No doubt reckoning to bury bad news amidst the turbulence of the Greek economic situation and its impact on the European economy, back-room lawyers at the Commission have issued a draft Directive On Even-Handedness. Its far-reaching consequences can only be the product of blue skies thinking as the earliest date for compliance, even at this early stage, is put at 2020, a lead-in time of a staggering ten years. Only a cursory consideration tells you why those blue sky thinkers realise that they cannot hope to have this idea, not from the sky but, surely, another planet, in place any earlier if at all.
This is the product of research carried out at a number of distinguished universities throughout the Community but co-ordinated by Prof. Maarten Sinstrad of the Department of Psychological Research at the University of Helsenborg. This research has shown, as human experience down the ages has already told us all, at a fraction of the estimated 5.3 m euros that the research study has cost, that left-handers are at a disadvantage in many spheres of life. Contrarily, in certain disciplines they hold the upper hand. Any cricketer will tell you that there are a disproportionate number of left handed batsmen slogging toiling right-handed bowlers to all quarters and a similarly unfair number of left-arm over bowlers troubling right-handed batsmen. That’s life, as Ma Rantzen once said.
For centuries the left-handed have been demonised: hence the current meaning of “sinister”; as compared with “adroit”, successful right handers. Yet the, presumably left-handed legislators in Brussels have decided that equality is all and their draft Directive requires equal treatment between persons “irrespective of handedness”. Taking the Equal Treatment Directive as its blue-print this draft outlaws direct discrimination and, inevitably, indirect discrimination.
Materials accompanying the Draft point out that, entirely predictably, employers may not select or promote employees on the basis of their handedness. In a typical office workplace this should not normally present much of a problem. It does not seem too likely that an employer will wish to specify that only right-handed typists need apply - but what of the professional football club looking for a left winger? Or, to be even-handed, a right winger come to that? Perhaps there will be a GOQ let-out yet it might be difficult to prove that a left winger had to be left footed (think of Maradona who kicked (and handed) the hell out of all in sight using only one foot).
It is, when one moves into indirect discrimination territory, that the problems really start. Scissors. Did you know that there are left and right handed scissors? Well, there are - but the left handed variety are seldom made, so that the approximately 12.5% of the population which is left-handed have to struggle with the wrong kit. (If you are right- handed think how difficult it is to cut your fingernails of the right hand: with left-handed scissors it would be a walkover) That’s just one example of countless mechanical devices, in particular, that favour the right handed and cause a left-hander a detriment – control panels on machinery both domestic, office and industrial are invariably on the right; ATMs swallow your card on the right; slot machines take your money on the right. Screws, jars and bottle tops tighten to the right; the nozzle at the petrol pump is on the right. Look at your keyboard. All those keys with fancy mathematical functions and yet more arcane roles (which I don’t really know about) are on the right.
Well, all these right favouring things are going to have to change. Suppliers will have to adjust to produce a hefty percentage of product that favours the left or else even-handed products. Because not to do so will discriminate against left-handers (or right-handers depending on how you look at it).
And what of the good old-fashioned right angle?
