Do employers have a right to discriminate against color-blindness?

[KD0CAC John]

Part of this is what I call MAGIC THINKING .
I'l start with 1973 going into the army and signing up for training I wanted , radio relay technician .
After being in bootcamp for some weeks , the paperwork came to a head - my physical & MOS = training .
I never new until this time , the physical showed I was lightly color blind red / green as I remember , so did not qualify and got out after bootcamp on breach of contract by army , because the school I signed for came before the physical .
Now I am a ham radio and find broken stuff & learn how to fix it , use it , or sell to get the next thing of interest .
I did discover that using several different types of lighting & magnification help bring out the correct colors , but I always use a meter to check values & group the parts on double sided tape on paper that I make notes on .
Now on the magic thinking part - in around the mid 80's , I started a new line of work , law enforcement mostly in northern & central California area , a bunch of departments had been infected with MAGIC THINKING , the normal process was all kinds of testing , and in this case physical agility testing , climbing walls , spring loaded dummies - to see if you could pull arms back from behind to be able to handcuff and other upper body strength tests .
Many dept. were eliminating tests that required upper body strength , in order to make it easier for women to qualify = MAGIC THINKING , some dept. totally eliminated the physical agility tests all together .
So there is no accounting for the stupidity / insanity of people , institutions etc.
If you can't do the job , then find a job you can do , SCREW THE MAGIC .
About the same time I read the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle that they were eliminating the test for pulling the ladder off the top of fire engine , so magical thinkers could apply - you better not live above the ground floor , even then your in danger , another test - carrying the 150 lb dummy  - WHAT THE HELL         

[David Hess]

In the US at least under federal law, color blindness is not included in any protected class (as far as I now) so it is completely legal to discriminate against color blind people.

I heard an interesting electronics related story about this.  Xcelite is known for making screwdriver sets with color coded plastic handles to identify size.  What they did not know until later is that color blindness for males in technical professions is significantly *higher* than in the general population.

[zl2wrw]

A long time ago, when I took an apprenticeship as an electrician, I was tested for colour-blindness - twice! (once by the polytech and again by the industry training organisation). Here in New Zealand we have lots of fixed wiring with Red for phase/L1 and Green for earth. I understand that in the EU they get around Red-Green colour blindness by using Brown/Black/Grey for phases, Blue for neutral and Green/Yellow for PE.

[SNIP] but not hiring a 50-year old in a SWAT team makes perfect sense.

That depends, for example, if you were on a SWAT team, a 50-year old that is calm under pressure, is not easily bored/can pay attention for a long time, and is a crack shot, sounds like the sort of colleague that you would want 200m away on a rooftop watching your back while you post the flash-bang in the window...

[Berni]

I need to get some color coded screwdrivers, i always keep picking up the wrong one as the handles on mine are almost all the same, at least to tell apart philips and flathead.

I was given a vision test that included color blindness as part of a physical after signing up engineering school. I passed it fine, but it wasn't a case of if you don't pass you can't sign up, just more of a informational thing to tell you perhaps you might want to reconsider your profession.

I don't think slight color blindness would really hinder someone that much in electronics. But an almost completely color blind electrician is certainly a bad idea. Being able to see wire colors there is pretty important there and a mistake could end very badly, in death even.

There are other jobs where good vision is more important. TV broadcast engineers are certainly one, but there are also graphics designers, interior designers, artists, architects, video editors or simply the guy in china who quality controls TVs off a production line.

[CJay]

The QC of TVs for colour rendition is automated these days and has been for a while now, the only bit of the QC that's still, AFAIK, human is the cosmetic inspection of the TV for scratches.

As for magic thinking, not really. Sure there's a trend towards employing people who are seen as 'less physically able' than others but I can promise you, my 5'4", marathon running, skinny, little sister is *not* the sort of police officer you want to have to go up against, she's a member of a TAU and holds her own in riot gear with the 6'6" blokes, she's also pretty nifty at crowd control and effecting entry during raids, if I could share the details you'd be able to find youtube and local news video of her doing such.

She might not be able to shoulder carry me (6' 15.5St rugby player build) but she could sure as hell take me down if necessary and has commendations (and I'll be attending the ceremony for her latest one next week) for suchlike.

[Jeroen3]

Skipping the 150 lb dummy test I can understand. You'll need an 200 lb dummy nowadays.

A lot of professions have set money in front of moral.

[CatalinaWOW]

Magic thinking works both ways.  During the US Mercury manned space program the original astronaut candidates were run through myriads of tests.  Many of them had no known relationship to the performance requirements of being an astronaut.  Their actual purpose was to provide a justification for washing out some of the highly qualified, highly competitive candidates.  The battery of tests stayed in place and eventually began to justify themselves.

Standardized tests and requirements are always a substitute for thinking, with the obvious result.  Take the firefighting example.  There is clearly a benefit to being able to carry your fellow firefighters and/or victims out of a dangerous situation.  There would also be a benefit to being able to enter small spaces to look for victims or to reach shutoffs for gas and other fuels.  Writing a requirement to be able to carry a 180 lb person 50 yards might result from the first situation.  A requirement to fit through a specified small hole might result from the second.  The combination would result in an extraordinarily small pool of firefighters. 

[JacobPilsen]

The QC of TVs for colour rendition is automated these days

Really???
Do You have any TV factory in UK ?

We have Changhong and Panasonic in CZ, and their QC is only "monkey see, monkey press button".

[CJay]

The QC of TVs for colour rendition is automated these days

Really???
Do You have any TV factory in UK ?

We have Changhong and Panasonic in CZ, and their QC is only "monkey see, monkey press button".

There is/was one up until very recently in the UK, Cello, I think they are still in business but I'd assume they don't manufacture TFT panels and are just assembling.

Test jigs I've seen are automatic but on the high end monitors/TVs there's a manual inspection as well.

[@rt]

THere’s a job in Australia advertised on Seek right now “Fitting Model” for Mountain Designs.
They require you have their specified waist, neck, bust measurements, otherwise you wouldn’t be a fitting model for Medium standard.

[ptricks]

 Well I can tell you from my experience in the U.S. Air Force in the mid 60s, that you couldn't qualify for any of the many different electronics training course unless first passing a color blindness test. Not sure how selective/accurate the test was but it was a requirement that the government as employer applied.

 Not sure if it is still a requirement but if it is, it should then apply that any employer using a similar test and justification could also require the same from their prospective employees.

I joined the navy in 89 as a  aviation electronics tech and I can confirm you couldn't be color blind for that . The reason was simple, not resistor coloring but wires and even terminals were often color coded .

Don't avoid electronics if you are color blind, there are plenty of areas that you can still work in that will not be a problem.

[moz]

Magic thinking works both ways.  During the US Mercury manned space program the original astronaut candidates were run through myriads of tests.  Many of them had no known relationship to the performance requirements of being an astronaut.

Most obviously, they were designed to eliminate women. That prevented a whole bunch of people who would otherwise fly through the G force and nausea etc tests from even being allowed to try out for the program.

One of the more amusing ones (to me, anyway) was the strong preference in some mining companies for female plant operators. Purely because women don't tend to thrash the machinery as hard, which cuts maintenance costs and increases availability. I had a female coworker at one stage who used to take unpaid leave during mining booms to go and work in remote mine sites. She'd make a couple of years pay in six months then return to being an electronics technician. Our bosses understood her motivation...

Thing is, it was perfectly legal and they'd "wash out" operators who were hard on machines purely on that basis. And when challenged, they said quite bluntly "statistically, a random female candidate is 80% likely to make the cut, a random male one 30% likely". It was that stark (according to her, anyway). That argument rages on, 20 years later...

[CCitizenTO]

To discriminate legally in most cases you need a bonafide requirement to do the job. Like a cop or firefighter can't be in a wheelchair.

That said color coded resistors can pose a pain but you know there's always multimeters to test resistor values so they don't need to be able to differentiate between red/green color.

[EEVblog]

THere’s a job in Australia advertised on Seek right now “Fitting Model” for Mountain Designs.
They require you have their specified waist, neck, bust measurements, otherwise you wouldn’t be a fitting model for Medium standard.

No idea such jobs existed, I assumed they just got models from an agency.
But sure enough, full time position:
https://www.seek.com.au/job/33309941

Degree in fashion design preferred!
At least that's a heck of a lot more useful than a degree in gender studies 

[Macbeth]

I guess the only size requirements that must be included are the height and the subjective "Size 8 or small *" as all the others are very precisely specified. Is there a fashion equivalent of a 3458A to make sure the bust is 85.00000cm? I guess 100ppm may be allowed even taking into account the uncertainty from the tape measure and when it was last calibrated.

* From my understanding of past girlfriends and their moaning about not fitting into dresses of a "Size 8" or "Small" and how different vendors have different rules on what a fashion "size" is, I can't see why this ambiguous requirement is there when a clear specification is laid out.

[cdev]

Yes, if non-color blindness is in any way important to the job.

[cdev]

The way I see it is in the final analysis, governments are unlikely to be able to force people to do things having to do with their own business or property.

So when we move into a job-sparse future, we're going to have to understand that its simply impossible to control some things. When hundreds of people apply for each job, who gets it? There will be efforts made to winnow down the list of people which will be totally arbitrary. Its inevitable when only a few people can have the remaining jobs. bribery will be common, people working for free for years to get one will be common. Nepotism will be the norm rather than the exception. People will hire all their family members and nobody else.

The scarcer jobs get the more arbitrary and competitive it will be. Its not discrimination if only 20 people can get them and 2000 apply. Thats just the math.

People will be desperate to get work but they wont be able to blame anything but the economy. It just wont need many people. Except to buy things and thats where the problem will be.
 
So they think they have to keep people thinking its going to be fair for as long as possible.

Quote from: CatalinaWOW on 2016-12-07, 13:42:17

The real question, which in the US is largely ignored, is similar to the point posed by Blueskull.  How inferior does someone's total skill package have to be before you are justified legally and ethically in letting them go (or not hiring them in the first place).  What is the metric?  Nearly everyone is disabled in some sense: less than perfect vision, physical skills, intelligence, training, endurance, language skills, the list goes on. 

Extreme examples point out the problem.  Stephen Hawking is so physically limited that he not only requires many mechanical supports, but requires significant other human support to function.  But he is so brilliant that the total package is worth it.   Other folks with different sets of abilities and limitations may not provide so obvious an answer

.

[retrolefty]

The scarcer jobs get the more arbitrary and competitive it will be. Its not discrimination if only 20 people can get them and 2000 apply. That's just the math.

 I suspect that if 2000 applicants satisfy the basic requirements for the 20 specific job opening, that the SJWs will propose that only a random number generator should be used to select the 20 openings, as anyway else is simply discrimination by definition.

[cdev]

They will use education and desired wages, most credentialed with lowest wages.


Education is in theory objective but that will mean self trained or taught individuals will likely lose out consistently to those with formal degrees.


People with collegiate debts that imply need to get paid, eventually will encounter the need not apply.
A system that selects by wealth of parents and outside incomes.


It's like that more and more.

[cdev]

Is anybody reading this from the former Soviet republics? A friend who lived there in the early 90s told me that job ads would include sex with the boss and spell it out in euphemistic expressions, which I am trying to remember.


She was American but spoke Russian so well Russians mistook her for a fellow Russian.


She had a lot of interesting stories about life there. She lived in St. Petersburg for quite a while.

[EEVblog]

Education is in theory objective but that will mean self trained or taught individuals will likely lose out consistently to those with formal degrees.

Usually not in the real world. The two things that matter are:
1) Can you do the job
2) Do they like you (for *insert reasons here*)

[EEVblog]

I suspect that if 2000 applicants satisfy the basic requirements for the 20 specific job opening, that the SJWs will propose that only a random number generator should be used to select the 20 openings, as anyway else is simply discrimination by definition.

No, they usually argue for and want equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. Which is of course the most ridiculous thing ever.
A random draw would be equality of opportunity, and if the random numbers don't produce an employment result that is 50/50 then all hell will break lose 

[tszaboo]

Education is in theory objective but that will mean self trained or taught individuals will likely lose out consistently to those with formal degrees.

Usually not in the real world. The two things that matter are:
1) Can you do the job
2) Do they like you (for *insert reasons here*)

Not really. Self trained will be handicapped for jobs, that they dont really want to get in the first place (and maybe they dont even know it). From what I saw, engineering, there are few places where they filter your application for a degree. And those are the places, where you need to print and fill out a form to get paper to the printer. The Dilbert style jobs. Where they need a team of 12 engineers to find the correct resistor value.

[CJay]

Education is in theory objective but that will mean self trained or taught individuals will likely lose out consistently to those with formal degrees.

Usually not in the real world. The two things that matter are:
1) Can you do the job
2) Do they like you (for *insert reasons here*)

If you can get past the recruiters and HR (to a lesser extent) to an interview with the people who understand the job then I agree, if not, then your CV is likely to end up in the bin and never seen by anyone techie.

Best way to get a tech job is to know someone or have an industry reputation.

[cdev]

This (hiring by functional skills) has been one of the main draws of technical careers (aside from their also being fun.) A relative oasis compared to many other fields.

But the world of what is "legal" will shift towards what is FTA legal, and increasingly a great many practices which are now the norm in tech won't be.

This is going to hugely change society, against its will, whenever a great many situations exist (tax money involved in a contract, especially).

A huge amount of privatization will also occur and then those contracts will go up for bidding in a global context.

That will change the makeup of all service sectors radically. Turning them from professions into precarious work.
 (and lowering wages globally by pitting people against one another.)  That is its intent.

The changes will likely hurt almost everybody except multinational corporations.

Quote from: EEVblog on Today at 07:32:22>Quote from: cdev on Today at 07:03:04

Education is in theory objective but that will mean self trained or taught individuals will likely lose out consistently to those with formal degrees.

Usually not in the real world. The two things that matter are:
1) Can you do the job
2) Do they like you (for *insert reasons here*)