February 2002

Action needed to promote race equality

All colleges have until the end of May to produce plans for meeting their new legal duty to promote race equality. This follows changes made to the Race Relations Act in response to the findings of the Macpherson report.

Macpherson found that the police investigation into the murder of Black teenager Stephen Lawrence was marred by racist assumptions. He referred to a “collective failure” to provide a professional service to people because of their race is a result of “unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racial stereotyping”. His report described such behaviour as institutional racism.

The legal changes mean that anyone whose work involves functions of a public nature (e.g. a school or college) must not discriminate on racial grounds while carrying out those functions. There is a general duty to promote race equality and eliminate unlawful discrimination. A number of specific duties are likely to follow, but these will be decided after a public consultation by the Home Secretary, Scottish Executive and Welsh Assembly.

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) has been given powers of enforcement. Not only will it issue codes of practice on how to meet the new legal duties, but it can force compliance through the courts. And according to the CRE website (www.cre.gov.uk), the issue of compliance could also be the subject of inspections and audits by, for example, OFSTED.

There will be some college corporations who believe that they already pay sufficient attention to race issues, and that as a result, the new law will not really affect them. Such complacency is very unprofessional, and it will need ACM members and colleagues in other unions to counter such unhelpful attitudes. As such, ACM will be holding a seminar later in the year about the new law and what colleges should be doing to comply. Please look out for details in a future newsletter.

Dealing with stress – new ACM leaflet

A new leaflet on stress is being produced for ACM members. This follows a number of recent calls to the helpline from colleagues with stress related problems.

Work related stress is now the second biggest cause of occupational ill health in the UK (behind back injuries). And among managerial grades it is clearly a serious problem. The causes of stress are many, but key factors are bullying, long hours and heavy workloads.

The new ACM leaflet will look at these and other causes of stress, as well as symptoms, and most importantly, practical solutions. There will also be a section on policies designed to prevent work related stress. The leaflet will be available for download from the ACM website in the middle of March.

The significance of stress as a cause of ill health has not gone unnoticed at a national level in the sector. Indeed, the Association of Colleges and the recognised trade unions are working on detailed guidance to help tackle the problem. ACM is fully involved in this process, and the new guidance should be ready in early summer.

Managers top the long hours league

Despite Europe’s working time directive, more people are working in excess of its 48-hours-a-week limit than they were ten years ago, with managers and professionals topping the long hours league.
And it’s the UK that comes top in Europe (as well as being the only country that allows staff to opt out of the 48 hour limit). The average working week is 43.6 hours in the UK compared to an EU average of 40.3 hours. Many European countries, including those more productive than the UK, have tougher limits on hours. Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Belgium, Spain and Sweden all have 39 or 40 hour limits, and France has a 35 hour week.

But, according to the TUC report that revealed these figures, the EU is certain to end the UK opt out following a review in 2003.

Commenting on the report, ACM Employment Officer David Green said, “These figures don’t surprise me. Our helpline receives frequent complaints about long hours, with many managers being asked to opt-out of the UK 48 hour limit. It’s a very entrenched problem but one that must be tackled. After all, apart from the very negative effect on family and social life, the long hours culture is one of the major causes of work related stress.”

The TUC report, About Time: a new agenda for shaping working life, finds that over half of all managerial and professional employees working extra hours say that they are doing so to deal with excessive workloads.