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Cases of discrimination in employment
She was told that the student selected (in this case non-Roma) was a good fit for the profile of the company
and we explained that collaborating with the FSG could be a good opportunity to get some positive references
of Roma people and do away with stereotypes and prejudices.
The manager of the restaurant claimed to have had a bad experience with a Roma employee and said that she
wanted nothing more to do with people from that ethnic group.
Another case of racial or ethnic discrimination in access to employment.
13.
Badajoz.
Employment.
Direct discrimination.
A Roma woman working for a cleaning company told us that she
felt discriminated against by one of her company’s customers. The victim did office cleaning and sensed that
the client did not want her there.
A few days later the head of the cleaning company told the victim that she was being moved to another loca-
tion and would no longer be working for that client.
14.
Mérida.
Employment.
Direct discrimination.
The company Golden Buyer was interviewing for two openings.
Two Acceder Programme participants (sisters) sent in their resumes but changed their surname from Silva to
“Sila”. They did this in the hopes of at least getting to the interview stage. The two sisters were short-listed
after the interview and, along with one other candidate, advanced to the last stage of the process which was a
role play. After the role play one of the sisters asked if there was any type of person to whom they should not
offer their services (she was thinking about minors) and the response from the trainer was: “Gypsies no. They’re
driving down gold prices and they’re dishonest.” The two sisters looked at one another and felt uncomfortable
and decided to speak with the trainer and tell her that they themselves are Roma. The trainer was surprised and
immediately apologised. The two sisters were informed that same day that they were not selected for the job.
Given that there were only three finalists for two opening (two of the finalists being the Roma sisters), they
figured that at least one of them should have been hired. The fact that one of the job openings was not filled
is proof of discrimination.
Moreover, the fact that one of the girls was not getting any interview calls until she decided to change her sur-
name and then not only got an interview but made it to the final stage in the hiring process, serves as additional
proof of discrimination.
15.
Badajoz.
Employment.
Direct discrimination.
The FSG established a contact at the recently opened Lizarrán
restaurant in El Faro. The FSG’s standard practice is to introduce themselves as “Acceder Enterprises” and “Incor-
pora La Caixa”. From the very beginning we spoke about the possibility of internship training and the manager
was very open to this. In late October we defined the number of trainees that would be taken on, the back-
ground they should have, number of hours, etc.; the manager even suggested that it was very likely that one of
the interns would be hired.
We put together a short-list of the most appropriate candidates who could benefit the most from the expe-
rience. We then forwarded CVs of the pre-selected candidates to the manager who would then choose the
two interns. This e-mail was sent from the FSG’s labour counselling account (@gitanos.org, with the FSG footer)
rather than from the labour market intermediation account (@accederempresas.com, with the Acceder footer).
Fifteen minutes after sending the e-mail, the manager sent back the following response:
“I’m sorry but I have informed the franchises and this is not going to work; human resources tells us that
they have to take a closer look at this. We will stay in touch, thanks.”