A quarter of workers unhappy to work with Travellers

Around one in four workers would be unhappy to have a traveller working alongside them, it emerged today.

Although the number of travellers employed in the construction industry has increased due to the economic boom, the unemployment rate in the community remains at around 90%.

The Recruitireland.com workplace discrimination survey found that while 24% would be unhappy to work with travellers, just 4% would object to working with members of a different ethnic background.

The travellers’ organisation Pavee Point said the findings were disappointing but not surprising.

“Things haven’t really changed all that much for travellers despite the fact that we have information campaigns, the equal status Act, the employment equality Act,” said assistant director Martin Collins.

“I think it indicates how embedded discrimination and prejudice is in the Irish psyche towards travellers and this manifests itself in a whole series of ways, and one of them is the unemployment rate among travellers.”

He said the people who did not want to work with travellers needed to take time out to reflect on their attitudes.

“Have they ever met a traveller. Have they ever worked with a traveller. Do they know anything about travellers at all. Who’s feeding their prejudice?”

The non-representative survey, which was conducted last month among more than 700 visitors to the RecruitIreland website, found that 42% of respondents would be unhappy to share a workspace with someone with a previous criminal record. Around 75% said they had either witnessed or experienced unfair treatment in work.

The Equality Authority said the survey’s findings on attitudes to travellers in the workplace were very disturbing.

“It reflects, and probably is part of, the reality that very few travellers are in the mainstream labour force. Our casework has raised issues of discrimination in terms of recruitment but also issues of harassment, and these are the sort of attitudes that lead to harassment,” said chief executive Niall Crowley.

The survey found that 51% believed that equality in the workplace was better than five years ago and 61% believed their employer took equality in the workplace seriously.

However, nearly 20% said they had been asked a discriminatory question during a job interview. Most of them centred on families, religion and age.

One woman was asked to show her fingers to ascertain her martial status, while another was asked who would look after her children if she got sick.

“I was asked if being overweight hampered my ability to stand the pace of constant travelling and meeting deadlines,” said one respondent.

One interviewee was asked if her boyfriend was the jealous type because the job involved weekend trips away, while another was told she would be working in a clean room and couldn’t be scratching her bra.

Solicitor Jennifer Cashman, who works with the legal firm Ronan Daly Jermyn, said employers were failing their obligations under employment equality legislation.

“This seems to be particularly the case in relation to recruitment where inappropriate and discriminatory questions are being asked on an ongoing basis.”