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Decoding discrimination in America’s temp industry
Decoding discrimination in America’s temp industry
Jan 9, 2016
UPDATE, April 16, 2016: Reporter Will Evans followed up on what’s happened since we first told you about the discrimination many temp workers face. An updated version of the original episode can be heard below.
Business is booming for staffing agencies across the country – the temporary jobs sector is one of our fastest-growing industries in terms of employment. But there’s another side to the temp world: a blatant system of racial discrimination that evokes practices of America’s pre-civil rights era.
This hour of Reveal will explore this type of discrimination and look at how it’s affecting people around the country. We begin in Tennessee with two sisters, born in Russia, who ended up recruiting workers for a temp agency. And they claim some people were hired not based on their résumé, but on the color of their skin.
DIG DEEPER
- Read: Alabama temp agency to keep discrimination probe results secret
SEGMENT 1
Julia B. Chan and
Will Evans
Oksana and Anastasya Istomin worked together at a Tennessee branch of Automation Personnel Services, a staffing company where they say they were asked to hire people based on their race.
Credit: Kevin D. Liles for Reveal
When temp agencies fill orders for a worker of a certain race or gender, that’s illegal. So some use code words like “vanilla cupcake,” “country boys” or “blue eyes” to hide the discrimination. (Hint: Those are all codes for white workers.)
This segment digs into one staffing agency with branches across the South, where former employees said some clients demanded white workers. Others wanted Latinos.
Reveal’s Will Evans talked to dozens of former employees of Automation Personnel Services, who told him that this type of discrimination was common. Recruiters, office managers and sales reps from six states said Automation often would send out temp workers based not on their experience or skills – but because of their race, age or gender.
DIG DEEPER
- Read: When companies hire temp workers by race, black applicants lose out
- Interactive: Can you guess how certain code words were used?
SEGMENT 2
WBEZ
Temp-worker organizer in Chicago confronts racial divide
By
Julia B. Chan
Job seekers fill the waiting area of one of Chicago’s many staffing companies, hoping to be selected for temp work in a factory, warehouse or food-processing plant.
Credit: Chip Mitchell/WBEZ
The first modern industrial staffing company was founded 70 years ago in Chicago. Today, the city and its suburbs are ground zero for blue-collar temp work, with about 900 registered temp offices.
But many black workers are convinced they’re not getting their share of the work.
From WBEZ, reporter Chip Mitchell tells the story of a labor organizer who’s pushing what would be the nation’s first law addressing temp-work discrimination. To get the bill passed, he says he needs some temp workers to make a big sacrifice.
SEGMENT 3
Julia B. Chan and
Al Letson
Signed July 2, 1964, by President Lyndon B. Johnson, the historic Civil Rights Act outlawed job discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It also created an agency to enforce that ban: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Credit: AP file photo
We’ve come a long way since the 1963 March on Washington. Or have we? The civil rights movement and an epic fight in Congress led to a slew of reforms and efforts to eliminate discrimination.
Host Al Letson delves into the turbulent history and interviews Clifford Alexander, the first African American to serve as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who believes we’re still battling some of the same problems the federal agency was established to eradicate.
CREDITS
Support for Reveal is provided by The Reva and David Logan Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Mary and Steven Swig.
Track list:
- Camerado, “True Game (Reveal show theme)” (Cutoff Man Records)
- Aphex Twin, “XMAS_EVET10 (thanaton3 mix)” from “Syro” (Warp)
- Christopher Willits, “WIDE” from “Opening” (Ghostly International)
- Tycho, “From Home” from “Past is Prologue” (Ghostly International)
- Beacon, “It Won't Be Long” from “For Now EP” (Ghostly International)
- The Sight Below, “The Sunset Passage” from “Glider” (Ghostly International)
- Pale Sketcher, “Wash It All Away (Cleansed Dub)” from “Jesu Pale Sketches Remixed” (Ghostly International)
- Ben Benjamin, “Toothlike Tokens” from “The Many Moods Of Ben Benjamin Vol. 1” (Ghostly International)
- Ezekiel Honig + Morgan Packard, “Tropical Ridges” from “Early Morning Migration” (Microcosm)
- Jim Briggs, “This Action” (Cutoff Man Records)
- Jim Briggs, “Stalled Out” (Cutoff Man Records)
- Oval, “hmmm” from “Oh EP” (Thrill Jockey)
- Syntaks, “The Shape of Things to Come” from “Ylajali” (Ghostly International)
- Diana Ross and the Supremes, “Things Are Changing” from “Anthology” (Motown)
- Tycho, “Awake” from “Awake” (Ghostly International)
TRANSCRIPT:
Reveal transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. Please be aware that the official record for Reveal's radio stories is the audio.
Section 1 of 3 [00:00:00 - 00:14:04]
(NOTE: speaker names may be different in each section)
Al: From The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson. When companies need workers, they often call up temp agencies.
Speaker 2: She called me on the phone and said that she had a order.
Al: An order for workers, and here's what they're looking for.
Anastasia: They wanted, you know, the usual, country boys, and I said, "No, I don't know," so she started saying that they like white guys over there and not to send anybody black.
Al: These requests are coming from companies around the country.
Anastasia: They would use a "W" or a smiley face to signal that they preferred a white worker.
Speaker 3: We probably would have some clients who said they only wanted clean-cut white guys. They basically told you exactly what they were looking for.
Al: A look inside America's temp industry where companies use code words to hide blatant discrimination, coming up on Reveal.
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