Question

1. Sandra “has it all”: a handsome and successful husband, a beautiful home in the city, and healthy gorgeous twin girls, aged 5. Most importantly, she is a busy venture capitalist who invests in start up businesses. However, she is also the primary caregiver to her invalid father who refuses to move into a nursing home and lives in his own apartment across town. She is what we call a member of ‘the sandwich generation’ and needs help managing everything.

Sandra decides to advertise and interview for three different positions: 1) a personal caregiver for her father; 2) a nanny for her daughters; and 3) a personal assistant for herself. Her father is a lovely man but holds outdated opinions on a number of issues, including, sadly, Japanese, Germans and Italians. He has never forgiven them for what happened in World War Two. He wouldn’t tolerate anyone of those backgrounds being his caregiver. Sandra would like her daughters to learn Mandarin and so wants to only hire someone Chinese as her daughters’ nanny to speak to them entirely in proper and correct Mandarin. Lastly, her husband is a very jealous man and would not tolerate her having a male assistant so she must only hire a woman for that job.

What Human Rights Code issues must Sandra be aware of in both advertising and interviewing for these positions? Will she be able to hire who she wishes or will there be any HRC violations in any or all of these situations? Refer to case and statute law where appropriate in support.

Answer 1

According to the given scenario, Sandra has a lot of responsibilties and duties to fulfil and in order to manage her work load she is planning to advertise and interview for three different positions.

1. A personal caretaker for her father

2. A nanny for her daughters

3. A personal assistant for herself

For advertising and interviewing for these positions, Sandra must be aware that hiring process should be discrimation free on the basis of sex, race, disability and so on. She has to be fair in the hiring process. The scenaio here, descibes that her father doesn't like Japanese, Germans and Italians. So, she cannot hire anyone associated with these countries. It is a violation of Human Rights Code. As a nanny, she wants someone who can speak Chinese. This too is discrimination. Lastly, she cannot hire a male assistant which is discrimination on the basis of sex. Therefore, all the three criterion behind hiring for three different positions are violating Human Rights Code.So, she will not be able to hire in this situation.