USAction today launched an online petition campaign aimed at companies that refuse to consider hiring unemployed workers, a perverse form of discrimination in today's economy.
The campaign comes after the National Employment Law Project released a report showing that employers of all sizes, staffing agencies and online job posting firms are using recruitment and hiring policies that expressly deny employment to the unemployed – simply because they are not working.
"Just as a company would not dare say 'African Americans need not apply' or 'Jews need not apply,' it is outrageous that any company in this day and age would explicitly ban unemployed workers from employment," said Alan Charney, USAction director of strategy and policy. "This policy discriminates against people who have lost jobs through no fault of their own, excludes many jobless workers who are highly qualified and motivated and, paradoxically and unacceptably, lengthens unemployment status."
The NELP study reviewed job postings that appeared on four of the nation's most prominent online job listing websites: CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, Indeed.com and Craigslist. It identified more than 150 ads that openly discriminated based on employment status. The overwhelming majority of the discriminatory ads required that applicants "must be currently employed."
And a link to the petition itself is here. There is a lot of work to do to get this the signatures it needs, let's move, people.
