Dear fran18,
Thank you for your question!
An affirmative action employer is simply one who upholds a policy of
affirmative action, defined on Answers.com as ?a program that seeks to
redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal
opportunity, as in education and employment.? Such programs are
typically focused on improving educational and employment
opportunities for women and minorities. Wikipedia offers this more
comprehensive definition:
?Affirmative action (U.S. English), or positive discrimination
(British English), is a policy or a program promoting the
representation in various systems of people of a group who have
traditionally been discriminated against, with the aim of creating a
more egalitarian society. This typically focuses on education,
employment, health care, or social welfare. In employment, affirmative
action may also be known as employment equity or preferential hiring.
In this context affirmative action requires that institutions increase
hiring and promotion of candidates of mandated groups. Such groups are
characterized most commonly by race, sex or gender, or ethnicity.?
In the United States, affirmative action became a national policy
under Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. This means that any organization
receiving federal contracts must apply the principles of affirmative
action, including increasing employment of women and minorities;
organizations with more than 50 employees and which receive more than
$500 000 in federal contracts in a twelve-month period must have a
written affirmative action plan, including goals and timetables for
increasing the profile of women and minorities in the workplace.
While context and details may differ slightly, workplaces and
societies worldwide have adopted the core principles of affirmative
action; in South Africa, for example, affirmative action is designed
to address and correct the effects of Apartheid.
Here are two sample affirmative action statements:
American Honda Affirmative Action Policy Statement
< http://corporate.honda.com/careers/diversity.aspx?id=policies#aaps >
Affirmative Action Policy Statement for the city of Trenton, NJ
< http://www.ci.trenton.nj.us/servperaffirmative.html >
If you are interested, a detailed campus staff affirmative action plan
for The University of California at Berkley is available here (PDF
document):
< http://hrweb.berkeley.edu/aaeeo/plan/aaplan.htm >
For more on affirmative action, including insight into the controversy
which has long surrounded the issue, check out two of my sources:
Answers.com
< http://www.answers.com/topic/affirmative-action >
Wikipedia
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action >
I used the following search strings to find your answer:
?affirmative action employment?
workplace affirmative action
affirmative action policy
affirmative action statement
affirmative action plan
Please don't hesitate to request clarification as needed prior to
rating my answer. All the best!
Emjay-ga |
