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 just figured he was magical!
discrimination can be for rational or irrational reasons. i agree it’s not an inherently bad thing, though people today only seem to use it negatively. they don’t see that making choices isthe same thing as discriminating.
it’s like they aren’t taught what similies are, or even know what a thesaurus is for.
i am for discrimination for rational reasons. i think it’s stupid to discriminate for irrational ones.
but we all have to make choices, therefore we all have to discern/discriminate to make those choices.
Wrong. Those tats are one of the first things I'm going to be concerned about because they make you look unclean and show poor judgement making skills
i believe in freedom of association. i believe employers are free to hire who they want. i don’t believe he has a right to work anywhere he wants because employers are free to not hire him.
I would have no trouble hiring someone with tatoos like that for a job involving manual labor.
He’s absolutely right that it’s discrimination. So what? I discriminate every morning when I brush my teeth with toothpaste instead of hair gel. I discriminate when I drink wine with my dinner instead of anti-freeze. There’s nothing wrong with discrimination, and if we didn’t all use it, we wouldn’t stay alive for very long.
The employer is discriminating in not wanting someone who looks like a graffiti wall to represent his business. Good for him.
why post on threads you complain about being posted here? why not post some threads you think should be here? why the insults?
Starbucks is hiring. He could be a hair dresser.There are plenty of places that will hire those with tatoos. This idea that you can make yourself a spectacle and not reap the consequences is naive and passive aggressive.
Considered replies are always wellcome and I agree that body art can degenerate into a fetish for people with “other directed” personalities, people who can only know themselves as they are reflected in the reactions of others which is a straight up human tragedy. Keep in mind that republicans were the cutting edge vanguard of their day back when the whims of kings and their undeserving aristocracy knew arrogance as their motivic godhead.
Tats are fine by me. I have two. Short sleeve shirts cover them. No issues ever working professionally or in manual labor.
Ya takes the ink, ya takes yer chances. His tats guaranteed him a life in fast food service. No shame in that. If he’s got an issue with that, he already made his choices. He should take the matter up with himself.
replace “black&d” with “p”
Ergo, if you are turned down for any reason it's discrimination./s
i agree. it may not be the type of character an employer wants their workers to show!
Yep. My first thought was, "Tatoos are the least of your problems." Someone needs to introduce this guy to the works of John T. Molloy. Or the book by Miss Manners on how to raise kids, which shows exactly the "good people have good manners" belief system that Molloy talks about. Everything you do, everything you wear, even how you stand tells people things about you. It's your job to make sure the messages you're sending are the ones you want them to hear.
I would have hired him as a painter, if he claimed experience and agreed to wear painter whites and a respectable hat, but wouldn’t have been surprised if he wasn’t around in a week or so.
Some go over the top, in my opinion. Like why do I have to know about his baby’s birth, about his baby’s mama; why junk up my eyesight (lol) and push this as something good for someone impressible. His right to do this of course, but these tats of today seem like they are wanting attention (Look at me!) ( I’m tough, I’m cool!). A real guy knows what to do seriously. I don’t blame the company for turning him down because they should have the right to do so in regarding attitudes and appearances.
Son, seriously. Grown ups are talking here.
Go away and learn to read and write like an adult. Then come back and attempt to have some meaningful dialogue.
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