|
Affirmative
Action Plan of the Massachusetts Trial Court
Appendices
| APPENDIX A |
Background Information on Labor Market
Analyses |
The
federal government suggests eight factors for its contractors to
consider in determining underutilization. Though the Trial Court
is not bound by these factors, the Affirmative Action Officer considers
a number of them in the effort to access potential employees, to
ensure that current employees have equal opportunity in such areas
as training and promotion.
For
purposes of determining goals, the Trial Court's Affirmative Action
Plan relies most heavily on the factor which calls upon the employer
to consider the availability of minorities and women having requisite
skills in an area in which the contractor can reasonably recruit.
The
Division of Employment and Training (formerly the Division of Employment
Security) prepared a series of reports entitled "Labor Market Information
for Affirmative Action Programs." These give information on the
labor force of ten areas in Massachusetts, and on the Commonwealth
as a whole.
The
Trial Court has determined that for most jobs, each court can reasonably
recruit from the labor market area of that court. Utilization analyses
for most jobs were therefore based on availability figures from
the local labor market areas. Where a court is not directly within
the confines of a labor market area, figures for the largest close
labor market area have been used.
The
one exception to this rule is for the category of Officials and
Managers. The Trial Court has concluded that the quality and attractiveness
of these jobs calls for recruitment from the entire Commonwealth.
Availability figures have therefore been set for this category of
jobs from the report on availability in all of Massachusetts.
| APPENDIX B |
Findings of Utilization Analysis (September,
1992) |
The Trial Court
is pleased that since the inception of the Affirmation Action program
in 1980, progress has been made in equal employment opportunity.
For instance, the representation of minorities in the court system
as a whole has increased from approximately 2% to almost 12%. Further,
hiring authorities are now familiar with the concepts of equal employment
opportunity and affirmative action.
The utilization
analysis, which compares the make-up of workers in each court to
the make-up of workers in the labor market, shows that the program
has much work ahead of it. A summary of utilization reveals the
following results for the system as a whole:
Minorities
|
|
|
|
| Job Category |
Yes
|
No
|
%Y
|
Officials/Managers
|
88
|
27
|
77%
|
Professionals
|
33
|
70
|
32%
|
Technicians
|
3
|
3
|
50%
|
Service Workers
|
2
|
2
|
50%
|
Clerical Supervisory
|
85
|
19
|
82%
|
Clerical
|
54
|
65
|
45%
|
Protective Service Supervisory
|
8
|
2
|
80%
|
Protective Services
|
33
|
49
|
40%
|
|
Yes = number of courts underutilized in the given category
No = number of courts which have reached parity in the given
category
|
Females
|
|
|
|
| Job Category |
Yes
|
No
|
%Y
|
Officials/Managers
|
74
|
41
|
64%
|
Professionals
|
75
|
28
|
73%
|
Technicians
|
4
|
2
|
67%
|
Service workers
|
3
|
1
|
75%
|
Clerical Supervisory
|
28
|
76
|
27%
|
Clerical
|
2
|
117
|
2%
|
|
Protective ServiceSupervisory
|
9
|
1
|
90%
|
Protective Services
|
45
|
37
|
55%
|
|
Yes = number of courts underutilization in the given category
No = number of courts which have reached parity in the given
category
These charts demonstrate that
there is a trend in the Trial Court for minorities to be underutilized
in a majority of courts in all except for the professional,
clerical, and protective services categories, and for women
to be underutilized in a majority of courts in all except
for the clerical supervisory and clerical categories. Of particular
concern for minority employees is the fact that though only
45% and 40% of courts show underutilization in the clerical
and protective services categories respectively, almost twice
that percentage show underutilization in supervisory level
jobs in those categories.
The Trial Court will use the
information from this utilization analysis in determining
where to focus on-going affirmative action activities.
|
| APPENDIX C |
Goal Setting and Timetables |
The Trial Court
has set goals for hiring and promotion for the job categories which
show an underutilization of minorities and women. The Trial Court
has set both a long-range goal and specific short-range goals to
ensure that the plan is on track.
Specifically,
the ultimate goal is to achieve by the year 2002 a workforce where
minorities and women mirror the available labor market. Given the
opportunity to hire enough employees before that time, the Trial
Court is committed to all good faith efforts to reach that ultimate
goal as soon as possible.
In the meantime,
the Trial Court has set short-term goals. These were calculated
by an interim method which will be replaced by the system outlined
in the Future Actions section of the Affirmative Action Plan. The
current goals are targeted for the next update of the Plan, which
will occur in two years. As that time represents one-fifth of the
longer timetable, the Trial Court has calculated for each underutilized
category in each court a one-fifth improvement towards its ultimate
goal. (For instance, if a court would reach parity by hiring ten
minority employees in a specific category, its short-term goal will
be to hire or promote two such employees in the next two years.)
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