Want to work for BMW...well, as long as you don't have a record.

[montaillou]

http://www.macon.com/news/business/article34383792.html

[BimmerBreaker]

This could very quickly become a political discussion, but I have to ask - if more of a certain group were criminals, and it was their policy to not hire criminals - even if applied retroactively - how is it discriminating against that group? The problem as I see it isn't with firing criminals - the problem is with a certain group getting criminal records at a disproportionate amount to begin with. It's an idiotic self-defeating system

As a different example: if I work for a company where there are 10 men and 10 women, and all 10 women have criminal records. Then the company decides to retroactively terminate employment for anyone with criminal records. Unless it can be verified that the decision to terminate these employees retroactively was done with the knowledge that only the women would be fired then it isn't sexist.

Affirmative action bothers me. It isn't removal of racism or sexism, it's reverse racism/sexism which is in itself performing the very actions these laws server to prevent. How is not hiring someone becaues they are white because you need to meet a certain quota any different than not hiring a black person because they are black? I believe in hiring based on merits... what this country needs isn't affirmative action. What it needs is a system in which minorities and lower classes are given equal opportunities in life to begin with - a good education, to let them be as qualified as anyone else for certain jobs (I don't mean to imply that there aren't minorities as qualified or more qualified than anyone else for these jobs - but statistics don't lie, and by far and large minority groups are less educated and I don't think thats right). I have a feeling I'll be towing this thread to war and politics sooner rather than later... but sheesh...

[montaillou]

When you decide to fire all workers that have criminal records and 80% of those happen to be black, how do we know it isn't for racial reasons? Had BMW been more selective about who they chose to fire, they could've avoided the appearance of racism.

I don't see why a company should retroactively fire a person just because they have a criminal record, unless there is some conflict (ie: convicted pedophile working with children, etc).

[325bob]

A laughable explanation from the EOC, its ok to exclude criminals from employment,UNLESS they are mostly black! Its well documented that 18 % of the US population provides 80% of the crime., that's not BMW's fault.