Is gender equity working well for the ‘Big Australian’?
Commentary
Global mining giant BHP’s former CEO Andrew Mackenzie made a huge splash when he addressed shareholders at the 2016 annual meeting, telling them that achieving a 50 percent female workforce within the decade was a “moral imperative” for the company.
The media applauded Mr. Mackenzie’s plan to replace half the male workforce with women in this most masculine of industries.
By last year, BHP had doubled the proportion of female employees—up from 17 percent in 2016 to over 32 percent on June 30 last year (pdf).
To measure their “progress” another way, in the 12 months to June 2022, BHP shed 1,417 male employees (5 percent decline) and hired 806 more females (7 percent increase).
BHP is convinced that this blatant discrimination against men is perfectly legal. However, some lawyers believe that the “special measures” provision in the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) that mining companies rely upon for their “positive discrimination” is ripe for a challenge.
For a start, the Act does not permit unlimited discrimination against men to address so-called discrimination against women. The Australian Human Rights Commission guidelines on special measures under the SDA say they must be “proportionate and properly targeted”—BHP’s very aggressive policy could well be disproportionate.
Article 4 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which underpins the SDA notes that this Article refers to special measures being acceptable to achieve “the objectives of equality of opportunity and treatment.”
This is a key issue. There’s no reference in the Convention to “equality of outcome.”
This makes sense because otherwise the Convention would be condoning ongoing and disproportionate discrimination against men, and that would never be the overriding objective of a human rights instrument.
These instruments are all about providing opportunity for women and striking a balance—not about permitting rampant unfairness against men.
Top-Down Gender Discrimination
Wouldn’t it be great to see a case that tested the limits of these “special measures provisions” and the gender equity framework that they pop up in Australia? It would be a real chance to strike a blow against the insidious gender politics taking over this country.
BHP’s campaign has been relentless with the company achieving much of this by advertising women-only positions across the company.
The 50 percent goal is not just some pie-in-the-sky aspiration. Oh no, executives’ jobs and bonuses are on the line if they don’t manage to push more women in and men out.
There are strict quotas on hiring females and it won’t matter if you were just hiring the best candidates, if you fail to hire enough women you can expect repercussions, starting with loss of bonus pay.
The discrimination doesn’t stop at hiring—promotion also is more driven by gender than merit. The overall effect is that women are promoted to management, on average, nine years earlier than men—according to an analysis of the mining industry by accounting firm BDO.
BHP is also leaning on their suppliers to fall into line with very tough policies like excluding males from some job vacancies and imposing diversity demands.
Men Speak Out
There have been two cases of BHP being sued for sex discrimination by men which have attracted significant publicity.
Burak Powers, a former manager within BHP’s Houston petroleum office, sued the company in a Texas Court, claiming punitive damages because he was passed over for promotion in favour of less qualified and experienced women.
Mr. Powers laid out the “systemic pattern of top-down sex discrimination” that resulted in his position supposedly being abolished, only to be recreated, minus an open interview process, and offered to a less qualified female worker.
All this despite his being invited into BHP’s elite Future Emerging Leaders Program and receiving “uniformly positive” performance reviews.
Another man seeking damages against BHP was a former manager for regional Caribbean, Adrian Purdy, who was instructed by the company to fill two vacancies with females.
His affidavit recounts: “I was repeatedly informed by senior managers at BHP that it was of paramount importance to hire, retain, and promote as many females as possible.”
Mr. Purdy said two women were subsequently “hired from outside the company, over numerous clearly better-qualified males who were already employed at BHP.” He was laid off after raising the matter in BHP’s in-house complaints portal.
BHP vowed to fight both cases but ultimately settled with Mr. Powers out of court (pdf). There’s been no news about what happened with Mr. Purdy.
Does the Balance Sheet Add Up?
Recently, I spoke to a very cheerful young woman—I’ll call her Belinda—who recently arrived at BHP’s showcase for gender diversity at South Flank mine, where already 40 percent of frontline employees are female as to are four out of six senior managers.
Belinda had formerly been in childcare but as a recent immigrant, she leapt at the chance of trying her hand in this quintessential Aussie industry.
Belinda was full of praise for the facilities South Flank set up to attract women—two gyms, an outdoor pool, a library, a music room, plus daily events such as aerobic classes, visiting speakers, and nightly cooking classes. Over $100 million (US$65 million) has been spent on new lighting, CCTV, electronic door locks, and security.
Hmmm—The Big Australian boasts that all this diversity is improving productivity. It must take some very creative accounting to prove that’s the case once you factor in the costs of all this hoopla to keep women happy, don’t you reckon?
And get this—South Flank is a new mine and highly automated, so the mine was forced to actually recreate entry-level roles in order to employ women. Go figure …
Add More Women, Problem Solved?
What happens if you push thousands of young women into a very traditional male workforce? Well, naturally the industry has been flooded with reports of men behaving badly.
We’re currently seeing a huge campaign to change the mining culture “to keep women safe,”
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