Mind your language
GSD members in the workplace are confronted by the complexity of language on a daily basis – both the type you expect: the archaic terminology of law, and the type that you don’t: words and phrases which could be construed as offensive between work colleagues.
In truth, humour between work colleagues who tease each other over embarrassing situations is as old as workplaces themselves – no doubt the carpenters building the ark for Noah had one or two choice words about his hare-brained scheme. However what may or may not be acceptable to say at work has come into the spotlight due to very recent legislation, as outlined in excellent article written by Solicitor’s Journal editor, Andrew Towler in TSG Life, Winter 2006 (pp10-11)
Age discrimination laws were introduced in October 2006 and define “age based harassment” as:
“…any unwanted conduct that violates your dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment”
TUC chairman Brendan Barber qualified this in an interview with the BBC last year, where he said:
“If you are repeatedly taunted for being an “ugly old wrinkly” you would have a legal claim against not just those insulting you, but also your employer for allowing it to happen. This could include damages for injury to feelings”
In November of last year, Gloucestershire Council warned 10,000 staff about such taunts and defined their policy with the glorious phrase:
“From hip hop to hip op, South Gloucestershire is an age-diverse organisation”
Chloe Minchington, an employment solicitor at Ashfords, makes the important point that some comments are more acceptable than others in terms of equality group:
“People are much more aware of making racist or sexist comments these days, but up until now, ageist comments have been far more acceptable”
The same could be said for other traditionally less protected equality groups. An article in the LSG way back in May 2005 reported on a tribunal where Durham City Council were found guilty of discriminating against an employee whose manager had repeatedly subjected him to taunts of “gay boy”. However, saying this, the famous, nay infamous case of Conservative MP Anthony Steen who was caught parking in a disabled bay at a Devon Railway Station and responded to the Daily Telegraph with the following outburst of outdated language:
"The number of disabled bays is disproportionate to the number of handicapped people living in the area. I support making the life of every handicapped person easier, but we should not discriminate against the able-bodied."
There is little doubt that most GSD members would regard the language and comments of Mr. Steen as outdated at best, but at what point does ignorance constitute offence appropriate to take to prosecution?
A website article from Personnel today (posted 1st May) warns of the dangers of the politically correct “language of disability”. Citing a report recently conducted on behalf of Remploy, a major provider of employment services for disabled people, a series of focus groups with employers illustrated their misunderstanding over the use of language. One employer told researchers:
“The ballpark is always moving, as are the words I can say. You don’t say that someone is blind, you say visually impaired”
Bert Caruthers, Remploy’s Director of Employment Services responded by saying:
“The important thing is not the language used to describe disability, but that disabled people receive the same respect and opportunities as non-disabled people”
One of the issues that GSD members themselves regularly raise is the inconsistencies in what constitutes discrimination in the patchwork of laws laid down since the 1970s for different priority groups. In our latest consultation exercise, one GSD member commented:
“The CEHR (Commission for Equality and Human Rights) is planning to equalise all these laws, making the situation easier not just for the disabled but also recognising that people can be in more than one equal opportunity group and that all their equal opportunity needs should be treated equally, not in some sort of haphazard “pecking order” dependent on date of enforcement or the vagaries of public attitude”
Under these circumstances, the archaic language of the legal profession could be seen as the great leveller in all of this – equally baffling all who come into contact with it. However, an interview with Sir Mark Potter, Britain’s most senior high court family judge in LSG (22nd February 2007, pp. 30-31) illustrates that the complexity of language highlights disadvantage very strongly.
“If you are obliged to have an interpreter at the trial of care proceedings, you’ve got to increase the time it takes by between 50 and 100%”
In addition to ethnic minorities and people with hearing impairments, Sir Mark also highlights potential issues with language comprehension picked up by experts dealing with cases involving children and young people. However, he does believe that there are many common misconceptions about the way the legal profession deal with such cases:
“People who suggest that judges conduct proceedings in old-fashioned or archaic language or behave in a way that illustrates unfamiliarity with the ways of the world simply do not know the modern family judge”
There’s a good case to make that in terms of the general public, the legal profession is increasingly demonstrating its obligations in terms of making language and behaviour increasingly accessible. However, it remains to be seen if this is extended to the profession itself for those working within it. Combined with the inappropriate language often heard in the workplace and directed to equality groups in that “haphazard pecking order” previously mentioned, GSD members will surely be facing many more years of checking that their colleagues “mind their language”
Daniel Park