Discrimination in Job Advertising

[Dre89]

Awhile back on the news businesses in Australia run by Asians were getting in trouble for listing their job advertismentsin their native language, presumably so only people of their race (or possibly those that can speak the language) could apply.

This is apparently illegal, but I can't understand why it should be. I don't understand why small private businesses should be obliged to open up their advertisments to people who they clearly don't want.
I also don't understand why it's wrong to discriminate with regards to who you hire. If it's your business and you pay the wages of the employee, you shouldn't have to be forced to interview or hire someone you don't want.
In many cases, being able to the speak the language actually serves as a job skill. The majority of the customers of these Asian-run businesses are probably Asian, many with weak English, and so being able to speak the language is a job skill.

If anyone agrees with the law that advertisement discrimination should be legal, I'd like to know why. I mean, I could possibly understand if we're talking about public corporations or operations that are subsidised by the government, but these are small private businesses, so I don't see the reasoning at all.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Awhile back on the news businesses in Australia run by Asians were getting in trouble for listing their job advertismentsin their native language, presumably so only people of their race (or possibly those that can speak the language) could apply.

This is apparently legal, but I can't understand why it should be. I don't understand why small private businesses should be obliged to open up their advertisments to people who they clearly don't want.
I also don't understand why it's wrong to discriminate with regards to who you hire. If it's your business and you pay the wages of the employee, you shouldn't have to be forced to interview or hire someone you don't want.
In many cases, being able to the speak the language actually serves as a job skill. The majority of the customers of these Asian-run businesses are probably Asian, many with weak English, and so being able to speak the language is a job skill.

If anyone agrees with the law that advertisement discrimination should be legal, I'd like to know why. I mean, I could possibly understand if we're talking about public corporations or operations that are subsidised by the government, but these are small private businesses, so I don't see the reasoning at all.

I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding your view. In the second bolded area of your quote, did you mean "illegal"? Forgive me, but either that's a typo, or I'm apparently too much of an airhead in thinking there's a contradicting point between the second bolded area and the last bolded area.

As for my view, I don't believe it should be illegal to advertise work in one's native language. It means they're looking for specific people, and not necessarily native to their country of origin, or so it can be assumed. They do that all the time here in America - particularly with Spanish ads - so I don't see the big deal with foreign ads in an Asian language in Australia. I don't know what their (Australia) policy is on free speech and freedom of the press, but I'd like to think discouraging a privately owned business from advertising in a language of their choice infringes upon that. I mean, it's not like they're rallying for an overthrow of the government or anything, I would imagine, and if someone really wanted to know what was written, libraries and translators (hell, even smartphones these days can translate text) aren't exactly hard to come by.

Rambling aside, the point is if they want to advertise in their language, they should have the freedom to do so. They're not hurting anyone.

 

[Dre89]

Yeah sorry I meant illegal.
The anti-discrimination policy is just a waste of time. They're just going to end up hiring the Asian person anyway.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

With regards to the original post, language requirements actually make sense and I believe are in fact legal. I'm pretty sure for example that becoming an English Professor, one must learn English. Likewise, if you're in a customer service position and dealing with large numbers of Chinese customers some of which know English as a second language, knowing Mandarin and/or Cantonese would assit in your job.

Yeah sorry I meant illegal.
The anti-discrimination policy is just a waste of time. They're just going to end up hiring the Asian person anyway.

I can see what you mean by that, if a person is racist, they're going to think that a particular ethnic group is worse at the job anyway and shouldn't be hired. But I'm sure that if there's credible proof of this kind of thing actually occurring, I'm sure they can be taken to court. This would also be a smear against their business image and would probably damage their reputation, and cause boycotts and that kind of thing. Yes, it's difficult to enforce, but I don't think it really should be legal, at least we can catch people stupid enough to do it overtly.

But that said, I really don't want to live in a society where aside from say acting in theatre/film/modelling, there are job requirements regarding one's skin colour or gender. That would be blatant unfair discrimination. And I think it may open the door to essentially paying certain ethnicities less money for essentially the same job, by making two allegedly separate positions that would actually just perform the same labour. This would essentially set back civil rights to the 1950s.

 

[Dre89]

But why should I not get to discriminate with who I pay?

If it's my money, I should be allowed to choose who is eligibile for it. Same as who is allowed in my house etc.

 

[Claire Diviner]

On top of that, it's not like they're saying that there's actual discrimination against race, while we can still very much assume that racial discrimination is an issue anyway. For all we know, they just want to hire people who can speak, read, write, and understand their language - ethnicity be damned.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

But why should I not get to discriminate with who I pay?

If it's my money, I should be allowed to choose who is eligibile for it. Same as who is allowed in my house etc.

You're allowed to discriminate based on things like whether they're qualified for the job, or maybe if they get on with you. The fact of the matter is, is that you're still allowed to make that choice, just not based upon racism. Discrimination based on racism is wrong and I think as a society we should work to remove it. I'm glad our government is behind us on this. The fact is, is that there's no rational justification for racism and I don't want to see minorities being ostracised just for being in a minority and being poorer as a result of it. Do we really want to entrench things like how Aboriginal and Tores Strait Islander People have on average lower life-expectancies and are generally of a lower socioeconomic status?

On top of that, it's not like they're saying that there's actual discrimination against race, while we can still very much assume that racial discrimination is an issue anyway. For all we know, they just want to hire people who can speak, read, write, and understand their language - ethnicity be damned.

I believe I stated in my previous post:

With regards to the original post, language requirements actually make sense and I believe are in fact legal. I'm pretty sure for example that becoming an English Professor, one must learn English. Likewise, if you're in a customer service position and dealing with large numbers of Chinese customers some of which know English as a second language, knowing Mandarin and/or Cantonese would assit in your job.

I agree.

 

[Kal]

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[Bob Jane T-Mart]

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here and try and reiterate Dre's point: why aren't you allowed to discriminate based on race when it is your money being used to pay your employee? This is not affirming that this sort of racism is ok, but instead is about individual rights. In other words, you can believe that you should never let race factor into your decision to hire someone while still feeling that it should not be illegal for one to take race into consideration. To many people (Libertarians in particular, I'm sure) making it illegal to refuse to hire someone based on race is just an example of the government trying to push a moral philosophy on its citizens.

I can literally quote myself:

The fact is, is that there's no rational justification for racism and I don't want to see minorities being ostracised just for being in a minority and being poorer as a result of it. Do we really want to entrench things like how Aboriginal and Tores Strait Islander People have on average lower life-expectancies and are generally of a lower socioeconomic status?

I really don't want to live in a society where aside from say acting in theatre/film/modelling, there are job requirements regarding one's skin colour or gender. That would be blatant unfair discrimination. And I think it may open the door to essentially paying certain ethnicities less money for essentially the same job, by making two allegedly separate positions that would actually just perform the same labour. This would essentially set back civil rights to the 1950s.

Hell, you could even have positions that are like, "black cleaner", and "white cleaner" and pay the "white cleaner" more than the "black cleaner", because you can choose how much each gets paid right? Because it's your money, right? And that would be totally okay?

Ultimately, I think individual rights are not all encompassing, especially in situations like this. I'm not saying that each company has to hire a black person or a white person, what I'm saying is that race shouldn't factor into your decision to hire them and that it's okay to mandate this by law.

 

[Kal]

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[Bob Jane T-Mart]

Quoting yourself isn't helping, Bob. There is a disconnect between your personal philosophy and the government enforcing this philosophy. In other words, there are two overlapping rights at play:

1) The right to hire whomever you want
2) The right to equal opportunity, irrespective of ethnicity

The right to equal opportunity doesn't infringe a great deal on the right to hire whomever you want. You can still pick any applicant, it's just your reasons for picking an applicant can't include unfair discriminatory views.

And it's not as if hiring whomever you want is somehow more sacred than the right to equal opportunity, because there are some occupations where you aren't allowed to hire people if they have a criminal record.

and so far all you've done is explain why you dislike the practice of hiring based on ethnicity, not why it should be the government's problem. Though you mention that individual rights are not "all encompassing," which I think is a step in the right direction

I think it is the government's problem if one ethnicity is lagging behind another in terms of educational attainment, socioeconomic status and healthcare. This increases income inequality, suffering and often crime. I think it is the government's problem if people start paying certain ethnicities more for the same jobs than others. That's blatantly disgusting to anyone with even a modicum of a sense of fairness or justice. How the hell can anyone reasonably say that "they're well within their right to do that"? There's a reason the government has laws, it's protect the rights of people and to try to make society fairer. And who the hell else can going to fix this kind of problem?

 

[Dre89]

But the example I provided isn't necessarily racial discrimination, they were just looking for people who could speak the language (although admittedly they probably wanted someone of the same race). All it does is waste time, because they're still going to end up choosing the person who can speak their language anyway.
Again, an employer should have the right to do whatever they want with their own money. As long as they're paying the minimum wage, the employer should be allowed to have discrepancies in wages for whatever reason. If a job is worth $50 000, and for whatever reason I pay an employer $70 000, that shouldn't mean that I now need to pay every person who does that job $70 000, because the job isn't worth that sort of money.
Employers should be free to do whatever they want their money. As Kal said, the govnerment's mentality is infringing on freedom for the sake of imposing a moral philosophy.
If the government wants less educated and employed races in the workforce, then they should give employers an incentive to hire them. Perhaps subsidise part of their wages or something like that. It's not right for the goverment to expect emploers to hire people they don't want at the expense of their own money.

 

[Kal]

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[Bob Jane T-Mart]

Again, an employer should have the right to do whatever they want with their own money. As long as they're paying the minimum wage, the employer should be allowed to have discrepancies in wages for whatever reason. If a job is worth $50 000, and for whatever reason I pay an employer $70 000, that shouldn't mean that I now need to pay every person who does that job $70 000, because the job isn't worth that sort of money.

So you're saying that it's okay for the same employer to pay women less than men for the same job? Or blacks less than whites for the same job? Are you?

Employers should be free to do whatever they want their money. As Kal said, the govnerment's mentality is infringing on freedom for the sake of imposing a moral philosophy.

What is wrong with imposing some kind of moral philosophy? Laws banning things like killing people are laws based upon some kind of moral philosophy.

If the government wants less educated and employed races in the workforce, then they should give employers an incentive to hire them. Perhaps subsidise part of their wages or something like that. It's not right for the goverment to expect emploers to hire people they don't want at the expense of their own money.

No, that's not the point, the point is the law is in place so that everyone is treated fairly. It's the governments business to give everyone of all ethnicities an equal opportunity to taste the fruits of civilisation. If the government wants blacks payed the same as whites for the same work, in the name of you know, fairness, it legislates it. If the government wants to stop people hiring folks of only one ethnicity because of racial discrimination it makes it illegal.

I think you sort of missed the point with your first paragraph, Bob, but your second paragraph is close to what I asked for, though it still leans too closely to "government should enforce my personal morality."

Well, I think we ought to define the role of government here, because I think that if anything is going to be the sticking point on this debate.

 

[Kal]

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[Dre89]

But if the government wants to take an initiative with equal employment opportunities or whatnot, then it should come out of the government's pocket or resoures. That's like me saying that I want to shut down abortion clinics, but it has to come out of your money. It's not fair that pro-choicers should have to finance something they don't support.
Killing and advertising discrimination laws aren't the same thing. Killing is banned because it imposes on the freedom of the victim, and because we are social creatures and killing is anti-social. Regulating job avertising is imposing on that very freedom.
You never have to treat people fairly when it's your own money. An organistion for abused women isn't obliged to also help blind people, because it's 'unfair' that the organistion aids one minority and not the other. If I have $50, I can give it to whoever I want. I don't have to distribute it equally amongst people of various minorities, because it's my money.
It's the same thing. People don't have equal claim to a possession (in this case, money) that's yours. Again, if the government wants equal employment, then give employers an incentive.

As for discrepancies in pay, I don't see anything wrong with that as long as the lower paid employee is still receiving a fair wage. So if a job deserves $50 000, I don't see a problem with a man getting $70 000 for the same job as long as the woman still gets 50. As long as people get what they deserve for their work, the employer should be able to do whatever they want with their money.

 

[Sucumbio]

But if the government wants to take an initiative with equal employment opportunities or whatnot, then it should come out of the government's pocket or resoures.

>.> just sayin' that a government's pocket is only as deep as its people's pockets (taxes). So... yeah. That's why so many people are outraged at the idea of government-backed health insurance that pays for abortions. Because it's federal and not state, they can't just move to another state where their hard earned tax dollars aren't going to go into something like that.

But ya know, that's a lame argument. The government does all kinds of things with its money. If one really doesn't like it, they can write their congressman or move to another country. Or in the case of the US, bog down everything in politics so nothing gets done, lol.

As for discrepancies in pay, I don't see anything wrong with that as long as the lower paid employee is still receiving a fair wage. So if a job deserves $50 000, I don't see a problem with a man getting $70 000 for the same job as long as the woman still gets 50. As long as people get what they deserve for their work, the employer should be able to do whatever they want with their money.

It's funny you mention this because in the US women outnumber men in professional fields but earn half the pay. Is this a fair trend?

 

[Dre89]

I don't think it's fair that women get less pay, but employers shouldn't need to be fair with their money as long as they pay a deserved wage.

Let's say I'm a millionare and I pay a male janitor $200 000 to clean my office, and a female janitor $150 000. Now in both cases that's a ridiculous amount of money to pay someone to clean one room, it's just that one is slightly more ridiculous than the other. Are you saying that because I'm playing the male 200, that it's unfair that the female only gets 150, which is a stupid amount to begin with, and that I'm obliged to also pay her 200?

 

[Kal]

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[Sucumbio]

...that I'm obliged to also pay her 200?

Why do you do this? lol

An employer *you isn't -obligated- to do anything, laws aside (since your discussion isn't really about law but about morality). If you want to remain sexist, that is, you can pay women less than men. But if you pay women and men differently, thereby drawing a line between them you instantly employ sexism. If that's okay with YOU, then cool, but most people on Earth eschew sexism. If you don't know why, then I suggest you look it up b/c that's not worthy of discussion imho.

 

[Dre89]

Kal- You're missing the point. The woman is being paid fairly if she gets the money she deserves for the job. How I decide to pay another employer isn;t any of her business as long as she gets the salary she is entitled too.

Sucumbio- I like how you ignore the point of the argument. I know people don't like sexism. The point was she is being treated very well by getting payed way more than what her job deserves. She doesn't have a right to complain when she is already getting way more than she deserves. Her getting 150 and the man getting 200 is much better than both of them just getting 40.

 

[Sucumbio]

Sucumbio- I like how you ignore the point of the argument. I know people don't like sexism. The point was she is being treated very well by getting payed way more than what her job deserves. She doesn't have a right to complain when she is already getting way more than she deserves. Her getting 150 and the man getting 200 is much better than both of them just getting 40.

But unless you state the reason why she's getting less than he, despite them both being more than "standard," it's sexism. You have yet to state why she would get less than the man. If it's because she has less experience, for instance, perfectly fine. People get experience bonuses all the time, and it has nothing to do with their sex. You on the other hand are just throwing out there a hypothetical where a man and a woman both get paid above the normal salary for a given job, and yet the man makes even more than the woman, AND FOR NO OTHER REASON THAT SHE'S A WOMAN. See? Sexism.

So, kindly state -why- she should get less. If it's as I suggested, that she simply has less experience than the man, perfectly fine. But say that, dude, obviously.

 

[Kal]

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[Sucumbio]

That's an interesting point, now that you mention it. Does not her "right to complain" justify the government's right to get involved on her behalf? Otherwise would her complaints not just fall on deaf ears? The government (i.e. court, lawsuits, etc.) is pretty much the only viable entity that can fight on her behalf, unless she were to take matters into her own hands, which to me seems the worst option (as in she holds the manager at gunpoint demanding she be paid equally, or else kinda thing). Of course this seems unusually dichotomous, so perhaps there's something I'm missing??

 

[Kal]

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[Sucumbio]

well okay, then I suppose I should ask you why you think it's the government's duty as opposed to someone else? Not that I can even guess as to who else it could be (that was kinda my point, it can really only be the government).

 

[Kal]

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[adumbrodeus]

The reason is because the government has established a compelling interest at stopping racial discrimination, this has been established by quite a bit of case law, most pertinent case here off the top of my head would probably be Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. V United States. As far as direct authority, this would be established under the Civil Rights act, which as long as it withstands legal challenges in terms of the Federal government's ability to regulate in that area, prevents racial discrimination.

There is no one source for this authority, it varies depending on area, however in this particular area the commerce clause would probably cited which is perfectly applicable under standing case law (because well, under existing case law there's pretty much no way for something to not be interstate commerce).

So there ya go, civil rights act supported by a compelling government interest in racial equity, allowed by the commerce clause, that's why it's illegal.

 

[Dre89]

But paying an employee way more money than they deserve is almost like an act of charity really, because you're giving them money that they haven't really worked for. To me, saying that the boss who already pays his female employee exceptionally well needs to pay her more is like saying that a charity that helps a man is somehow obligated to help a woman too.

A better example is probably tipping a waiter at a restaurant. If a customer tips a female waiter with $100 and a male one with $200, does she have a right to complain? I don't see much difference between this and the boss example. In both cases, a person is paying for a service, but then also handing out additional money that the employee did not work for, so to me that is a charitable act.

 

[Kal]

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[Sucumbio]

not to mention "deserve" is a completely subjective term... you may think that x job "deserves" y pay and so if you pay y+100 to a man and y+50 to a woman, you're still paying them both more than y, but the fact of business is that if your only reason as an employer is to variate the amount you're +'ing over the "standard" or "deserved" salary based -solely- on sex, it is by default sexism *duh*. I'm not sure why this isn't clicking for you. Are you sure you're not once again trying to re-argue something one of your professors told you in class and because you don't know the full argument you're just making a fool of yourself? no offense intended, it happens...

then again this thread started with the premise that foreign language business owners were being chastised for publishing want ads in their native tongue in a newspaper read by default language speakers, and that they should have that right. so perhaps if we were to get back on topic instead of meandering around this obvious waste of time in "paying someone based on sex isn't sexism" would prove more worthwhile.

 

[Kal]

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[Dre89]

But I should be able to be as sexist or racist or whatever when it comes to handing out money to people that isn't in exchange for a service. That money is my property, so I should be free to do what I want with it.

Really the only issue is that the money is in the wages. If I pay both employees 50 in wages, but then send 150 to the man and just 100 to the woman, does that make it ok? It's not in their wages, it's just one person donating money to two other people.

Again, I refer to the charity point. If I donate money for prostate cancer research, I'm not suddenly obliged to donate towards breast cancer research as well. This is because it is an act of charity. It's an act of charity because I did not receive any service in return. It doesn't matter if the reason why I only donate to prostate cancer research is because I'm a sexist pig who thinks that men are superior to women, it's my money.

 

[adumbrodeus]

But paying an employee way more money than they deserve is almost like an act of charity really, because you're giving them money that they haven't really worked for. To me, saying that the boss who already pays his female employee exceptionally well needs to pay her more is like saying that a charity that helps a man is somehow obligated to help a woman too.

A better example is probably tipping a waiter at a restaurant. If a customer tips a female waiter with $100 and a male one with $200, does she have a right to complain? I don't see much difference between this and the boss example. In both cases, a person is paying for a service, but then also handing out additional money that the employee did not work for, so to me that is a charitable act.

Because payment isn't charity, it isn't a gift. Legally payment is owed for work and because of that the government is able to stipiulate certain conditions on the payment.

 

[Dre89]

Which is why I provided the example where the extra money that their work did not deserve is not in their wages, but is simply donated to their bank accounts as non-work gesture.

 

[adumbrodeus]

And the point I'm making is they're not comparable. Wages are legally different then the non-wage gifts and fall under different classifacations because of a variety of abuses which have occured in the past. The government's ability to deal with private industry discrimination has survived multiple court challenges and is constitutionally legal.

Is it perhaps, not fair? Perhaps it can at times be unfair, but the prevelence of a variety of forms of discrimination against women establishes it as a societal necessity to deal with the people who would abuse the lack of protection of legal equity. ]

Anyway it's not like you're obligated to pay equally, the government will only step in if there's a pattern of abuse.

 

[JoshCube2]

The problem with job discrimination is that there's so many loop holes that its not even funny. According to my Race and Ethnicity class, an employer can fire anyone over any discriminatory action with this being impossible to detect. Example; an employer could fire someone for being black, but file the actual reason as something else. This makes the EEOC completely pointless in the U.S.