Would you call this discrimination?

[doug3030]

I walked into a shop in Melbourne's western suburbs today.

I saw a sign on the wall that read:

"Female staff required for Ramadan - Arabic speakers preferred"

Is that discrimination?

Compare it with a supermarket advertising for "Female English-speaking staff required for Easter".

And the stupid thing is that if they were bright enough to write the sign in Arabic, then the rest of us would not even know about it.

Cheers

Doug

[Big Shed]

There is a world of difference between "preferred" and "required".

[robbygard]

There is a world of difference between "preferred" and "required".

indeed ... i worked in employment when the discrimination laws first came in (late seventies or early eighties that was) ... at that time it was also recognised that there could be inherent requirements of a job ... so for instance, one could advertise for a chef who read and spoke chinese ... but not a chef who was chinese ... if the clientele of the shop consisted of mostly arabic speakers, i believe it could be so adjudged ... if it had asked for a specific nationality, then i believe it would have been discrimination, even with the word preferred


so long ago now .. things may well have changed

regards david

edit to add

we were also trained to be aware of (and refuse) a requirement that was not inherent ... in the example of the chef for instance, it would be appropriate if food ingredients were ONLY labelled in chinese ... and the language requirements would have had to be specified (eg cantonese/mandarin) and have had to have a reasonable requirement as well ...

regards

david