Thursday, June 04, 2009
[IWS] Dublin Foundation: DIVERSITY POLICY CASE STUDIES 2009 in EMPLOYMENT and SERVICE PROVISION [as of 4 June 2009]
IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Dublin Foundation)
DIVERSITY POLICY in EMPLOYMENT and SERVICE PROVISION -- CASE STUDIES 2009
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/bysubject/listdiversity2009.htm
includes the following as of 4 June 2009
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Stuttgart, Germany
Today, people from over 170 countries live in Stuttgart: a quarter of the population are foreigners, 38% of the population have a migration background. In 2001, the Stuttgart city council adopted a new comprehensive Pact for Integration between the public sector, the private sector and civil society. Hence, this coalition consists of partners committed to integration and aligned in network structures. The Pact for Integration explicitly states that people with a migration background are seen as a benefit for the city as a whole: the municipal integration policy has been re-orientated towards a resource approach. The pact formulates three goals for municipal integration policy: 1. participation and equal opportunities for everyone, 2. social cohesion, and 3. the capitalisation of cultural diversity to extend competences within the international municipal society.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Copenhagen, Denmark
Denmark is a welfare state in a rather pronounced form. It has inclusive policies, not only for its citizens but also for all legal residents. Equality and equal treatment are keywords in the political discourse. The city of Copenhagen follows the national model to a great extent, but also deviates from the national model in framing the integration process as a mutual process and naming diversity as a potential asset, by stressing less the mandatory nature of measures and more the engagement of various actors in society. Diversity as personnel policy has a longer history in Copenhagen, going back at least to 1998. It has always been broadly defined, including diversity of gender, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation. The major focus seems to lie in recruitment, which corroborates the main political motivation, namely that the work force of the city should reflect its demographic composition.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Terrassa, Spain
The city of Terrassa has been confronted with a recent influx of immigrants in the last eight to 10 years, and has started to build up services and to adjust the existing service provision to these new groups. The general assumption is that specific services are only needed to bridge the period until the immigrants can fully participate and use in the mainstream institutions.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Vienna, Austria
Vienna's integration policy has traditionally been characterised by efforts to overcome conflicts, the development of municipal strategies for problem areas as well as by the promotion of social integration of foreigners. Innovative measures and 'integration' are firmly established as both objectives and points of reference of urban policy. Diversity policy was instituted in Vienna in 2002. People with a migration background are no longer considered primarily as a target group for social-political measures, but rather, quite simply, as Viennese citizens and a normal part of the population. The initiator of Vienna's diversity policy is the Municipal Department for Integration and Diversity whose ultimate objective is to strengthen intercultural competencies for improved diversity management.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Brescia, Italy
Because of its flourishing economy, Brescia is one of the Italian cities which has attracted a large number of migrants, especially in the last decade. In the field of employment, people with a migration background are employed by the city only within the office providing services to the migrant population the Office of Integration and Citizenship. However, no specific policy is devised to improve the access of people with a migration background to jobs in the local administration. The main reasons for this are that immigration is a young phenomenon in Italian cities, and the requirement to hold an EU passport to be allowed to work in the public sector.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Turin, Italy
Turin is one of the Italian cities that has attracted a large number of migrants, especially in the past decade. As is often the case, labour migration has been followed by the settlement of migrant families, and the migrant population has developed significant needs in all spheres of economic and social life. In addition, in recent years, the city has hosted a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers. The lack of a comprehensive national policy for the integration of migrants into Italian society has meant that Turin has engaged in the planning and implementation of many initiatives and practices aimed at fostering the process of migrant and refugee integration in a local context. Thanks to the efforts of the local administration and the social partners, Turin shows a high commitment to receiving newcomers and giving them access to national and local welfare systems.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Arnsberg, Germany
Altogether, in Arnsberg, the percentage of people with a migration background is about 15%. As in most German cities, migrant integration has primarily taken place by opening up the core institutions, such as the education system and the labour market, and by including the migrants in the national welfare system. Within the last decade, the municipality has restructured its administration by bundling all migration and integration-related responsibilities into one single office, and has implemented a comprehensive integration concept that regards diversity as a benefit to the city as a whole.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Mataró, Spain
In this overview, the city of Mataró shows some specific characteristics when compared with other CLIP cities. Mataró is dealing with a large influx of migrants that has developed over the last 10 years; it has to deal with a considerable number of irregular migrants and consequently many immigrants are burdened with legal problems that they have to solve before they worry about integration. The administration has made a great effort to adjust its general service provision, to train its staff in multicultural issues and to establish specific services where necessary.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Turku, Finland
Immigration in Finland and in Turku is relatively new. It has been predominantly supply-driven (refugees, returnees and family related migration) and is now gradually changing to more demand-driven migration. Policy reactions both at the national and local level have been partial and targeted mainly at the refugee category. Migration and integration policies are in an early phase, primarily reacting to specific vulnerable categories of immigrants. Specific policies relating to reception of refugees and returnees have been initiated at the national level first. Local authorities were then urged to develop integration programmes for migrants.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Tallinn, Estonia
Tallinn's population composition differs significantly from that of Western European cities in that Russian-speaking residents make up about half of its population. Only in the 1990s did the question of the integration of residents with Russian ethnicity into Estonian society arise. In 2000, the state programme 'Integration into Estonian Society 20002007' was adopted; which was followed by the 'Integration Strategy 20082013'. Both the state programme and the Integration Strategy emphasise Estonian language proficiency for 'Russians'. In the end of 2007, the city of Tallinn started to develop its own municipal integration policy intended to ensure equal opportunities for all. A diversity approach in personnel policy has not been implemented yet. In terms of service provision, by contrast, one should highlight a specific service: in order to facilitate access to municipal services by residents with Russian ethnicity, the city provides every official publication and every service in Russian as well in Estonian.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Antwerp, Belgium
Antwerp is the largest city in Flanders and its population comprises around 13% foreigners. Yet a quarter of the inhabitants have a migration background and they represent 30% of the working population. Until recently, the diversity policy adopted by the city focused on specific target groups people with a migration background was one of them. It was a categorial diversity policy. And specific departments were in charge to stimulate and support the policy through specific measures and actions with respect to each specific target group. The Integration Service and in particular the IS diversity consultants developed intensive contacts with some other services such as the Urban Poverty Department. The main challenges remain the language barriers and the recruitment procedures of the city.
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Frankfurt, Germany
Today, foreigners from 175 nations live in Frankfurt and make up one quarter of its population. The proportion with a migration background is 38% of the total population of the city. Frankfurt saw the necessity of integration and diversity policies quite early on and created a Department of Integration with an affiliated Office for Multicultural Affairs in 1989. These are engaged in fostering the integration of migrants and make efforts to change the municipality in order to better meet the demands of a heterogeneous population, as far as employment policy and provision of services are concerned.
Services and personnel policy integration and diversity in municipalities (Conference report)
On November 18 2008, the City of Frankfurt, a CLIP network member from the start, the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation and Eurofound jointly organised and hosted a conference on 'Integration und Diversity in Kommunen'. In this conference, findings from the second module (on diversity policy) have been discussed among experts from German-speaking cities in Europe. The conference has been supported by the Robert-Bosch-Foundation and about 100 experts from Austrian, German and Swiss cities and related institutions as well as representatives from research institutes, unions and local NGO's actively participated in the conference.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Dublin Foundation)
DIVERSITY POLICY in EMPLOYMENT and SERVICE PROVISION -- CASE STUDIES 2009
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/bysubject/listdiversity2009.htm
includes the following as of 4 June 2009
Diversity policy in employment and service provision - Case study: Stuttgart, Germany
Today, people from over 170 countries live in Stuttgart: a quarter of the population are foreigners, 38% of the population have a migration background. In 2001, the Stuttgart city council adopted a new comprehensive Pact for Integration between the public sector, the private sector and civil society. Hence, this coalition consists of partners committed to integration and aligned in network structures. The Pact for Integration explicitly states that people with a migration background are seen as a benefit for the city as a whole: the municipal integration policy has been re-orientated towards a resource approach. The pact formulates three goals for municipal integration policy: 1. participation and equal opportunities for everyone, 2. social cohesion, and 3. the capitalisation of cultural diversity to extend competences within the international municipal society.
Denmark is a welfare state in a rather pronounced form. It has inclusive policies, not only for its citizens but also for all legal residents. Equality and equal treatment are keywords in the political discourse. The city of Copenhagen follows the national model to a great extent, but also deviates from the national model in framing the integration process as a mutual process and naming diversity as a potential asset, by stressing less the mandatory nature of measures and more the engagement of various actors in society. Diversity as personnel policy has a longer history in Copenhagen, going back at least to 1998. It has always been broadly defined, including diversity of gender, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation. The major focus seems to lie in recruitment, which corroborates the main political motivation, namely that the work force of the city should reflect its demographic composition.
The city of Terrassa has been confronted with a recent influx of immigrants in the last eight to 10 years, and has started to build up services and to adjust the existing service provision to these new groups. The general assumption is that specific services are only needed to bridge the period until the immigrants can fully participate and use in the mainstream institutions.
Vienna's integration policy has traditionally been characterised by efforts to overcome conflicts, the development of municipal strategies for problem areas as well as by the promotion of social integration of foreigners. Innovative measures and 'integration' are firmly established as both objectives and points of reference of urban policy. Diversity policy was instituted in Vienna in 2002. People with a migration background are no longer considered primarily as a target group for social-political measures, but rather, quite simply, as Viennese citizens and a normal part of the population. The initiator of Vienna's diversity policy is the Municipal Department for Integration and Diversity whose ultimate objective is to strengthen intercultural competencies for improved diversity management.
Because of its flourishing economy, Brescia is one of the Italian cities which has attracted a large number of migrants, especially in the last decade. In the field of employment, people with a migration background are employed by the city only within the office providing services to the migrant population the Office of Integration and Citizenship. However, no specific policy is devised to improve the access of people with a migration background to jobs in the local administration. The main reasons for this are that immigration is a young phenomenon in Italian cities, and the requirement to hold an EU passport to be allowed to work in the public sector.
Turin is one of the Italian cities that has attracted a large number of migrants, especially in the past decade. As is often the case, labour migration has been followed by the settlement of migrant families, and the migrant population has developed significant needs in all spheres of economic and social life. In addition, in recent years, the city has hosted a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers. The lack of a comprehensive national policy for the integration of migrants into Italian society has meant that Turin has engaged in the planning and implementation of many initiatives and practices aimed at fostering the process of migrant and refugee integration in a local context. Thanks to the efforts of the local administration and the social partners, Turin shows a high commitment to receiving newcomers and giving them access to national and local welfare systems.
Altogether, in Arnsberg, the percentage of people with a migration background is about 15%. As in most German cities, migrant integration has primarily taken place by opening up the core institutions, such as the education system and the labour market, and by including the migrants in the national welfare system. Within the last decade, the municipality has restructured its administration by bundling all migration and integration-related responsibilities into one single office, and has implemented a comprehensive integration concept that regards diversity as a benefit to the city as a whole.
In this overview, the city of Mataró shows some specific characteristics when compared with other CLIP cities. Mataró is dealing with a large influx of migrants that has developed over the last 10 years; it has to deal with a considerable number of irregular migrants and consequently many immigrants are burdened with legal problems that they have to solve before they worry about integration. The administration has made a great effort to adjust its general service provision, to train its staff in multicultural issues and to establish specific services where necessary.
Immigration in Finland and in Turku is relatively new. It has been predominantly supply-driven (refugees, returnees and family related migration) and is now gradually changing to more demand-driven migration. Policy reactions both at the national and local level have been partial and targeted mainly at the refugee category. Migration and integration policies are in an early phase, primarily reacting to specific vulnerable categories of immigrants. Specific policies relating to reception of refugees and returnees have been initiated at the national level first. Local authorities were then urged to develop integration programmes for migrants.
Tallinn's population composition differs significantly from that of Western European cities in that Russian-speaking residents make up about half of its population. Only in the 1990s did the question of the integration of residents with Russian ethnicity into Estonian society arise. In 2000, the state programme 'Integration into Estonian Society 20002007' was adopted; which was followed by the 'Integration Strategy 20082013'. Both the state programme and the Integration Strategy emphasise Estonian language proficiency for 'Russians'. In the end of 2007, the city of Tallinn started to develop its own municipal integration policy intended to ensure equal opportunities for all. A diversity approach in personnel policy has not been implemented yet. In terms of service provision, by contrast, one should highlight a specific service: in order to facilitate access to municipal services by residents with Russian ethnicity, the city provides every official publication and every service in Russian as well in Estonian.
Antwerp is the largest city in Flanders and its population comprises around 13% foreigners. Yet a quarter of the inhabitants have a migration background and they represent 30% of the working population. Until recently, the diversity policy adopted by the city focused on specific target groups people with a migration background was one of them. It was a categorial diversity policy. And specific departments were in charge to stimulate and support the policy through specific measures and actions with respect to each specific target group. The Integration Service and in particular the IS diversity consultants developed intensive contacts with some other services such as the Urban Poverty Department. The main challenges remain the language barriers and the recruitment procedures of the city.
Today, foreigners from 175 nations live in Frankfurt and make up one quarter of its population. The proportion with a migration background is 38% of the total population of the city. Frankfurt saw the necessity of integration and diversity policies quite early on and created a Department of Integration with an affiliated Office for Multicultural Affairs in 1989. These are engaged in fostering the integration of migrants and make efforts to change the municipality in order to better meet the demands of a heterogeneous population, as far as employment policy and provision of services are concerned.
On November 18 2008, the City of Frankfurt, a CLIP network member from the start, the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation and Eurofound jointly organised and hosted a conference on 'Integration und Diversity in Kommunen'. In this conference, findings from the second module (on diversity policy) have been discussed among experts from German-speaking cities in Europe. The conference has been supported by the Robert-Bosch-Foundation and about 100 experts from Austrian, German and Swiss cities and related institutions as well as representatives from research institutes, unions and local NGO's actively participated in the conference.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
# posted by SBasefsky : 11:12 AM
