This video describes a recruitment. A woman is interviewed for a chef’s job and seems to have a perfect job profile. When the manager passes her a health questionnaire, the candidate indicates that she has HIV. At this moment, the recruiter has some thoughts and she imagines how the candidate could have contracted this disease. Directly, she has prejudices. She decides not to hire the candidate and informs the other employees about her decision. Everybody asks to know the reason of this decision but after a quick explanation about the HIV, they all agree with her because they think there are some risks. Without knowing the person, all the employees imagine the person in different situations : disinfecting the place, cutting herself and propagating the sickness, going out dressed in a provocative way… Clearly, if she had not been sick, she would have had the job. Finally, the recruiter calls her manager and informs him about the candidate’s illness. The manager was not aware of this health test because it is illegal to ask the health state of candidates. He decides to hire the candidate without any discrimination.
Why do we have prejudices ?
The “short film” refers to prejudice and discrimination. Why is this discriminant ? First, the law (article l 1132-1 of Labor Code) admits that discriminating people at hiring according to gender, age, religion, pregnancy, health, etc, is forbidden. Social psychology has tried to define and explain discrimination. Indeed, to know why and how people discriminate, we must refer to prejudice’s issue.
What does prejudice mean ? And what are the consequences ?
First, prejudice can be defined as an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought or reason regarding a special group (as people suffering from HIV, for example). In fact, it seems that people need to use prejudice and stereotypes to organize their environment, to simplify it. We accept that these processes are automatic, that is why we can fight this phenomenon, but people can learn to spot it.Therefore, prejudice can lead to discrimination, especially in the workplace and make it difficult for people to find a job, or to keep it.
HIV : hidden discrimination
The VESPA research directed by the CNS reveal that if the person mentioned their HIV status during a job interview, 100 % of surveyed employers would not call back after. In this way, 62% of people suffering from HIV and Hepatite keep secrets about their health, because they associate the revelation of their illness to important risk of discrimination and stigmatization.
Moreover, In France, people with HIV have 5 times more likely be to discriminated than for the general population. It means that stigmatisation and discrimination against people suffering from HIV are still present in the workplace, as this video proves. In fact, people are still ignorant of what HIV/seropositivity really is, and particularly how the virus is transmitted.
Commonly, HIV is associated with party, drugs and an unhealthy life so it creates a shameful image. One of the consequences of this stereotype in workplace is that employers are used to associating people with HIV to certain personality characteristics, as unreliability and that the person will not be trustworthy. In Social Psychology, this kind of inference have been theorized under the name of « Théorie Implicite de la Personnalité ».
Discrimination against people suffering from HIV can be observed during hiring but also when the job is already taken, as employers do not give the possibility to adapt the work timeline to the condition of employees (only 8% of subjects report that their job has been adapted because of their illness).
Finally, it is not clear for people suffering from HIV whether they have to tell about their illness or not, because consequences can be damaging.
To put it in a nutshell, people with HIV have difficulties in their social and work life because of the lack of information about their illness for the rest of the society, as well as all the ideas hidden behind. Fighting discriminations and prejudice is the first challenge to overcome. Employers have to learn more about this illness and improve work conditions for people suffering from HIV.
To conclude, there is a paradox : people with HIV have the right to medical secrecy and respect for their private life and therefore do not have to report that they are sick when they are hired. On the other hand, if they could make their disease more « apparent », they would probably neutralize it and it would allow them to have post adjustments, free days to go the medical meeting, etc.
Keywords : HIV, disease, discrimination, prejudice
Words we have learned:
Beforehand: Préalablement
shameful image: Image honteuse
Trustworthy: Digne de confiance
To put it in a nutshell: Pour résumé
Disease: maladie
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aN3bn4Zz-c
Article realized by Nina Courtois, Clémence Giquel and Alice Guillou