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Discrimination and the Roma Community 2014
help these people but that they took advantage of him and now he’s taking no chances. he said he needed two
people for the summer but he already had feelers out through his social networks.
He also mentioned that he has a responsibility to his employees who want co-workers who work hard and they
wouldn’t be very happy if he hired a Roma person.
At the end of the interview, the enterprise mediator invited the manager to use our services and offered him a
short-list of proven workers.
When they followed up after a prudent waiting period they were still unable to get a positive response from
the laundry manager.
It is quite common for business people in charge of hiring to base their rejection of the Roma community on
possible negative repercussions on their business. However, this justification does not exempt them from their
responsibility for this sort of direct discrimination.
5.
Zaragoza.
Employment.
Direct discrimination.
A Roma woman came to the FSG office to tell us that she was
offered a trial day of work as a waitress in a cafeteria. When she finished, the owner and manager of the café told
her that they were very happy with the work she had done and would call her to sign a contract in early May.
The next day when she called to ask when she should come by and what papers she needed to sign the con-
tract, she was told that they had already chosen someone else for the waitress job.
The woman claims that she was not given a chance due to her ethnic background.
6.
Huesca.
Employment.
Direct discrimination.
The coordinator of the FSG team in Huesca reported that that
she contacted a sporting goods store in Huesca after seeing a job offer in the paper. They requested an ap-
prentice for a sporting goods store. The FSG introduced itself as the Acceder employment programme and the
company was very keen on collaborating and made an appointment.
In the interview, as soon as it came out that Acceder was part of the Fundación Secretariado Gitano, the person
from the company became less keen to collaborate. She insisted that she herself was not racist but would not
hire Roma because they shoplift in her store.
The store is on the street named Ramón y Cajal, close to the Perpetuo Socorro neighbourhood where there is a
high percentage of Roma population. She said that she had seen many cases of shoplifting by Roma. She spoke
of a specific case where she filed charges and there was a hearing.
The FSG representative tried to explain how unfair it is to judge an entire group based on the actions of a few
and gave her examples of Roma who work at the Foundation and in other companies and of people who have
successfully completed training and found jobs through this programme.
The person tried to justify her opinion saying that it depends on the type of company and asked us to unders-
tand her position. She even asked us not to say that she was reluctant to hire Roma. We told her that the FSG’s
mission was to raise awareness about these types of attitudes based on prejudice.
This is a clear example of the difficulty encountered by Roma people in finding a job. These are barriers which
are difficult to overcome no matter how much organisations such as ours engage in awareness-raising and dia-
logue. Direct discrimination, prohibited under Directive 2000/43/EC, is once again at the forefront in these cases.
7.
Huesca.
Employment.
Direct Discrimination.
The FSG received a job offer from a woman who approached
the FSG office in Huesca. The woman said that she needed a person to take care of her granddaughter for a few
hours in the afternoon and did not have anyone, which is why she came to us for help. When the FSG told her
about its employment programme, she was pleasantly surprised.