How Recruitment and Human Resources Define "Discrimination."

[paft.livejournal.com]

Advice on how to handle applications from deaf jobseekers, from people working in recruitment and human resources. You can’t ‘discriminate’ -- instead:

I just probably would have let her fill it out. You write a note on the back of it that said ‘not a fit.’

Just accept it and don’t call. You can’t tell her that. Handicapped people, they have more rights than anyone in the world. You just have to accept her application and then just don’t call.

You have to be very careful. In today’s world, they’ll cut your hands off.

Thanks to Daily Kos

ABC News did its own version of Candid Camera, recently. Several actors enacted a scene in a coffee house – two deaf job applicants applying for a kitchen position, and a manager telling them not to bother. I’m happy to relate that many customers reacted with disgust to what they were hearing. A few even confronted the manager and one coffee-drinker demonstrated the bracing merits of making a scene by doing it from across the room. But…

Three people, all of them in either recruitment or human resources, scurried up to the manager afterwards to advise, in discreetly lowered voices, on the “correct” way to handle it. The correct response, they explained, is to just accept the application and then not call the applicant.

I doubt most black or Hispanic viewers, most disabled viewers, or many female viewers, are shocked by this revelation. Those comments about the influence of the deaf as a group (“they have more rights than anyone in the world, ” “They’ll cut your hands off”) are especially familiar. When I worked in corporate America, I frequently heard wildly exaggerated anecdotes painting women, blacks, the disabled, etc. as powerful forces before which employers must cower. Why this amazing clout has still not translated into equitable income and employment levels is a mystery.

There are two points I’d like to make. First, this is why Affirmative Action is necessary. Employers and recruiters are quite capable of writing “don’t bother” on applications and, when asked about the dearth of minorities, women, etc., batting their eyes innocently and insisting that they just couldn’t find anyone in those groups who were qualified. AA acknowledges that reality. Without it, laws against racial and sexual discrimination would barely be worth the paper they’re printed on.

And second, anyone looking for a job, including white males with no physical disability, should be concerned about this. More and more employers are screening out the jobless or those with credit problems. “Not a fit” can end up being written on your application too, not because of your qualifications or your ability, but because you are unemployed and/or in debt.

Crossposted from ThoughtcrimesThoughtcrimes

Comments

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

they know they essentially cannot fire or lay off should they need to without asking for a very expensive lawsuit that even if they win will cost them tens of thousands of dollars.

Source?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv23n1/deleire.pdf

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Don't see anything there that supports your assertion about termination costs. The article speculatively references accommodation costs -- and makes an oblique reference to some poorly substantiated assertion about termination costs elsewhere.

LOL at Cato Institute optional.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

That's because you know as well as I do that proving a negative is impossible.

What is someone going to go out and interview companies in their reasons why companies do not hire the disabled? Do you really expect them to get any answer save "our company is in full compliance with all ADA laws now please leave the premises"?

That said the point I was making was not a quantitative one. All it would take is 1 single solitary case where an employer refrained from hiring a minority because of a fear of ADA or EEOC legal action somewhere down the line and my point is proved. Further since this is an internet forum and not an academic or policy paper I do not feel compelled to spend 10,000 words outlining all the possible ways in which the ADA and EEOC can cause negative outcomes for those they are seeking to protect. The Cato article however provides the one really important piece of information though, the actual measurements of the outcomes for the disabled following the passage of the ADA...

"ada caused a decrease of about 8 percentage points in
the employment rate of men with disabilities."

That is the rate of employment for disabled men decreased 8 percentage points AFTER the ADA was passed compared to BEFORE it was passed. Why this is so is rather irrelevant as whatever the cause it is obviously an unintended consequence of the law.

The key point here is that passing a law that has the effect of killing all non Americans and calling it the humanitarian solution to world peace act does not actually make it a humanitarian law and just because the goal of the ADA is to increase employment and opportunity of the disabled does not mean that it actually meets that goal.



Now that said the article I posted did not try to make the point that fear of legal action was a disincentive to hiring disabled workers, however it did reference a study which did make that claim...

"A 1998 study by Daron Acemoglu and Joshua Angrist
confirmed those results by using data from a different
source. Acemoglu and Angrist noted that, in principle, the
antidiscrimination mandate of ada that allows disabled
workers to sue their employers for wrongful termination
could increase the employment of disabled workers by
reducing turnover. Acemoglu and Angrist argued, however,
that such “firing costs” are more likely to have caused a
reduction in the hiring of disabled workers, an argument
confirmed by their empirical analysis of data from the Current
Population Survey. They found that ada caused a large
drop in the number of weeks worked by disabled men but
no drop in the number of weeks worked by nondisabled
men; the drop in weeks worked by disabled men appeared
to result from less hiring of disabled workers."


Note the bolded section there?

So lol at pastorlenny is optional.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Actually, all that would be necessary would be stats on such litigation. I'm not sure what you're on about here.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Lets see,

My argument is that fear of litigation in regards to negative job outcomes prevents some companies from ever hiring minorities/the disabled in the first place.

You then ask me for stats on such litigation?

So you want me to provide you with stats on litigation that never occurs because companies actively act to prevent the situations in which it can occur.

Where precisely can I get stats on what DID NOT HAPPEN?

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

So it's an unfounded fear.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Human beings are an irrational lot. We can't really change that part of ourselves in any kind of systemic way, so in most circumstances the best that can be done after recognizing this is how to work within the confines of human nature, not above it.