4 ms·

I’m a white Australian and am in my last few weeks of a decade long stint in a large company, caste discrimination is certainly not the only discrimination in A

I’m a white Australian and am in my last few weeks of a decade long stint in a large company, caste discrimination is certainly not the only discrimination in Australia, but it is the most overt explicit discrimination that I see every week. We have laws and company policies on other forms of discrimination, but the predominantly white corporate culture hasn’t figured out how to talk about caste discrimination without sounding like it is criticizing Indian culture so has just turned a panicked blind eye to it. I regularly see or am told of behavior that should lead to arrests, but because many Indians in Australia are on fragile visas it is swept under the rug.

barrysteve 4y ago
That can't last. Integrating an Indian subculture and taking the sting out of the caste system is going to become necessary.
- monkeycantype 4y ago
  My fear is that Australia now has a large workforce of people on fragile visas with no political representation and that this is corrosive for our democracy, so this situation will last much longer than it should
boruto 4y ago
> but it is the most overt explicit discrimination that I see every week. Could you give some examples?
- monkeycantype 4y ago
  Yes, Two employees hired via an Indian recruiting firm were not paid wages they were legally entitled to, that my company was paying for, and threatened with cancellation of their visas and legal action in India if they reported the underpayment. In one case my colleague agreed to pay back his last three months wages when he quit to the recruiting firm, not to my company that had already paid the wages. He wasn’t contractually obliged to do this it was just bullying. (He had also not been paid superannuation for three years) Other Indian workers were bullied to secretly to work for other clients and phone in sick. (Australian workers get paid sick leave) others were regularly required to write fake resumes for candidates applying to work at my company and coach candidates on their fake work history. These are the explicit extreme examples, the mistreatment an dismissive behavior towards Indian women and my Tamil colleagues is unpleasant but more subtle, one female Sri Lankan colleague deliberately adopted an Australian accent to be accepted by some of our Indian male colleagues. In all of these cases the managers responsible were higher caste than the workers, who accepted the mistreatment despite Australian law being strongly on their side.
  - mmarq 4y ago
    This sounds more related to unfair immigration laws than to caste discrimination.
  - boruto 4y ago
    None of this is remotely anything related to caste
    - monkeycantype 4y ago
      I disagree, the people being exploited are being exploited by other Indians, there is a power dynamic which may not purely be about caste membership, but is related to a group of managers who understand power, and other groups of workers who don’t understand or don’t want to risk standing up for their legal rights, and in ever case that I was aware of the managers were ‘higher’ caste and the workers were ‘lower’ caste than the managers. But, I’ll let others continue the conversation from here.

barrysteve 4y ago

That can't last. Integrating an Indian subculture and taking the sting out of the caste system is going to become necessary.

monkeycantype 4y ago
My fear is that Australia now has a large workforce of people on fragile visas with no political representation and that this is corrosive for our democracy, so this situation will last much longer than it should

boruto 4y ago

> but it is the most overt explicit discrimination that I see every week. Could you give some examples?

monkeycantype 4y ago
Yes, Two employees hired via an Indian recruiting firm were not paid wages they were legally entitled to, that my company was paying for, and threatened with cancellation of their visas and legal action in India if they reported the underpayment. In one case my colleague agreed to pay back his last three months wages when he quit to the recruiting firm, not to my company that had already paid the wages. He wasn’t contractually obliged to do this it was just bullying. (He had also not been paid superannuation for three years) Other Indian workers were bullied to secretly to work for other clients and phone in sick. (Australian workers get paid sick leave) others were regularly required to write fake resumes for candidates applying to work at my company and coach candidates on their fake work history. These are the explicit extreme examples, the mistreatment an dismissive behavior towards Indian women and my Tamil colleagues is unpleasant but more subtle, one female Sri Lankan colleague deliberately adopted an Australian accent to be accepted by some of our Indian male colleagues. In all of these cases the managers responsible were higher caste than the workers, who accepted the mistreatment despite Australian law being strongly on their side.
- mmarq 4y ago
  This sounds more related to unfair immigration laws than to caste discrimination.
- boruto 4y ago
  None of this is remotely anything related to caste
  - monkeycantype 4y ago
    I disagree, the people being exploited are being exploited by other Indians, there is a power dynamic which may not purely be about caste membership, but is related to a group of managers who understand power, and other groups of workers who don’t understand or don’t want to risk standing up for their legal rights, and in ever case that I was aware of the managers were ‘higher’ caste and the workers were ‘lower’ caste than the managers. But, I’ll let others continue the conversation from here.