Reason Magazine - Staff

Dueling Discriminations

info@reason.com (Rachel Alembakis) — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

Can a handshake be grounds for a lawsuit? Perhaps, under a European Union directive passed in 2000 requiring member states to crack down on workplace discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, and religion. The United Kingdom passed legislation prohibiting religious discrimination earlier this year, with provisions set to take effect in December. But a report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), a professional association for managers, raises the specter of dueling discrimination lawsuits pitting religious and gender discrimination claims against each other.

As an example of a possible conflict, imagine a man whose religious beliefs prohibit contact with women. Does his refusal to shake hands with female colleagues constitute gender discrimination? Or is it religious discrimination if his female superiors take offense? Under the new legislation, it's not clear, according to Dianah Worman, head of diversity for CIPD. "The point of the directive wasn't to make one type of discrimination more important than the other," Worman says. "The intention isn't a pecking order....We'll have to wait until it all comes out. The courts will be the testing ground."

In the next few months, employers will be considering the legal implications of having alcohol at work functions and the logistics of allowing employees time for prayer. The legal muddle is due to get cloudier still in 2006, when E.U. members must add a prohibition on age discrimination to the mix.

Comic Bureaucracy

info@reason.com (Rachel Alembakis) — Thu, 01 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Watch out, Superman and Wonder Woman. There's a new hero in town, and she's a member of the European Parliament.

In an effort to educate Europe's youth, the European Parliament has published a slick, glossy comic book, Troubled Waters, featuring crusading MEP Irina Vega. Vega is a chic cross between Lara Croft and Nancy Drew, legislating her way through the difficult issue of water rights and the setting of Europe-wide water pollution standards. She whizzes between hearings, meetings, and nighttime events, issuing bon mots such as "we have to reach agreement with the council, if necessary via a conciliation committee" while unraveling a plot to sabotage her legislation by a nefarious chemical company dumping toxic waste in rivers.

"This is a product for young people, and our goal was to try at the same time not to say vague things on the project, but not to be scholarly," says Jacques Hinckxt, of the European Parliament's information directorate general. "We had to find a role where the European Parliament's added value was evident enough, visible to the public. That was why an environment subject fit to a better understanding."

Give credit to the book's designers: They had to wade through 600 pages of documents and debate minutes to come up with the plot, plus create a heroine who was culturally and politically unidentifiable with any of the 15 nations that make up the European Union. With her brunette looks and name, Irina could be southern or eastern European, while her bland assertions about the right of all citizens to clean water are neither Christian-Democrat right nor Socialist left (which, along with the Green Party, comprise most of the European Parliament's members).

Troubled Waters has garnered a lot of comment, not all of it positive. Chemical companies were less than pleased with their portrayal as predatory polluters. Industry representatives sent a blistering letter of complaint to the real-life parliament president. Euroskeptics have taken on the slick portrayal of Brussels-Strasbourg beltway life, and even some MEPs have joined in.

"Reaction of most members has been very positive," Hinckxt says. "But there has been some criticism -- one member said we should not be seen as having a life like James Bond."

Others have called the project a waste of taxpayers' money. While British newspapers placed the cost of production anywhere between 3 million and 5 million euros, Hinckxt is quick to point out that the cost was in fact a far more modest 540,000 euros for 780,000 copies. A second print run was planned for April. "You can say it's euro-propaganda," Hinckxt says, "but you can't say it's a waste of money."

Free Money

info@reason.com (Rachel Alembakis) — Tue, 01 Jan 2002 00:00:00 EST

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, a likely presidential candidate in his country's 2002 elections, has thrown his support behind a plan to tax all currency speculation transfers originating in Europe. In August, Jospin told a group of young Socialists that France should propose the tax to the European Union.

The Tobin Tax -- named after Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin, who came up with the idea -- is championed by a coalition of anti-globalization groups and trade unions. They worry that a free market for capital threatens to destabilize the world's weaker economies -- a hotly controversial issue since the Asian tigers collapsed in 1997, beginning with a rush to dump Thai bahts.

"It's a relatively simple idea. There is a market for currency speculation, and in fact, this speculation contributes to the sterilization of real economies," says Pierre Tartakowsky, secretary general of the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens. "The idea was to reduce the amount of capital flight by a slight tax on-profit realized by the transactions."

Though no numbers have been formally discussed, proponents have

suggested tax rates ranging from 0.1 percent to 1 percent. Considering that more than $1.5 trillion in foreign exchange transactions take place each day, the levy would translate into hefty revenues. According to Tartakowsky, the European Parliament would spend the money on projects to assist developing countries.

The plan's many critics argue that it is difficult to distinguish between currency speculation and legitimate transfers of money from international corporations, and that it is almost impossible to implement the tax successfully unless it is levied worldwide.

At a September meeting of the European Commission of Economic and Finance ministers in Liege, Belgium, the ministers agreed to a feasibility study on the tax. But some officials were outspoken in their criticism. "I didn't understand one minister who was in favor of the Tobin Tax," Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister and finance minister, told the French daily Liberation.