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Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

indiatoday.in

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Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#461

Post by ZeroGravitas »

tshaddox wrote: post #431
saalweachter wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing they weren't sure whether caste was a protected class. Discrimination in law revolves around protected classes (race, religion, national origin, age and sex are the "big five" in the US, and subsequent acts and decisions have added sexual orientation/gender identity, familial status, pregnancy, disability, veteran status, and genetic information). If you act on the basis of that, someone can, well, make…

I'm not sure why laws about protected classes would be directly relevant in the case described in the top-level comment here, which is a manager who "was pretty much dismissive of everything anyone of a lower caste did / wouldn't communicate with them effectively." That just sounds like an ordinary problem with basic job performance. Surely most company policies would have ways of handling employees who are just blat…

The history of employment law suggests this is not the case. See for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Country_(film)

> Josey quickly befriends several other female workers at the mine and soon realizes the women are constant targets for sexual harassment and humiliation by most of their male co-workers, who, like Hank, believe the women are taking jobs more appropriate for men. The union in real life was USW, and did nothing to stop it. Josey in particular is targeted by Bobby Sharp, her ex-boyfriend from high school. Josey tries to talk to her supervisor, Arlen Pavich, about the problem, but he refuses to take her concerns seriously. The women experience additional harassment and even abuse in retaliation, and Bobby spreads rumors that Josey attempted to seduce him, leading his wife to publicly berate and humiliate Josey at Sammy's hockey game. Sammy begins to resent the way the townspeople treat them and comes to believe the gossip about his mother's alleged promiscuity.

> Josey takes her concerns to the mine's owner, Don Pearson, but despite his previous assurances that he is there to help, she arrives to find that he has invited Pavich to the meeting, along with several other executives and offers to accept her resignation immediately. She refuses, and after Pearson implies he believes the rumors about her promiscuity, leaves devastated. Later, after being sexually assaulted by Bobby at work, she resigns and asks Bill White, a lawyer friend of Kyle and Glory, to help her file a lawsuit against the company.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#462

Post by ScoobleDoodle »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #446
duxup wrote: post #189

I worked at a company where this was an issue at one point (granted this was one situation among a lot of employees). A manager was pretty much dismissive of everything anyone of a lower caste did / wouldn't communicate with them effectively. HR absolutely struggled with the issue. The HR folks tasked with dealing with discrimination issues largely had spent their time constructing company wide emails and classes tha…

I don't understand how you can be so dismissive of HR talking about discrimination while at the same time praising legal for firing someone for discrimination, and compensating people for being discriminated against. What would you like HR to do about caste-based discrimination? Apparently not send emails, or mention it in classes? You just want them to go straight to firing?

From parents comment I understand: the emails and classes were apparently only addressing white people who discriminate and did not address cast-based discrimination. HR did nothing about the cast-based discrimination. And so parent is dismissive of HR. Only legal took any action there.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#463

Post by SaltyBackendGuy »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #446
duxup wrote: post #189

I worked at a company where this was an issue at one point (granted this was one situation among a lot of employees). A manager was pretty much dismissive of everything anyone of a lower caste did / wouldn't communicate with them effectively. HR absolutely struggled with the issue. The HR folks tasked with dealing with discrimination issues largely had spent their time constructing company wide emails and classes tha…

I don't understand how you can be so dismissive of HR talking about discrimination while at the same time praising legal for firing someone for discrimination, and compensating people for being discriminated against. What would you like HR to do about caste-based discrimination? Apparently not send emails, or mention it in classes? You just want them to go straight to firing?

Maybe deal with it the same way you would with any other discrimination situation?

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#464

Post by gautamdivgi »

abduhl wrote: post #387
saalweachter wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing they weren't sure whether caste was a protected class. Discrimination in law revolves around protected classes (race, religion, national origin, age and sex are the "big five" in the US, and subsequent acts and decisions have added sexual orientation/gender identity, familial status, pregnancy, disability, veteran status, and genetic information). If you act on the basis of that, someone can, well, make…

Why is caste not a subset of national origin or race? Do Indians who discriminate on the basis of caste also discriminate against non-Indians of a lower caste, or is it solely confined to other Indians? If not directly a protected class, why would this not clearly be a disparate impact type of case?

The rough equivalence in american terms is probably someone from a well established New England family discriminating against an underprivileged southerner assuming both are white.

If you’re not Indian you don’t have a caste. Discrimination against you would be covered under other forms of discrimination (national origin, religion, color, etc..).

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#465

Post by kazinator »

duxup wrote: post #189

I worked at a company where this was an issue at one point (granted this was one situation among a lot of employees). A manager was pretty much dismissive of everything anyone of a lower caste did / wouldn't communicate with them effectively. HR absolutely struggled with the issue. The HR folks tasked with dealing with discrimination issues largely had spent their time constructing company wide emails and classes tha…

> If he was white this would have been dealt with sooner.

I think that if we more or less accurately map the situation into an analogous one involving the class system among whites in North America, then the "lower caste" white person would not even be working there.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#466

Post by jefftk »

howinteresting wrote: post #265
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not just talking about skin color Steve Jobs is ethnically Syrian. Most people would call him white. The fact that some e.g. North Africans may fit the classic conception of whiteness better than many Europeans doesn’t dissolve every racial boundary therebetween.

If Jobs had grown up in (say) New England rather than California, there is no way he would be have been treated the same as white people there. He would have clearly stood out.

Really? Looking at some pictures of him when he was younger (ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#/media/File:Steve_J...) I think he would have been lumped in with other white kids here.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#467

Post by politician »

thorncorona wrote: post #272
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real shame is that living in Delhi, I’ve seen caste come back very strongly in everyday discourse. I’ve been here almost 20 years. This city used to be largely caste agnostic. Now when I meet new people, especially outside the elite tech circles, they will casually mention their upper caste status (“As Brahmins, we don’t do xyz of course!”). Even cars carrying caste stickers are more common.

Do you know why this happened?

Strictly from a resource allocation standpoint, it makes sense to keep economic flows within a subpopulation rather than diluting them over a broader population. Consider, "buy local" initiatives.

I imagine that hypothetical Republicoin and Demacoin currencies would find strong support among the hard-core true believers of the respective groups for the same reasons.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#468

Post by HideousKojima »

outworlder wrote: post #437
BurningFrog wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> A lot of the contemporary left (...) You lost me here. Please stop slotting everything into 'left' or 'right'. If you said "a lot of people" I would agree.

I've only ever seen the claims "non-whites can't be racist" and "racism is prejudice plus power" from the left, so I'm not sure what issue you're taking with him here. Sure, not every single leftist believes that tripe, but that belief is essentially exclusive to leftists. Not all mammals are dogs, but all dogs are mammals.

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#469

Post by MichaelCollins »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #368
richiebful1 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the situation is that Western countries/companies don't usually have protected class status on basis of caste. Those protections exist for race, gender, age etc.

Ok are there also specific legal protections for Eye color, Hair Color, presence of Freckles, etc? Does every possible way to discriminate need to be clearly spelled out for it to be illegal?

Discrimination against eye color would definitely be forbidden as discrimination against race; you can't ban everybody except those with blue eyes without having a racially disparate impact. This is probably true of those other physical characteristics too.

But speaking more generally, the principle in America is that if something isn't forbidden, then it is permitted. You could probably get away with some nonsense like "Don't hire anybody who owns a red car, because red car owners are too impulsive and hot headed"

Re: Apple becomes first tech giant to explicitly ban caste discrimination

#470

Post by AlexandrB »

LocalH wrote: post #218
londons_explore wrote: post #208

A lot of companies try to make policies against things that ought to be dealt with by law enforcement. "Did inappropriate things to someone at the Christmas party" being the classic... That sort of thing should be dealt with by the legal system where the accused has the right to a fair trial etc. Obviously the legal system might need some streamlining to take on the extra workload

The policies are more symbolic than anything, they would signify that the company doesn't condone such behavior. However, I think such policies should, by law, kick in after conviction and appeal processes have finished, when incidents are criminal in nature. If a person is not convicted, these policies should not apply. Too often, they apply upon arrest .

The difference is in the burden of proof. To be convicted in the criminal system the burden is "beyond reasonable doubt". In the civil system it's lower: "preponderance of the evidence". In the eyes of an HR department it's lower still. Theoretically, if you're arrested there's already "probable cause" - i.e. some evidence. It doesn't seem that weird or unreasonable that HR would act at this level. Does it suck if you didn't do anything? Yes. But people get fired for much less reason (or even no reason) all the time.
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