Caught Red-handed: Open Discrimination in Holland

Cross posted at The Peace Tree.

Yesterday, DutchNews.nl ran a story which appeared in the Dutch daily AD about Albert Heijn railway station shops banning Moroccan youth from working in them.

[S]everal branches of AH To Go in Amsterdam and at the Hague's main station include the words 'No Moroccans' in bold letters on a list of times and days when extra staff are needed.

The list was emailed to 31 AH To Go shops on June 4, the paper says. Branch managers who asked if this was correct were sent another email the same day with the text 'urgent, No Moroccans', the paper says.

AH To Go shops are small supermarkets where people can buy a sandwich or salad as well as essential supplies. Albert Heijn is part of the bourse-listed Ahold supermarket group.

If you read further, you'll see it's garnered quite a few comments.

That is REVOLTING.
I have also seen many places where it's made clear only men or young ladies wanted. They put the AGES and AH has done that as well right in the window!

Some aspects of life here are NOT advanced.. and open discrimination is one of them.
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It's not only AH there are many other areas racial discrimination is going on (for confirmation please check it with the Human Rights Organizations, the UN department of human rights/Netherlands etc).

Yes, for me also its a shocking news that very openly extreme discriminating employment policies were shown even at the window's)

Discrimination is in every human society,country and continent.It's not only here in the Netherlands.

If the political leadership doesn't realize their responsibilities to unite Dutch Nation under the motto " We are one nation with different colours and traditions",then many more incidents are knocking at our door step. Which will effect every body!

We all have to condemn any discrimination by any one including the criminal acts by any one,with out naming a particular ethnic group.

We all know that whatever our actions or right or wrong,positive or negative at the end we have to receive back good or bad.

We all have to become a nation a force against those elements willing to disturb peace and harmony in our country.

The focus has to be positive,constructive and productive and that's the only way to obtain positive Civic Results.

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As always, the Netherlands shows the world that it is a bastion of racism underneath its image of tolerance and weed smoking. Te UB needs to step in and make the Dutch government invest at least 3% of its GDP in anti racism education in schools, universities, workplace. The culture that was at the origin of apartheid and horrors in the spice islands of Asia has a long way to go in educating its Caucasian aborigine population about accepting others. Affirmative action is the only solution: at least 10% of gov employees and professionals in firms should be of non Caucasian origin in the Netherlands for the next 2 decades. The Obama meter says that the Netherlands is 300 year away from having an Obama as a president if things remain as they are.

Yesterday, the site ran an editorial:

Thursday 16 July 2009

The AD's story about branches of Albert Heijn's To Go stores being told not to employ Moroccans is a slap in the face to children prepared to work for less than €4 an hour, says Robin Pascoe.

Supermarkets are currently engaged in yet another price war, based on the myth that food should be cheap.

And one of the results of that is pressure on wages - paying your staff as little as you can get away with and preferring cheap youngsters who earn less than the official minimum wage.

There is a reason, therefore, that Holland's supermarkets are full of teenagers doing the repetitive, physical and never-ending job of stocking the shelves or manning the tills.

Working in a supermarket is very badly paid. As a 17-year-old, you will be lucky to earn more than €3.60 an hour. No tips.

These are jobs which in the big cities at least are largely done by children from an ethnic minority background. Middle-class white kids don't want to dirty their hands for such a trivial amount.

And yet, here we have a company - a division of Dutch Rail - which has decided some of its 'to go' stores at stations should not take on any more Moroccans. And why? According to one nameless individual, customers feel threatened.

There are two main points to be made here. Imagine if the company had said no Jews, or no Blacks, or no Germans? There would have been an outcry.

But no Moroccans? Well, there has been a bit of muttering about taking action against the staff involved and about apologising. But the follow-up coverage has been muted.

And where are the MPs demanding to know why people working for a state-owned company think this is acceptable and calling for heads to roll? Nowhere, so far at least.

It's hard enough to be a Dutch teenager with Moroccan roots in foreigner-hostile Holland. And this ban is not only racist, but it's a slap in the face to a group of youngsters who are prepared to work for such poor pay.

COMMENT: "... prepared to work for such poor pay."

Yeah, you can say that, as if they have a choice. I would suggest the youths are forced to take these jobs because there is nothing else for them.

Mr Pascoe has written about exploitation of workers. And he alludes to xenophobia and racism, but doesn't go deeper; he mentions neither the inherent systemic (covert) white privelege nor the growing Islamophobia throughout the country.