Consider the Following

Is employment a right or a privilege?

The way I see it, it is a privilege. In New Zealand, when interviewing prospective job applicants, it is a violation of a person's human rights to ask their gender, age, how many children they have (among others); you cannot ask a person to cover their tattoos, or remove facial or body piercings, or change an outrageous hair dye or style. The topic came up on talk-back radio, and the list was not limited to those. I called-in with a response that goes along the following:

If I am an employer, my sole concern is hiring the best person to do the job. I don't really care what a person does, who or what they sleep with, etc. in their spare time. I want to know that whoever I hire is going to be there on time each day, doing what I am paying them to do. Get that - what I AM PAYING with MY MONEY. It is my money, their time; that is what we are trading. An employee is there to make money - profit - for MY business, and, in turn, I pay them a wage for that; a wage that I see fit for the particular job. If the job happens to be one that deals with the public and I know my customer base who may be taken aback (and, hence, possibly do business elsewhere) by somebody with eyebrow, tongue, and multiple ear piercings with a green and blue mohawk, I don't want that person unless they cover their tattoos, remove all the shit from their face, and have what I consider to be an appropriate hairstyle and overall appearance. If those conditions are not willing to be met by the applicant, they are free to go down the road and find another job or start their own business. I am not in business to indulge the whim of my employees or hire them on their terms which might cost me money to the point where I lose money and/or go out of business. A job is not charity.