Discriminatory comment from colleague

[monkeysox]

My employer (school) is making one (male full time) staff member redundant following consultation as that dept is over staffed.

I work part time in another dept. A male colleague actually said to me " no disrespect to you but how many part timers so they have, I'd have got rid of those of it was me"

I kept my cool and said he was wrong. School get good value from part time staff.
Me and another experiencwd. (female) colleague job share and neither of us would have applied to teach full time. No other applicants were interviewed when we were employed.

His comment was extremely out of order wasn't it or AIBU?

Yabu op you can't police his right to an opinion. I agree with him they should have got rid of 2 part timers instead of a full timer.

And yes it is discriminatory to target part timers for redundancy over FT workers

And that would matter, if he was making the decisions regarding redundancy. But since it was an off hand comment in the staff room, it doesn't matter.

His personal opinion was that if he were deciding, he would have got rid of a part timer in that dept. He made no comment about OP, her job, her department, her being PT. We don't know why he would have picked on of the pt'ers or which one. He might have an excellent reason.

OP thinking his comment was "extremely discriminatory" is so off the all sensitive as to be laughable.

*wall

You sound really difficulty OP.

YABU.
Would this thread exist, if the full time person losing their job was a woman instead of a man?

@stablefeet

It wasn't discriminatory, there was no mention of the fact that the part-timers are female and he didn't even insinuate it. Honestly, I think it's a pretty pathetic time if someone who's just been made redundant can't say what he did. Regardless of the redundancy process, he just "spoke his truth" which was to say that he thought a different course of action would have been fairer.

@stablefeet

The staff member who said this wasn’t the one made redundant. What he said was derogatory to part timer workers, who are disproportionately female as everyone knows.

If he was going to legitimately ‘speak his truth’ then he needs to explain why he thinks part time workers are less valuable in this particular workplace, he might have good reasons, but given he didn’t state them his words appear to be derogatory and sexist. In the future he may be a position to hire and fire so he should be challenged on what he said.

[quote monkeysox]@Hidinginstaircupboard
This is right.

I read it as a different male colleague who said it to the one being made redundant

All and any part time teaching staff at my work place are female. Should have clarified that.[/quote]
He was being opinionated....shouldn’t have said it....but not discriminatory.....he didn’t mention women at all....you just making that assumption

“I've only worked with a few part-time staff and they were a massive PITA for the rest of the team as they were extremely inflexible (mostly about childcare “

This attitude annoys me, Remember the part time member of staff is only paid for the hours they’re in work. In my case that’s 0.5wte. They have no obligation to be flexible. The likelihood is that they have other responsibilities when not working, caring, childcare, another job.

As an aside, when my children started school, I asked to work flexibly- for example to stay later on the days where the team meeting was booked after I had finished work, come in on other days to do training etc but was told a resounding no as it was unfair on the full time staff who would not have that flexibility!

On the question of what do we think full time members of staff do for childcare.. I have no idea, but presume the same as me on my workdays.. rely on family members? Pay for after school clubs etc? It was a conscious choice for us to not want our kids to do after school childcare every day because on some days they will do other activities. We chose to take the pay cut to have this option. Everyone can put in a request to go part time if they want to or if their circumstances or employer allows it. I’m not sure why some people are so against part time workers?

His opinion is to prioritise FT workers over PT. Whether thats right or wrong for financial reasons or anything else, its his opinion. I wouldnt say its discriminatory and even if PT workers are predominantly female, I think its reaching to try and make this sexism.

His comment was in poor taste, and you may also disagree with his prioritisation. However, he has just been made redundant from a FT job in a pandemic! Don't think you are really the 'victim' here. As his comment isn't obviously sexist or discriminatory, I would let it slide. He is clearly upset

I get why you felt it was discriminatory but no I would not report.

Regarding your own position in a job share. In one of my workplaces someone left that was half of a job share. They could not replace that person, though they tried there were no suitable candidates so the woman as stated in her contract had to take on the hours. She did not want to so left. I see you are a teacher so assume it would be much easier to fill in those extra hours if your job share partner left than the role at my old workplace but the difference needs pointing out. You obviously know thendifference but I have found a lot of people misunderstand exactly what a JS entails.

@Lollipop1234

“I've only worked with a few part-time staff and they were a massive PITA for the rest of the team as they were extremely inflexible (mostly about childcare “

This attitude annoys me, Remember the part time member of staff is only paid for the hours they’re in work. In my case that’s 0.5wte. They have no obligation to be flexible. The likelihood is that they have other responsibilities when not working, caring, childcare, another job.

As an aside, when my children started school, I asked to work flexibly- for example to stay later on the days where the team meeting was booked after I had finished work, come in on other days to do training etc but was told a resounding no as it was unfair on the full time staff who would not have that flexibility!

On the question of what do we think full time members of staff do for childcare.. I have no idea, but presume the same as me on my workdays.. rely on family members? Pay for after school clubs etc? It was a conscious choice for us to not want our kids to do after school childcare every day because on some days they will do other activities. We chose to take the pay cut to have this option. Everyone can put in a request to go part time if they want to or if their circumstances or employer allows it. I’m not sure why some people are so against part time workers?

Bit unfair to pick out one line in the poster's comment in which she is actually pretty fair to PT workers and says she overall found them efficient.

And as for 'no obligation to be flexible', that is also true of full-time workers but often it is true that people expect full-time workers to work over their hours if necessary and pick up the slack whereas part-time workers are generally allowed to be more rigid in saying 'I finish at this time'.

Obviously, this hugely varies, and I understand the commitments and reasons for many PT workers mean that they need this. I am childless and FT and particularly during the pandemic I have tried to be very understanding to colleagues who have had to work around childcare and it has been difficult for....but I do think that I shouldn't also have to let my physical and mental wellbeing overly suffer as I struggle to pick up all the slack from people who are essentially PT now and 'have to finish at X time' and then do no further work in the evenings once kids are in bed while I'm often still working after dinner to get everything done. Obviously this is a specific example, and not the worker's themselves fault (more company resourcing) but ultimately, empathy goes two ways and if you want FT workers to be empathetic of the commitments that you have that mean you need to work PT, PT workers also need to be empathetic that the extra work often falls to FT workers, particularly those without children, as if we somehow don't have a life outside work that is of value and/or are robots that can just keep working......

He was being opinionated....shouldn’t have said it

Are we not allowed to voice an opinion on anything now, at all?

@LilMidge01

It wasn’t aimed specifically at the poster, but as a general attitude you hear a lot as a part time worker.

I’m sure there are good and bad in all workplaces. Personally I feel I work really hard for the hours I’m in and don’t take extra breaks or sit around chatting like some of the full time staff in our dept do, as I’d feel bad doing this. (Equally some of the part time staff do this too).

It wasn't discriminatory but tactless , in a redundancy situation the law will have been followed but we all have views on what we think would have the best course of action.

He's a bit of a dinosaur if he doesn't understand that a part time colleague is still a colleague and entirely as part of the team as others. He sounds like he's not very invested in the team if he is unaware of the input of his colleagues.

As a part time worker you do get used to "part timer" being an insult implying lack of effort and commitment. Generally coming from those who think the hours they are in a building matter rather than the quality of their work.

Less favourable treatment of part time employees without a strong business case can give rise to successful claims on indirect sex discrimination.

@Ikora not official job share thank goodness as no way would I ever do teaching full time again

Less favourable treatment of part time employees without a strong business case can give rise to successful claims on indirect sex discrimination

Yes. But what has that got to do with someone who has no hand in the decision making process re redundancies? Nothing.

He's a bit of a dinosaur if he doesn't understand that a part time colleague is still a colleague and entirely as part of the team as others. He sounds like he's not very invested in the team if he is unaware of the input of his colleagues

Or that could be completely irrelevant to why he gave the opinion he did.

I would have assumed he meant why didn't they just get rid of 1 PT worker vs 1 FT worker, thus reducing the impact on the overall team.

I guess context and tone are key though and you'd know if it was a jibe about PT workers being less valuable than ft, rather than a suggestion that they could have been less aggressive with their headcount reduction. I'm not saying he's right mind, just that from a purely practical perspective losing someone working half hours will impact remaining staff workloads less. If that wasn't an option and the alternative was making 2 PT employees redundant, then yeah he's probably just being a pig.

Why do you need to state male and female? If the colleague who had voiced that opinion was a woman, would you have been offended?

Yea I'd have still been offended if it was a woman who said it.

Not discriminatory, just his opinion which we are all entitled to have.

There are pros and cons to part-time workers depending on the type of job and how flexible the part-time workers are. But all other things being equal, a team of 10 part timers creates twice as much work in terms of HR, performance management, pastoral care, than a team of 5 full timers, for the same number of hours worked. You can understand why some people don't see that as a good thing.

Yea I'd have still been offended if it was a woman who said it

Of course you would, as you were determined to find offense.