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California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

reuters.com

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Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#441

Post by rpiguy »

person_of_color wrote: post #410
rpiguy wrote: post #401

As an American I never really understood how bad the caste system was until I went to an Indian restaurant and arrived a few minutes before it opened for dinner. The owner, an Indian gentlemen, invited me into the restaurant rather than making me wait until it opened. He was exceedingly polite and even offered me a complimentary cup of tea while I waited for the restaurant to open. Then he barked something in an Indi…

Report them.

I thought about it, but I am not sure what I would report them for.

For example, in the US you can legally bring your unpaid servants to the US on a B-1 visa.

Conversely, if he is a paid employee and legally migrated with the family then there is nothing to be done about it.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#442

Post by wonderwonder »

"At Cisco, the unnamed employee reported Iyer to human resources in November 2016 for outing him as a Dalit to colleagues. Iyer allegedly retaliated, but Cisco determined caste discrimination was not illegal and issues continued through 2018, the lawsuit states."

If this is accurate, that's pretty messed up. If a private company, especially one of Cisco's stature knew of any form of harassment and then decided that this type of harassment is fine because its not technically illegal they should be punished. Harassment at work for any reason is never ok, work should be a space where you are judged on your productivity level and attitude, not on the place of birth of your ancestors.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#443

Post by [deleted] »

ethbro wrote: post #339
walt0 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I joined the private sector instead of the government sector, is that these issues are much much worse in the government sector. I was brainwashed to belive that merit will be valued in the private sector by the HR department and the managers. Which its not in the few places I have worked at. I'm not even low-caste but still faced these issues. My dad worked for the government for 30 years and he was not p…

Any discrimination and groupthink seems intensified in workplaces with (1) little reassignment, (2) long tenures, & (3) little external, objective performance feedback. E.g. government and many portions of academia. People who don't support it leave, and people who are ambivalent adopt the attitudes of their remaining colleagues.

[deleted]

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#444

Post by wobbly_bush »

randomguy2379 wrote: post #282
peroporque wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't people just change their last name? I imagine if suddenly everyone's last name was Gupta, that kind of discrimination would become difficult.

An even better approach is to just change your religion. I was born a hindu dalit but I converted and so have many of my friends and family. Religious conversions have become so common in India that states have started to bring out laws to curtail it. Casteism is a construct of Hinduism and other religions don't suffer from it in the same way as Hinduism does. So you can change your religion , your name and claim tha…

The other religions in India haven't given up on casteism - https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/Focus-on-quota-...

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#445

Post by frabbit »

furyroad wrote: post #343
hiyer wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think caste discrimination does not exist in TN just because of this, you are fooling yourself. Politically powerful castes like Vanniyars and Gounders still discriminate against Dalits and other castes, especially in rural areas.

I don't disagree. The powerful classes still dominate the lower classes. Caste system is deeply rooted in the culture for thousand of years. It will take a very long time and massive efforts to eradicate it. Self-respect movement was one of the early efforts in the right direction and it had found great success in my opinion. I attribute my life progress to the effects of Self-respect movement. I was born in a poor l…

I don't have anything informative to add, but wanted to comment that I liked reading your story. Well done.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#446

Post by dredmorbius »

walt0 wrote: post #302
42_ wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know why such a law came into existence? Because of atrocities against "lower" castes which wouldn't even be investigated. But most laws in India end up being misused. (For example dowry harassment laws.)

No other country has such laws. It's against even the basic magna carta principles. I know about "victims" who lie about the accusitions in these cases, the local community knows that its a lie but people are still guilty until proven innocent. I disagree with this, even though I faced such discrimination. P.S That does not mean discrimination does not take place or that there are no genuine complaints.

There are in fact preumption-of-validity ("prima facie" evidentiary) laws outside of India. In the case I'm considering these don't directly apply to civil or criminal law, though they operate closely adjacent to these.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#447

Post by Ar-Curunir »

_tw9j wrote: post #363
42_ wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know why such a law came into existence? Because of atrocities against "lower" castes which wouldn't even be investigated. But most laws in India end up being misused. (For example dowry harassment laws.)

None of this actually fixes anything. The core problem is poverty and lack of good education. If affirmative action was based on poverty instead of caste and wasn't in terms of hiring/reducing marks but giving out resources to those who lack it, it might have save more lives because currently more rich or upper middle class families benefit from the affirmative action. 10% of country owns approximately 80% of the wea…

This is nonsense. As is demonstrated in this thread, even people with similar educational and professional backgrounds are discriminated against on the basis of caste. Since historically the managerial class is dominated by upper castes, the ones being discriminated against are naturally lower castes.

Yes, the reservation system is imperfect and is abused. That doesn’t mean that we replace it with a system that is caste-blind. Rather, incorporate income into it, so that the lower-caste poor ppl get help

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#449

Post by ashtonkem »

devdas wrote: post #255
ashtonkem wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but often groups are extremely hostile to apostates because apostasy represents an existential threat towards the religion itself. This is why many religions require a formal shunning of apostates, if not explicit punishment. Talleyrand famously had a meal of ice wine and cold meat after being excommunicated in 1791 since good Christians were supposed to deny him “fire and water”; a cute anecdote at the time,…

Hinduism has no concept of apostasy. You are free to believe in as many gods as you wish (Atheism is a legitimate school in Hinduism), so changing which god your claim to believe in isn't a big deal. The perceived threat is from the claim that all other gods are false, which is one of the major factors in the anti Muslim/anti Christian sentiments playing out currently in India.

Very interesting, I did not anticipate how polytheism would affect such interactions. Thank you.

Re: California accuses Cisco of job discrimination based on Indian employee's caste

#450

Post by hckr_news »

hungry_haibt wrote: post #404
walt0 wrote: post #99

I live and work in India and I would like to throw more light on this. Me and my friends like to joke around that you will never get your dues, either pay raise or promotions unless you have the last names jain, gupta, sharma, verma. I had a guy on my team who was very capable but did not have the right last name, he was being harassed for promotions for 4-5 years. On the other hand the manager class was entirely "ja…

Another anecdote, my previous manager has one of those last names. He was hiring for a position and screening the resumes. He would send them to me for initial phone screen. After a while, I saw a pattern, all the candidates he chose to move forward with had same last names.

Hmm excuse my ignorance. But why couldn’t someone legally change their last name to one of these? Could they really tell what family, tribe, or caste you’re from by face? I suppose regional dialect can be noticed.
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