoring enables you to assess |
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this." |
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http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=828 |
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which is a good link to see what employers are advised to do. |
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Certainly the term "An Equal Opportunities Employer" has been in use for |
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years, and implies that there are policies and monitoring in place, as well |
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as a commitment to the promotion of EOPS. |
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HTH. |
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-- |
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