Help Expose Discrimination Against Unemployed Workers in Hiring!

[Dulcinea]

Unemployedworkers.org has helped to uncover a disturbing practice in today's already-tough job market: some employers, staffing firms and recruiters are explicitly excluding job applicants based on their being unemployed -- or based on a certain duration of unemployment. To the extent that this particular kind of discriminatory exclusion is practiced by employers or their agents, it makes finding new work for millions of jobless Americans that much more difficult.

We've begun shining a light on this discriminatory exclusion. A number of unemployed workers contacted us recently, describing how they had been informed directly -- in writing, in person, or by phone -- that they could not be considered for a specific job opening simply because they were not currently employed, or because they had been unemployed for a specified period. Their stories helped provide real-life examples for testimony by our colleague Christine Owens, National Employment Law Project executive director, at an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hearing earlier this year.

Now, federal legislation sponsored by Representatives Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Hank Johnson of Georgia would ban the discriminatory exclusion of unemployed workers from consideration for jobs. The Fair Employment Opportunity Act of 2011, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives July 12, is designed to prohibit the perverse catch-22 that requires workers to have a job before they can get a job.

This discriminatory practice is bad for unemployed workers, it's bad for the economy, and it's bad for employers as well. We're working to end it. But we need your help.
If you have recently been told directly and specifically -- in writing, in person or by phone -- that you could not be considered for employment explicitly because you are unemployed or you are "not currently employed," we want to know the details of that experience.

http://unemployedworkers.org/page/s/Unemployed_Discrimination_Experience

[BlueJazz]

1. To me, Loyalty is a big deal. If a person already has a job and is treated well, why would...

...I want to hire them...spend the money and time to train them knowing that any day they'll leave me to go
"Try" somewhere else ?? (grass is greener and all that)
I'd much rather take a person who is unemployed and will MUCH appreciate the job and will do everything to keep the job.