tough on racism in the job market.

A massive survey is to be carried out among more than 500 firms to check progress on the anti-racism code of conduct, introduced by the former United Bermuda Party Government in its last term of office.

And filling out the survey forms will be mandatory by February, 2000 -- with the entire code of conduct being pencilled in to be made legally binding at a later date.

"It is the intention of Government to amend the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality Act 1994 to make the code of practice a legally-binding document,'' Mr. Lister said. "Government takes the view that solving the problem of racial discrimination in employment is too important an issue to be left to voluntary compliance.

"It requires strong, but fair, legislation which can be firmly and sensitively enforced.'' Mr. Lister was speaking as he announced the survey, to be carried out in the next few months and which will target more than 500 firms with a special questionnaire.

Shadow Minister Allan Marshall admitted afterwards that the announcement had taken the Opposition by surprise.

He said: "Changing voluntary compliance to forced legislation in a legally binding move by February 2000 comes as a surprise -- we were not aware or were appraised of this point.'' Mr. Marshall added: "While I appreciate the Minister's intentions, I will have to defer making a formal response to the statement until I have contacted my colleagues.'' The PLP's election platform pledged to educate, survey and turn the code into legislation if voluntary compliance was not available.

Mr. Lister admitted his statement was a change of tack for the new Government.

But he said that deciding to enforce the code before the survey results are in was a necessary step -- but stressed a mandatory code was years away.

And Mr. Lister added: "If you have two companies in the same area, I have to know what the standard is for that industry in order to make comparisions.'' And he said he had not given any thought to a scale of penalties for those found to be offending against the code.

Mr. Lister added: "Right now, I'm not concerned about that -- what I want is to get the data back.'' The Commission for Unity and Racial Equality will first provide a series of workshops on equal opportunity practices, to take place between February and March.

CURE will then start emphasising the problems of racism and discrimination in the workplace and work to create a better environment in business prior to reviewing the code of practice.

The questionnaires will be sent out to companies with ten or more employees in April and monitoring of firms' progress will take place after that, depending on the results from individual companies.

Graphic file name: TERLIST Terry Lister