AIDS-TO-CAMP

A domestic worker from Poland, Agnes Cybulska, has filed a lawsuit accusing a prospective employer, Dana Hammond -- an heiress to the Annenberg family fortune -- of refusing to hire her unless she tested negative for HIV.

The New York Times reports:

On Tuesday, Ms. Cybulska filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan against Ms. Hammond and Domestic Job Picks, the employment agency that Ms. Hammond used to recruit her. The suit charges that requesting the test violated the city’s Human Rights Law.

The lawsuit, if unusual in its particulars, does offer yet one more view into the world of domestic workers and their employers. Advocates for domestic workers say excessive demands are far too common because nannies and housekeepers have long been excluded from most labor law protections.

Juno Turner, one of Cybulska’s lawyers, said “there is a whole world of inappropriate behavior” in which employers of domestic workers think they can ask anything. “And a lot of times,” Turner said, “they get away with it.”