BackCommunity employees have to wear a yellow visibility vest with the label “community employment”. It violates the principle of human dignity and the requirement of equal treatment if a company requires workers in community employment to wear a distinctive sign - ombudsman Máté Szabó stated. According to the head of the company, the purpose of this requirement is to promote social usefulness of community employment.
It is deeply humiliating and discriminatory, since other workers working together with those in community employment, such as persons sentenced to community service for committing minor offences or other employees of the company do not have to wear labelled vests. Workers in community employment - although they have not infringed any rule or committed illegal acts – can be clearly distinguished from others. That is why a complainant has turned to the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights.
All workers employed by a public utility company have to wear a yellow visibility vest upon labour safety and work management considerations. Vests worn by workers in community employment, however, have to be labelled “Community Employment” on their backs. The director of the company explained that this requirement is to promote the social usefulness of community employment.
There are several jobs which may require wearing special working clothes, uniforms or protective equipment due to the working circumstances, which should not be considered discrimination. It is not constitutionally justified, however, that only workers in community employment must wear a special vest with the label „Community Employment”. Based on the requirement of equal treatment, the employer must refrain from any conduct which may result in the direct or indirect discrimination of a person or group of persons on the grounds of certain characteristics. Requiring someone to wear a vest with that label constitutes such discrimination – argued the Ombudsman in his report.
Workers in community employment may not choose the place or type of work, meaning that they may have to take jobs requiring lower qualifications in comparison with their education or professional experience. Community employment programmes are often carried out in public, like maintenance of public places or parks, ditch cleaning, pull up of ragweed, etc. – therefore it may become widely known that a certain worker cannot find any job available on the labour market. For these reasons, it is of utmost importance that the human dignity of workers in community employment should be highly respected in the course of organizing community employment programmes. Particularly, since the public is strongly prejudiced against community employment due to its connection with unemployment, need, vulnerability and several other circumstances.
The reasoning of the company’s chief executive, claiming that the visibility vest with the distinctive inscription aims at drawing attention to the social usefulness of community employment programmes is unacceptable. This aim shall be achieved not by labelling workers in community employment, but, for example, by propagating their accomplishments, placing information tables in public spaces maintained by them or by any other means being not offensive to the pride and dignity of workers in public employment. Workers in community employment are not "billboards", but individuals with human dignity. According to the Ombudsman, labelling and marking these workers working in public places may further reinforce the existing stereotypes instead of promoting community employment programmes.
Workers in community employment are particularly vulnerable, therefore it is a constitutional requirement that, instead of dismantling regulations protecting employees’ rights, dignity and equality, further guarantees should be incorporated.
Consequently, the Commissioner requested the head of the company employing workers in community employment to take the appropriate measures to ensure that workers in community employment employed by the company under his management do not wear a visibility vest with a distinctive inscription and to pay particular attention to the preservation of human dignity.
Source: Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights
