Wednesday, September 21, 2005

volvo - short and female bias?

I stumbled across this article : Volvo Convicted of Gender Discrimination

Go ahead, read it.

So Volvo has (had?) a hiring policy that states for safety reasons employees must be between 5 ft 4 in and 6 ft 5 in to work at the conveyor belt at its car manufacturing plant outside Goteborg.

And the court ruled that statistically, the height requirement excluded more women than men, and should therefore be considered as gender discrimination.

So... let me get this right... a company is actually concerned for the safety and health of its employees, and they musta had some sort of study to determine the best range of height of people at the conveyor belt so that noone suffered from back pain or muscle strain or whatever, so they implemented this "range of heights" requirements... for the good of employees as well as for the company...

... and now this company is forced to get rid of this safety ruling, all because a short woman played the gender card.

And they will have to "make an individual judgment of the applicants' physical conditions for the job, for example span of reach and muscle strength."

Great... so if you ever interview for a job at the Volvo assembly line in Goteborg, don't bother power dressing! Come in your workout attire!

6 comments:

  1. I'm so TIRED of people screaming discrimination where none exists!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. hi Omni,

    that's my point exactly... a short person who did not meet the stated height requirements decided she wanted the job so much she played the gender card to get it.

    I wonder what the job situation is in that area... was it really so hard to get a job that she had to sneak in via a discrimination ploy? Or did she just not want to bother with the long arduous process of job hunting? I guess we'll never really know...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Actually, I would to know what was running through the judges mind (or jury, if was a court proceeding). As a layman, I find the ruling sooo ridiculous. I did think that the Swedes were more "advanced" than that. Goes to show how some people can make a monkey of what started of as a good idea (in this case: women's rights and Volvo's safety guidelines).
    Malapetaka betul.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Echoes of the Randy Newman song..."short people got no reason to live"... Joke. People will play any card to get a break. I'm guilty myself. I used to be a Flight Attendant for Lufthansa, they had height requirements too. Anyway, being 5'11'' and fresh outta school and needing an interim job, I was told, lie and say 6', blonde isn't enough anymore... well that seemed extreme so I wasn't sure while filling out the application, when I noticed another gal, quite a bit shorter than I filling out one too. She was 5'6'' tops. When I asked her what height she'd put down, she puffed up and boasted 6'. Pffft I said and put 6'3''...

    We both got the job, and I came to the conclusion that if Lufthansa went broke, they could start an Ladies NBA team... on paper anyway.

    What does that have to do with the Vovlo incident? Nothing, but gave me the chance to babble and tell Lynn thanks for adding my blog to her roll and let her know I added hers to mine. If you want to change the info in the popup details, let me know.

    Thanks again,

    Athene

    ReplyDelete
  5. OOPS I posted wrong first time without link eeek. Sorry.

    Echoes of the Randy Newman song..."short people got no reason to live"... Joke. People will play any card to get a break. I'm guilty myself. I used to be a Flight Attendant for Lufthansa, they had height requirements too. Anyway, being 5'11'' and fresh outta school and needing an interim job, I was told, lie and say 6', blonde isn't enough anymore... well that seemed extreme so I wasn't sure while filling out the application, when I noticed another gal, quite a bit shorter than I filling out one too. She was 5'6'' tops. When I asked her what height she'd put down, she puffed up and boasted 6'. Pffft I said and put 6'3''...

    We both got the job, and I came to the conclusion that if Lufthansa went broke, they could start an Ladies NBA team... on paper anyway.

    What does that have to do with the Vovlo incident? Nothing, but gave me the chance to babble and tell Lynn thanks for adding my blog to her roll and let her know I added hers to mine. If you want to change the info in the popup details, let me know.

    Thanks again,

    Athene

    ReplyDelete
  6. yeah... i qualify for the cardgame too; i'm 5' 2", lolx

    ReplyDelete

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about two months later...

 ... hi again. This return to blogging is really not working out, is it? Actually, I am writing, three pages of mind vomit and affirmations ...