Critical Analysis of Westminster City Council

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Law, grade: A, University of California, Berkeley , language: English, abstract: Equality and right to equal opportunities are still evident and persistent in most of the places, be it at school, workplace, or society in whole. The exploitation of equal rights is more prevalent in places with diversified culture. Gender equality and women’s rights have gained growing attention over the past decades as a result of which international labor standards and national legislation have been adopted on a wide range of related issues (ILO, 2000). According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2000) global inequality continued to grow over the 20th century and is still increasing in countries and between countries. OECD estimates that the quantum of inequality will be even larger by the year 2020 between OECD countries and poor countries. The gap in equality on global front is large, but the same gap persists within the nation on the basis of gender, class, ethnicity, age, disability, health, income, employment, etc. Witcher (2005) states that mainstreaming equality is done through incorporating equal opportunities issues into all actions, programmes and policies from the outset. This paper aims to present the issues of equality, diversity and rights at workplace in Westminster City Council by explaining the various legislations and acts protecting the rights of people living in United Kingdom. Various legislations have been enacted in the United Kingdom to eradicate the unequal treatment in the society. The first and foremost legislation, Equal Pay Act 1970, was passed to dismantle the roots of inequality in pay rates which were biased towards men as women were paid less comparatively while working in the same capacity as of their male counterpart.