At the IBA in Dubai last week, a three-hour session was held on “The Rise of Multiculturalism and Resulting Challenges of Managing Diversity in the Workplace.”\u00a0 While the subjects discussed were fascinating, the subjects not discussed might have been even more so.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The panel was preceded by an announcement from David Lowe <\/a>of San Francisco, Chair of the Discrimination Law Committee that was co-sponsoring the discussion.\u00a0 He stated that, five weeks ago, representatives of the United Arab Emirates had notified the IBA that\u00a0the UAE\u00a0was no longer willing to host the IBA Annual Meeting and that the event — six years in the planning — would need to be cancelled.\u00a0 The concern seemed to be centered on seven programs on the agenda that, in the UAE’s view,\u00a0singled out the UAE for criticism.\u00a0 This panel was one such.\u00a0 In response, and without convening the various Committees involved,\u00a0IBA Executive Director Mark Ellis\u00a0worked with the UAE representative to modify the titles and descriptions of the programs, offering assurance that none of them would contain attacks or criticisms of the host country.\u00a0 The UAE relented, but many Committee heads – including Mr. Lowe – remained troubled when they were advised.\u00a0 Mr. Lowe took this opportunity to advise the audience that neither he nor the Committee had instructed the panelists on what they could or could not say, and that he spurned utterly any effort to censor or control the discussion of the topic at hand.<\/p>\n The topic, in the meanwhile, was the impact on employment law of the rapid increase in diversity in workplaces in various regions of the globe.\u00a0 Cherie Booth<\/a> QC of the Blair Partnership in London posited the essential distinction that the conversation was to address: Is the ideal approach to diversity in public institutions one of assimilation or of respect for difference?\u00a0 She suggested that both approaches may be seen in the United Kingdom.\u00a0 Sociologically, the wealthy classes tend to “melt” together, while in the less affluent parts of British society one sees Pakistani or Chinese neighborhoods where language, food and social customs of the “old world.”\u00a0 UK law has been greatly influenced by various European Human Rights directives and rulings from the Strasborg court – initially barring discrimination in the workplace based on race and sex, then later on such attributes as disability, age and sexual preference, all of which, Booth suggested, are meant to be tolerated.<\/p>\n Nimer Basbous of HSBC Bank in Dubai portrayed the UAE as a “mixed salad” rather than a “melting pot,” by dint of circumstance.\u00a0 Eighty percent of the workforce comes from outside the UAE, and so employing corporations are the engine of diversity in communities.\u00a0 He emphasized that employers seek talent, and that diversity is an unintended but welcome by-product to this trend.\u00a0 He reported no problems of intolerance; the UAE is trying to present itself to the world as an international commercial hub, and so diversity is a predictable implication of UAE’s commercial success.<\/p>\n