Background to the Research

• The fair employment system in Northern Ireland is failing to satisfy the victims of discrimination. Four out of every ten complaints about religious or political discrimination in the workplace are dropped without reaching resolution. People with experience of the fair employment system are more likely than the general population to think it biased against people of their religion. This research was based on a survey of people who had approached the FEC for advice or registered a complaint with Fair Employment Tribunal. Overall, 59% of complainants were Catholic and 22% Protestant, roughly the inversely of the proportion of Catholics and Protestants in the workforce.
  

Main Findings

• Overall, 70% of complaints were from people who felt that they had been discriminated against by an employer for whom they were already working. A further 27% believed they had been discriminated against when applying for a job.
  
  
• The most likely outcome for a complaint was for it to be dropped without resolution. This was often because complainants were worried about getting a bad reputation with other employers or were frightened about victimisation at work. Only 16% of cases were resolved through a settlement with an employer and 14% were awaiting a Tribunal hearing.
  
  
• Most people had not received an adequate information and advice service. In what the authors describe as 'major weaknesses in the fair employment machinery', six out of ten complainants did not feel that they had received good expert advice from the FEC and only half felt in control of how their affairs were dealt with. Protestants were less likely to be satisfied with the advice they were given by Catholics.
  
  
• There were striking differences between the attitudes of complainants and those of the general population towards the fair employment laws. People with experience of the fair employment system were more likely to think it biased than the general public. Only a minority of Protestant complainants believed the fair employment laws treated the two communities equally and Protestant complainants were less likely than other Protestants to think this was the case. Catholic complainants also had less confidence that the system was fair than Catholics in general.