The impact of cultural diversity on work and management

1
The impact of cultural diversity on workand
management
2
Outline

• Context
• Aim
• Approach Conceptual framework
• The case study
• Analysis
• Conclusion
• Questions

3
Context - Recent Findings

• 2004 Wendy McCarthy noted few railway employees
  could imagine working alongside women and people
  from Non-English-Speaking Backgrounds as equals.
• Such views were coupled with close to
  unbearable levels of verbal harassment, and
  frustrating obstacles to career progression for
  qualified migrants.
• a culture of keeping out diversity, argued
  McCarthy, formed an important part of the
  problem.

4

• 2005 van Barneveld and Jowett show a continuing
  high incidence of workplace violence,
  harassment, and bullying, gender-based or
  otherwise in the rail industry.
• Forms of violence identified include physical,
  verbal and nonverbal communication, intimidation
  and bullying, exclusion, sexual harassment, and
  stalking.

5
Context Equal Employment Opportunity and the
Railways

• 1977 NSW Anti-Discrimination Act
• 1980 NSW Anti-Discrimination (Amendment) Act
• NSW Public Sector EEO Program established under
  Part 9(A) 1980 Act
• David Hill appointed as CEO of State Rail
  Authority June 1980
• Hill launches EEO program in SRA in 1981 by
  appointing Director of EEO

6
Key question

• Why have EEO and diversity-related initiatives
  implemented in the NSW railways since the early
  1980s failed?

7
Aims

• identify the problems associated with the
  implementation of EEO and diversity-related
  initiatives in the early 1980s
• explain how employees responded to the diversity
  initiatives implemented by management at that
  time
• provide lessons from the past that can inform
  future policy direction

8
Why ACDEP?

• From opening in 1968 ACDEP was among the most
  culturally diverse of SRAs worksites with around
  90 of employees were from NESB
• problems related to sexual harassment and
  cultural diversity exposed publicly and formally
  investigated
• first SRA site where these problems were
  addressed through introduction of EEO strategies
  in the form of English Language classes and
  Cultural Awareness Training

9
Approach

• Adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to
  investigate the historical case of the Eveleigh
  Railway Workshops Train Cleaning Depot (ACDEP)
• draw on the concept of social capital to show how
  horizontal relationships among migrant employees
  and vertical relationships between them and their
  supervisors and managers shaped the way EEO and
  related initiatives were implemented and
  received.

10
Conceptual Framework

• Rationale for Social Capital
• Definition of concept
• networks,
• norms,
• sanctions,
• trust,
• spontaneous co-operation for mutual benefit
• Bonding and Bridging Social capital

11
Bonding

• horizontal networks
• usually evident in strong family, friendship,
  occupation ties that sustain multi-faceted
  support
• sustain norms and sanctions that reinforce
  exclusive identities and homogenous groups

12
Bridging

• vertical networks
• encompass people across diverse social
  cleavages and therefore tend to be more outward
  looking
• promote the development of self-interested
  norms between relative strangers (Halpern,
  2005)

13
Linking

• a special form of bridging social capital that
  specifically concerns power
• a vertical bridge across asymmetrical power and
  resources, which involves norms of mutual
  respect (Halpern, 2005 25)

14
For our purposes, this distinction makes it
possible to construe

• shared language, cultural values, norms of
  reciprocity, and informal, personal/sub-cultural
  networks as the constituent elements of bonding
  social capital and
• (ii) the SRAs EEO initiatives as investment in
  bridging/linking social capital because
  English Language Classes Cultural Awareness
  Training sought to improve communication and
  collaboration across cultural groups, occupations
  and hierarchies.

15
The ACDEP Case

• 2 April 1981 allegations of racial
  discrimination, sexual harassment, physical and
  verbal abuse, bullying, intimidation, theft,
  graft and standover tactics at ACDEP made during
  industrial dispute before the Australian
  Conciliation and Arbitration Commission
• 10 April 1981, Commissioner Walker appointed a
  Special Industrial Board Inquiry into ACDEP.
• ACDEP workforce consisted of 203 women (102 on
  day shift and 101 on night shift) and 66 men (36
  on day shift and 30 on night shift) from 16
  different countries (Jobson, Buckland, Shirlaw,
  1981 10-11, 38-39).

16
Inquiry Findings demographic
profile

• Women - day shift
• Greek 56
• English 10
• Yugoslav 8
• Italian 6
• Russian 6
• Polish 6
• Arabic 4
• Lebanese 2
• Spanish 2
• Cypriot 1
• Ukranian 1
• TOTAL 102

17

• Women Night Shift
• Greek 47
• Arab 19
• Lebanese 1
• Yugoslav 7
• Macedonian 1
• Croatian 7
• English 8
• Spanish 5
• Polish 5
• German 1
• TOTAL 101

18

• Male Day Shift
• Greek 13
• Lebanese 3
• Arabic 8
• Italian 6
• English 3
• Romanian 1
• Macedonian 1
• Tripoli 1
• Total 36

19

• Male Night Shift
• Arabic 14
• Iranian 1
• Greek 4
• Lebanese 1
• Italian 4
• Macedonian 3
• Turkish 3
• Total 30

20
Inquiry Findings

• no common language or culture between management,
  union officials and shopfloor workers.
• Other than the Head Cleaner on Night Shift all
  managers were Australian-born and spoke only
  English
• management provided instructions and directions
  relating to overtime and rosters only in English.
  

21
Findings

• there were extremely strong sub-cultures and
  members tended to stay in their own groups
  (Marks nee Jobson, 2004)
• employees confirmed that they sat in segregated
  cultural groups in the meal room.

22
SRAs response immediate unilateral

• New centralised administrative recruitment
  policies/processes culturally-sensitive codes
  of conduct
• Training and Development Supervisor program for
  Head and Leading Cleaners in English, Greek,
  Polish and Italian
• Cultural Awareness Training program
• provided for senior and middle managers and first
  line supervisor cleaners at ACDEP, 7-21 Dec.
  1981
• Sidetrack Theatre company engaged to present a
  play on migrant issues
• 3 female development officers for 3 months.
• multilingual induction programmes introduced for
  all

23
A Language Resource Centre was completed at ACDEP
in February 1982,

• an Adult Migrant Education Service (AMES) teacher
  was engaged
• classes were launched 29/6/1982

24
Outcomes/responses

• Across the SRA
• hostility at Eveleigh to the whole Equal
  Opportunity program
• 2. At ACDEP
• Mixed response to various elements of CAT program
• Cynicism about the value of Development Officers
• Low attendance of English classes

25
Bonding in practice

• Resistance to CAT from migrant leading cleaners
  and English classes by majority
• According to the English teacher (Hitchen, 1996)
• a. Most women from the largest ethnic cohorts
  preferred going up in the Tea Room after their
  work was completed, where they could sit and
  talk to friends
• b. women who attended classes were harassed by
  the Head Female Cleaner and her minions

26
Conclusion

• applying the bonding/bridging framework
  highlights how investment in EEO and related
  management strategies that seek to build bridges
  across diverse social cleavages can be
  undermined by bonding social capital (dense
  horizontal networks, strong cultural norms and
  sanctions)