Of course, even if employers benefit from discriminatory practices, they did not 'invent' credentialism, racism, sexism and ageism--these are deep cultural prejudices. However, as one author puts it, "if not actually created by employers, (they) have at the very least been vastly strengthened by them". 40 Similarly, Bowles and Gintis argue:

The broader prejudices, of society are...used as a resource by employers in their effort to control labour. In this way, the pursuit of profits and security of class position reinforces racist, sexist and credentialist forms of status consciousness. ..is thus not an expression of irrational and uninformed employment policies, subject to correction by "enlightened" employment practices and social legislation. Less still are those distinctions likely to be eliminated by the competition for "good" workers among profit maximizing capitalists, as traditional economic theory would predict. Quite the opposite. The policy ... is used by , employers to control workers in the pursuit of profit.41

Resisting Policies

A second set of employer practices which serve to maintain a divided labour market are the various forms of resistance to governmental policies and programs which would either reduce the size of the surplus population, reduce the incentive of members of the surplus population to accept low-wage work, or would improve their pay or conditions of work. According to Piore:

Analysis of the dual labor market suggests (that) because the "poor" do participate in the economy, certain groups are interested in that participation and how it occurs. Policies aimed at moving the poor out of the secondary market work against the interests of these groups and therefore are in danger of being subverted by them .... there are groups actively interested in the perpetuation of poverty. It is these interests that make new institutions created to work with the poor in the labor market subject to threats of capture as well as of rejection.42

Employers, and organizations representing their interests, routinely resist and subvert measures to improve the lot of secondary workers, including improvements in minimum wage standards, increased unemployment insurance benefits, and other social welfare payments and services. 43 While one issue for employers is the costliness of such measures, a more important one is that they are seen as undermining the necessity, and thus the motivation, of workers to accept low wage employment.44 Equal pay policies with regard to the participation of women in the labour market and human rights legislation regarding the employment of racial and cultural minorities are similarly resisted, and for the same reasons.45 With specific reference to literacy education, some of the employers appearing before the 1979 inquiry into educational leave for workers in Canada stated that they would not encourage or assist their employees to acquire literacy education because, in the words of the inquiry report, "They fear that individuals who upgrade their education will acquire the desire and motivation to move to more remunerative and rewarding employment"