Ring-fenced post: equality issue?

[Sioned1649]

A job has come up that's been ring-fenced to a number of people who are employed temporarily in the Summer. Their contracts started and ended a specific time, soon. It's a job that I used to do, albeit on a fractional basis and with a succession of temporary contracts (over two years). To get some more security, I applied for and got a permanent position, lower grade but with significant commonalities.

Apparently ring-fencing this job was HR's decision, not that of the managers. I am well suited to this post, would have gone after it because I know what it involves and because I would like, naturally enough, to upgrade.

This is the first time, to the best of my knowledge, that such jobs have been ring-fenced to temporary staff. Staff on lower grades have therefore been eligible to apply and have generally been successful.

This has only just come to my attention and the deadline has passed but should I ask someone to explain the rationale, should I ask the union to speak to HR, or let it go because HR (very powerful in this place) can do what it likes, when it likes within the boundaries of employment law? When I first heard about this, I phoned HR as I obviously hadn't seen the post advertised and I wanted to know if I was in fact eligible to apply and was told that the jobs were probably being ring-fenced to this group because their jobs were 'at risk'. Indeed, but this group of staff took on, knowingly, temporary contracts.

[flowery]

Can you explain why you feel this is an equality issue?

[Sioned1649]

Flowery - because this means that nobody other than some temporary staff could have applied for this post.

Similar posts were advertised last year but they weren't ring fenced to temporary staff though, of course, temporary staff could apply. They went to people who, very much me now, wanted to be on a higher grade doing work for which they were qualified. I'm in that position now but I wasn't able to apply because of HR's decision to ring fence. A decision it hasn't taken before now in respect of theses sorts of posts.

[LibrariesGaveUsP0wer]

So you mean equality issue in the general dictionary sense not the legal one?

[flowery]

An equality issue would be a decision which has a disproportionately negative impact on a group of people who share a protected characteristic, such as ethnicity, religious belief or sex.

Sounds like this is a management decision you don't like because it has a negative impact on you personally, rather than an equality issue.

[lougle]

Are you using the word equality in the legal sense (ie. equality between men and women, or people of different ethnicities, or ages, etc.) or are you talking in the sense of 'everyone should have access to all of the roles'?

If its the former, you'd have to show that the people in the temporary worker group share a characteristic that is being given an advantage (e.g. they are all male and the remaining workforce is mostly women). If it's just a case of 'this doesn't seem fair' then that's not quite the same.

You could ask HR why there has been a departure from their usual practice. They could then explain why they decided to ring-fence the job this time and not before.

[Tiggeryoubastard]

Why didn't you apply last year?

[Tiggeryoubastard]

Not judging, just wondering.