Posted on 10/24/2014 10:49:00 AM PDT by Impala64ssa
Is this a violation of the first amendment? A man is left confused and frustrated after he feels he was denied a job based on his tattoos.
A man is left confused and frustrated after he feels he was denied a job based on his tattoos.
Bill Roach reached out to Eyewitness News because he thinks he was a victim of discrimination and was treated unfairly.
He said the tattoos aren’t gang related and shouldn’t be an issue. He’s proud of them, and they all mean something to him.
“My right arm is nothing but music,” he said. “You know, songs.”
Some mean more than others. He has the lip prints of his wife on his neck, plus a tribute to his first-born son, Ryker.
“So, my neck is the footprint from when he was born, his name, and his birth date,” said Roach.
Now those tattoos mean something else entirely – difficulty in finding a job.
He recently applied for a position in the medical industry, and even though he passed a test, he didn’t get called back for a first interview.
“She said, ‘No, the only reason we’re not hiring you is because of your tattoos,'” said Roach. “I don’t know what to do. I feel like I was bullied. I feel like I was treated unfairly and misled, and I don’t know why.”
Eyewitness News isn’t naming the company, because it didn’t break any laws. But, we did reach out to the company officials. They said they can’t comment because it’s “a personnel matter.”
“We know that every action or choice has a consequence,” said Holly Culhane of PAS Associates, a human resources consulting company.
She said it’s a problem employees have all the time, but there’s a difference between legal and illegal discrimination.
“There are certain areas that you cannot discriminate based on,” said Culhane. “So, we’re talking about race, color, religion, sex, national origin, as example of those.”
That’s why she said employers should make their practices clear.
“So, they might want to ask the question up front or they might want to just ask for the policy,” she said.
But, Roach said that’s exactly what he did and was told by a manager that it wouldn’t be a problem.
“I pulled my stuff up, and I showed them I had tattoos,” said Roach, “and I wanted to be up front, because to avoid wasting my time as well as theirs … and he encouraged me to take the test and said, you know, don’t worry about it.”
He said he’s never had a problem with his tattoos before and is well qualified and deserves a shot. He said he wouldn’t have been upset if they told him up front. Instead he had to take a day off work and now feels like his time and money were wasted.
"If I have a family member that’s sick or dying, I don’t care if the person’s (working in the medical job) got tattoos,” he said. “If they’re there to help my family member and here to save their life, I think the last thing going through someone’s mind when they’re going through an emergency is that I have tattoos. I’m sure they’re more concerned about, ‘Help my loved one.’”
Roach said he is writing a letter to Congress, seeking to make tattoo discrimination illegal unless they are hateful or gang related.
As tattoos become more and more prevalent in society, we need to decide if this issue is covered under a 1st amendment or should it be left up to the employer. You decide…..
I am an employer. If you are tatted up, I am not hiring.
Regardless of the whether you or I agree with another’s discrimination or choice, that person is free to choose as he sees fit as long as it doesn’t interfere with another’s freedom.
1st amendment, the right to have free speech unimpeded by the government.
Wisdom, knowing when and how to use your free speech.
Idiocy, thinking that the first amendment applies to your future employer.
As it should be. I’d personally be more upset about business being forced to hire tatted people (and I are one) than businesses willingly choosing not to. And I’m not upset about that in the slightest.
It’s the entitlement mentality. They ‘feel’ that since they are all unique little snowflakes (as their ‘special’ everywhere tats show, that the world must serve them. they have been told that all their life.
The world however, sees things differently.
I would hire him to clean out my septic tank, by hand, naked so that all those swell tattoos could spend time just where they belong. That would cover them up!
QUESTION: What do you call a med student who graduates in the bottom 2 percent of his class?
ANSWER: Doctor.
_____________________________
The point is - I have little reason to respect someone EVEN IF THEY ARE A DOCTOR if I know “whats underneath”.
Ha ha ha! That right was overridden long ago.
What they mean to me is he's an idiot.
IMO, the federal government is also acting unconstitutionally when they interfere with a private company’s freedom to discriminate and choose as well.
One may think that is frightful because it would allow companies to hire and fire at will (bound, of course, by the contractual agreement with its employees).
Yes, freedom allows unfairness. But the alternative is worse - government forced “fairness” according to some self-interested politician’s or bureaucrat’s ambitions and priorities.
A society built upon the individual’s freedom to choose (discrimination) is a healthy society that respects the rights of individuals to make their own private decisions.
As Milton Friedman said, “A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will have neither. A society that puts freedom ahead of equality will have a great deal of both.”
Thats a good candidate for the Unnngh thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1235991/posts?page=2812
He looks like most of my co-workers. No reason he could not work in a factory.
I would, just to see a dead guy deliver a pizza. :-)
“I see tattoos and I think disease, automatically. I don’t care who you are.”
And drug use, don’t know the exact percentage but I would bet it is over 95%.
Yeah, but would you eat the pizza?
Spare me the Millennialist mumbo-jumbo. If you look like a freak, expect to be treated like a freak. Vote however you want. Look however you want. And be man enough to accept the consequences.
Oilfield service companies would hire him for manual labor but I can tell by his candy ass look he wouldn’t be there for a 2nd day.
I probably went through 10-15 whiney little snots just like him in a single year.
Yeah, unless it was Ebola.
I think their is a significant difference between getting tattoos to display among the people you select, and getting tattooed to the point that they define you.
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