Managing Diversity - Management and the Multi-Cultural Workforce

A Management Perspective on Cultural Diversity in American Labor Market

Managing diversity in the workplace is a subject that has gained increased attention among managers during the last two decades. After all, the impact of affirmative action and equal employment opportunity programs on the nation's work force is undeniable. Women and minorities were the first to dramatically alter the face of the economic mainstream, while gays, persons with disabilities and foreign nationals followed not far behind. The result is a diverse American labor force representing a microcosm of our society - yet one that continues to struggle with its identity. 

Diversity as a social condition is not new to the U.S. Founded by immigrants, the nation has always been a merger of cultures and, as such, has undergone periods of discomfort as the world's melting pot. In the 1850s, for example, Chinese and Irish laborers were brought over to lay the tracks for the transcontinental railroad, which raised the anger of those who had arrived a hundred years earlier. (HistoryChannel.com). 

At the turn of the century, waves of immigrants arrived on American shores from Southern and Eastern Europe at a rate of a million a year. These unprecedented numbers caused American Federation of Labor president, Samuel Gompers, to complain in 1907: "Cheap labor, ignorant labor, takes our jobs and cuts our wages." (Gompes AFL).