140 ANALYSING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
This is of concern because in many cases it has been the public sector that has
been the role model for EEO policies and adherence to EEO laws. Undoubt-
edly, this was the case when HRM was strong and centralized in the public
sector, but with the reforms accompanying the paradigm of public sector
management known as New Public Management—in which the public sector
has been called on to become more like the private sector (Hughes 1998)—
it is possible that EEO has either been forgotten or conveniently overlooked.
This has occurred in a context of the devolution of HRM responsibilities,
outsourcing, contract rather than tenured employment, and results-based
rather than rule-based approaches to public sector management. Authors
such as Kellough (1999) have argued that controls over consistency, fairness,
and equity in personnel systems have broken down. Bertok (1999), in his
work for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on
public sector ethics, believes that problems such as this arise from low-quality
legislation and weak public institutions that do not enforce such laws.
In the specific area of EEO, the reasons for lack of adherence to EEO appear
to be manifold. At one level, we know that employers do not necessarily
subscribe to the benefits of EEO legislation (Bennington and Wein 2000a)
and blatant flouting of anti-discrimination laws has been noted in Canada,
the USA, and New Zealand (Harcourt and Harcourt 2002). Second, external
recruitment consultants, who now conduct much of the recruitment work
across sectors, do not universally adhere to EEO laws (Bennington 2001,
2002). Finally, individual job applicants and employees do not appear to be
able to protect themselves, either because they have trouble detecting discrim-
ination or, even if they can and do, they are reluctant to lodge complaints
(Bennington and Wein 2000b).
What of the other institutions that might act as a positive influence in
this area? For example, one might think of considering the church and trade
unions. However, given the ongoing debate amongst the clergy in respect
to the role of women any argument for the positive influence of the church
might well be regarded as somewhat thin. Unions, on the other hand, have a
somewhat more mixed record but do have a potential contribution to make
given their formal role in employment relations in jurisdictions such as Aus-
tralia. But British writers, Noon and Hoque (2001), in raising criticisms of
trade unions, have questioned whether unions are appropriate to consider
as guardians of equal opportunities, and the evidence shows that they too
have been perpetrators or, at the very minimum, non-advocates for anti-
discrimination (Yelnosky 1999). On the other hand, even though trade union
membership has reduced in the UK and Australia over the last twenty or so
years, data from the 1995 AWIRS shows that there is a significant difference
between unionized workplaces and non-unionized workplaces in respect to
having EEO/AA policies and training in these areas (Deery, Walsh, and Knox
2001). This same data set (AWIRS) also shows that unionized workplaces are