|
"Government agencies and public institutions should have zero tolerance for discrimination in employment and take the lead in rooting it out," said Liu Xiaonan, chief author of the report and an associate law professor of the Constitutionalism Research Institute at the China University of Political Science and Law.
The report focuses on employment fairness in six categories of organizations—people's congresses, courts, procuratorates, women's federations, disabled persons' federations and trade unions.
Liu said that as legislative and judicial organs, the first three categories of organizations should clearly understand that laws in China forbid employment discrimination, while the other three organizations are devoted to protecting the rights and interests of certain groups of people and should therefore play an exemplary role in eliminating employment discrimination.
However, the report shows that even these organizations have failed to offer equal opportunities to job seekers. For example gender discrimination existed in recruitment requirements for 939 available posts in the court system in 2011, accounting for 31.2 percent of its total vacancies. "The situation is even worse than I had imagined," Liu said.
However, Liu did note a few positive developments in 2011 compared with 2010, such as the increase in the maximum age of applicants from 35 to 40 for some higher-level government positions.
"This relaxation of the rules demonstrates how little the cap on age is justified in the recruitment of civil servants," she said.
According to the report, other improvements included deleting the "good-looking" requirement that used to be common for many vacancies, relaxing restrictions on applicants with certain diseases and relaxing the requirements on applicants' height and sight for some police vacancies.
In addition to timely removal of discriminatory provisions, the report also suggests a review mechanism for discrimination in civil service recruitment be established.
Liu said that the reason her institute chose to study employment fairness in China by examining recruitment practices of government agencies and public institutions is that they believe the government should serve as a model for safeguarding people's right to employment.
According to the Regulations on the Employment of the Disabled, which became effective in May 2007, China's government agencies, public institutions and non-governmental organizations and enterprises must ensure that disabled employees account for no less than 1.5 percent of their total employees; otherwise, they are liable to pay fines to the employment security fund for the disabled.
Zhou Wei, a law professor at Sichuan University, said that such a stipulation actually dampens the chances for disabled job seekers who are interested in civil service. "Most government agencies choose to pay the fine, which can be easily listed as part of their operational expenses and covered by the government budget. When even government agencies fail to meet this ratio, how can we expect enterprises to hire disabled employees?" Zhou said.
According to Liu's research, additional discriminatory policies are also adopted while applications for government jobs are being appraised. "While some posts don't exclude women in their publicized job requirements, only men are actually considered for the vacancies during the recruitment. This is rather common," Liu said.
Before the release of its report, Liu's institute approached the State Administration of Civil Service (SACS), which is in charge of civil service recruitment, and the human resources departments of some government agencies and public institutions. It also invited their representatives to a seminar on the elimination of discrimination in civil service recruitment.
According to the Southern Weekly, a newspaper based in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, the SACS asked for a copy of the report but declined to participate in the seminar, saying "We are shorthanded at the end of a year."
Days after the release of the report, Nie Shengkui, head of the Examination and Recruitment Department of the SACS, defended the current civil service recruitment practices by saying that it was necessary to set high standards to guarantee that future civil servants could perform their duties.
"Civil service recruitment is to select qualified people for government vacancies, not to promote employment. So its strict criteria have nothing to do with employment discrimination," Nie said.
Nie's remarks were widely criticized on the Internet for a lack of awareness of equality.
Zhou said while academia in China has reached a consensus on what constitutes employment discrimination, academics' views are widely different from those of responsible officials, which would be the largest barrier to effective rectification of the malpractice.
Email us at: lili@bjreview.com | 
