Two Queens employment agencies, along with six others throughout New York City, agreed to stop screening candidates for domestic positions based on race.
In addition, the agencies have agreed to pay a total of $118,000 in costs and penalties for civil rights violations.
First Resources Employment Agency in Forest Hills and Permay Cleaners in Woodside are among those that settled with the New York State Attorney General’s Office.
Two other agencies"Quality Domestic Help of Staten Island and Pavillion Agency Inc. of Manhattan" did not settle and are being sued.
"A fundamental principle of our society is that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to get a job," Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said last week. "It is totally unfair, illegal and outrageous in this day and age to disqualify a job applicant based on race or ethnic ancestry."
Since contacted by Spitzer’s office, the eight agencies that settled have agreed to stop inquiring about the race and ancestry of job applicants, stop making job referrals based on race and provide training and information to staff about antidiscrimination laws.
The owner of First Resources declined to comment on the situation as the final settlement order is still pending. The owner of Permay was in Italy when the firm was contacted.
The six other agencies involved in the suit are: International Domestic Agency, Best Domestic Placement Service, The Help Company, and the Ultimate Employment Agency in Manhattan as well as Selma Services and Soraya Services in Brooklyn.
The investigation into the alleged bias began last December after the Attorney General’s Office received information that race and ancestry discrimination was widely practiced by domestic employment agencies.
Staff from the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Bureau and Investigations Bureau contacted a number of employment agencies, posing as prospective employers.
Some of the agencies, the bureaus found, noted "no blacks," "no islanders" and "prefers Europeans" in their internal records, which were then used to restrict eligibility for certain jobs.
In addition, the investigation found that even those agencies that earned their fee from prospective employees, as opposed to employers, disqualified their own clients on discriminatory grounds.
Pavillion Agency, one of the two agencies that did not settle, was founded in 1962. Since that time its owners have been consulted as domestic help experts for numerous articles in publications ranging from Time, to Vogue and New York Magazine.
Owned by Clifford and Keith Greenhouse, the agency places butlers, estate managers, house managers and chauffeurs in addition to nannies.
Although a representative from the agency declined to comment when the Queens Chronicle called, Clifford Greenhouse lashed out at Spitzer in other publications. The investigation, he said, was politically motivated as Spitzer plans to run for governor next year.
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