No, she’s not. She’s being asked not to follow an employer’s demands, demands which don’t contradict her own religion. The employer’s religion is legally irrelevant.
On an aside, maybe we could move this over to Great Debates?
Daniel
I believe that would be the latter. Bringing a sausage pizza the first time could have been a mistake. Bringing pork the second time smacks of insensitivity. Bringing it a third time, and cooking it in the company microwave, is sheer assholery. I would have fired her for deliberate vandalism of company property.
It may spawn it, but there is no justification for it. There are unwritten rules of conduct at every place of employment. Being advised of these at onset of employment and then breaking them is cause for a reprimand. Continuing to perform the behavior is willful insubordination. Being informed that your actions are causing discomfort for the majority of your coworkers due to their religious beliefs and then continuing these actions is hostile. Must everything be laid out on paper for people to act in a civilized manner?
The employer could have possibly been considered an ass if she was dismissed after the first transgression of an unwritten rule. That she was not fired after the second time is, IMHO, a point in her employer’s favor with regards to her “religious discrimination” claims. The third time is what got her fired. As she had been reprimanded the previous two previous times, she can no longer claim ignorance that what she was doing was offensive to the Muslim employees who used the same facilities and equipment as she. Her religious beliefs and practices are irrelevant. She was the one creating the hostile environment. Using the community microwave was a particularly nasty way to do it.
Obviously, I disagree.
Wrong. In Islam, pork is forbidden because it is considered unclean.
Wrong. Muslims are very serious about pork being unclean. Pork products may not be handled. They are viewed as contaminating everything around them. Should NonMuslims wish not to offend Muslim coworkers, and force them to purify the premises, they refrain from eating pork for lunch.
A non-LDS who does not wear garments is not unclean and does not contaminate an office or kitchen by their mere presence.
Wrong. Microwaving bacon, ham etc will fill the kitchen with the smell. Crumbs and bits of meat left in the microwave, table etc will render it impure. Eating near or with other employees in the cafeteria will (unless you actively hide the food) give them the opportunity to notice what you are eating. In short, standard activities performed during a normal day at the office would indeed reveal that you’re eating pork.
The employer’s religion is irrelevant??? The rule was made because of the employer’s religion. That makes it very relevant.
And you know what, personally, my “religion” is to not subscribe to any organized religion. And my religion mandates being free of having other religions forced upon me. So, it is against my religion and my prinicples to unwillingly follow tenets of another’s religion. So to be forced to comply with this Muslim prohibition would contradict my religion. So can I sue if this happened to me?
They weren’t asking her to refrain from eating pork to symbolize a relationship and convenant with Allah. They were asking her to refrain from eating porking because she was grossing everyone out and very probably rendering the microwave unusable. She didn’t ask her employer for a way to compromise, she just ignored him. Three times, apparently, not just two.
In fact, I’m willing to bet that if she had quietly and discreetly eaten a ham sandwich, rather than cooking bacon (and probably the pizza, too) none of this would have happened.
And, by the way, if you don’t want to be seen as anti-Muslim, you might want to watch statements like:
“Heh, I don’t see these people hiring Jews in the first place, IMHO.”
In fact, they seem to have been in the process of becoming more integrated. They could easily have hired another Muslim, probably, but chose her instead, with the stipulation that she bend a little bit to respect the beliefs of others. Their mistake was in not putting in writing.
Ok let me rephrase that then.
The [non-eating of pork] symbolizes the relationship and covenant between [Muslims and Allah] because [Allah prohibits the eating of pork] [because it is considered unclean].
Yeah she ignored an order. Yeah she grossed people out. Yeah she was being insubordinate. I agree. However, I think the rule itself was illegal to begin with.
What I am more interested in is the scenario in general. Not necessarily this specific situation. I’m worried about how far this could go. I have given numerous analogies, and while none of them are perfect, they all raise a lot of fears in my mind.
I want to examine the basic structure of the scenario: that is, whether it is legal for an employer to make a rule based solely on his religion.
I don’t want to someday work for an employer that makes me follow his religious rules. That would be extremely repungnant to me.
I have no problem with people practicing their religions as long as it doesn’t infringe on me and my freedom. A rule based on my employer’s religion infringes on me and my freedom.
It is relevant to the fact that the employer was disobeying a direct order from the one who employed her.
If she would have worked for me, wether one of my orders was based in religion or in secular preferences, someone who gets payed by me should do as I ask. Especially if by deliberately and provocative disregarding a few times something I ask is stirring up trouble all over the office or workfloor.
You tell me where she was asked to “subscribe to an organized religion”. She was asked to follow a direct request on the workfloor by someone who payed her to follow his orders. Nothing else. She was not asked to go to a mosque and convert to Islam.
same question.
same question.
She was asked to follow a specific order while on the workfloor. Employers are payed to follow orders. They are not payed to disregard orders and by doing so ruin the whole athmosphere of the workplace, influencing very directly the way others can concentrate on what they are doing = their job.
Distracted personnel costs money and can cause problems with custumors.
From what I know you can in the USA sue for the most silly idiotic things, so I guess you could always try to get some money out of it.
But if you are so religious about your religion, then why would you want to go working anywhere where people follow an other religion? Even seeing a Muslim could be considered as him forcing his religion on you, no?
As for the people coming up with hijab as if that could be asked from non Muslim women: It can not be asked because it is not a requirement for non Muslim women to show up with hijab anywhere. (It is even not a command for Muslim women in my view, but that is an other discussion.)
This has also nothing to do with this specific case of an employer refusing to follow a direct request from the one who pays her.
I didn’t know she pushed the thing so far that she actually started cooking porc in the company’s microwave. In such a case I would fire her instantly myself for such a direct provocation.
Salaam. A
Exactly. And you are right—the employers should have put the “no pork” rule in writing.
This woman sounds like a real pain in the ass. It also sounds like she doesn’t give a damn about other people’s sensibilities.
Her employers are saying, “Look, if you eat this one thing (when you’ve got a multitude of other things to eat), you are messing it up for a whole lot of other people here. It is unreasonable to expect that almost everyone else here should jump through hoops to try to accomodate your quixotic desire to eat a food at work that you don’t have to eat and are not required to eat.”
This is pure selfishness on her part. She’s messing it up for everyone else. That’s just the reality of it. And it seemed like she wanted people to know what she was doing, too. Or, she simply didn’t give a damn how much she was messing things up (and grossing other people out). And she now wants to complain about it and sue? The hell with her.
There was a Pit Thread a while ago about Paul McCartney not allowing employees to eat meat while on work grounds. There was much debate over it, many wrinkles to the story (too long to get into here) and a lot of us thought he was seriously overreaching in some respects. But apparently he has successfully held a “no meat at the workplace” rule for a while now, and frankly, I don’t think he’s out of line in not wanting the microwave and kitchen area stunk up by cooking meat. Those who have wanted to work for McCartney apparently have put up with the rule. ::shrug::
Yeah, obviously you could sue if this happened to you.
But speaking as a fellow atheist, there are far more worthy targets in this country right now than some apparently fairly moderate Muslims who hired a Christian(!) woman(!!) and just asked her to have a little fecking consideration for other people.
They’ll think twice about that next time. So much for advancing the cause of religious freedom and tolerance.
The main problems for the employer are, that religious practice is not crucial to the business, as it would be at a Halal food outlet for instance ( thus the intolerance shown cannot be justified)…
…but the biggie is that the manager is actually changing the terms and conditions of employment on the spot, without any consultation with the employee, quite simply its against employment contract law.
The company can change your contract at any time, but it must provide proof of consultation and this must be written into the employment contract, neither has been done here.
The employment contract in this case would probably need to refer to the rules in a company handbook, of which no mention is made in this article.
Any employment tribunal is likely to take the view that simply allowing a manager to change employees contracts without actually setting it down is just a method of employer jeopardy on its employees, no employees can ever hope to meet an unwritten contract, especially if changes can be brought in on the personal prejudices of the manager at any time.
This is not a health and safety related matter where a new policy has been implemented either to meet new legislation, or comply with existing legislation, nor are there any obvious religious imperatives upon this telecoms company.
Not true, not true at all, employers simply do not own their employees. An employer cannot require an employee to do anything they are not contracted to do, this can still give the employer a very wide remit, but an example would be if an employer required an employee to carry out some task for which they were not trained, employees have died trying to carry out duties which had safety risks that they were not competant to understand or control.
Trust me, if you tried running that line by any employment tribunal, you had better be very well prepared, in a tribunal I would totally destroy you. Your comment actually betrays an authoritarianism and intolerance that one finds rare in a true Muslim.
…and Paul was certainly smart enough to have it in his contract and it was a limited area to where he would be. In this case, if it’s not in the employment contract/handbook, acknowledged and signed by the employee, then the company must yield to her rights, regardless how it “messes up things around here”. As an employer, I fully know well what can and can’t be imposed on my employees and if it’s something that might be controversial, like eating pork, then I would be up front with memos, signed and returned with grandfather clauses for those who refuse (tolerate it until they left). Funny how this employer (director) knew about being accomdating and admitted that he was, but didn’t follow-up with the paperwork because that would be damning evidence for his religious bias and then terminating her with no written warnings or reasons that can’t be recited from the employee handbook. Can’t have it both ways. Sorry, but employment laws vary from country to country, state to state, etc…observe the rules in the jurisdiction of where you work…employer and employee alike.
He would have been better off firing her for clerical errors or being a slow worker and let her collect unemployment. It would have been cheaper in the long run, because this guy and his company are gonna pay through the court system, whether they’re proven guilty or not of breaching employment law.
Aldebaron, nobody owns anybody here, employees are not viewed as subservient slaves.
No, it’s legally irrelevant, because the controlling law doesn’t mention the employer’s religion. It’s relevant to a discussion of whether the employer’s being a jerk, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
You could sue, sure. I bet you wouldn’t win, because of the controlling legal principle called You just made that shit up. You can’t just claim any old preference as a religion. People have tried, and it doesn’t work.
If you can show that you sincerely practice a religion requiring you to eat pork, then you stand a ghost of a chance of winning. But if the closest you can come is to show that you follow a “religion” requiring you to offend other folks’ religious sensibilities, well, I ain’t putting my money on you.
We need an attorney in here.
Daniel
And that was the big mistake on the employer’s part. It should have been spelled out before they hired her. They should have anticipated something like this when they first decided to hire non-Muslims. Very, very, very foolish of them.
But this woman is still a selfish cow. And it seems like she knew what she was doing, knew how it was messing things up for everyone else, how offensive and unacceptable it was, and yet she went out of her way to do it. As far as I can tell, there was no compelling reason why she had to eat pork at work. She wasn’t going to starve or suffer some serious malady if she didn’t eat it on the workplace. No, she just wanted to—and the hell with how grossed out or upset everyone else was.
Yes. Selfish cow. Within her legal rights, perhaps, but complete, 100% selfish cow.
Exactly. It all has to be up front, beforehand.
Hmm. Maybe in other states the lack of contract would be a problem. I’d want to see the governing state law. In North Carolina, we wage slaves are just that: we’re employed at will, and can be fired for any damn fool reason the employer wants, unless that damn fool reason happens to be among a handful of prohibited reasons.
Maybe it’s different in central Florida. Does anyone with any actual knowledge of Florida law want to step in?
Daniel
Off to GD!
Well thanks Coldfire sir. It was about time. Now maybe we’ll attract one of resident lawyers.
I guess the issue is resolved. If you want to maintain employment with this company you adhere to whatever beliefs they might have while on their premises. No matter how superstitious, silly, backwards, or barbaric their beliefs happen to be you must roll with the punches and ensure that you don’t contaminate their area with your “unclean” swine.
Marc
:rolleyes:
I suppose if some gay workers talked about The Gay at the workplace and got fired (‘unclean’ in all sorts of religions), you would be calling them ‘selfish cows’? Afterall, they don’t have to…
Isn’t there a law against dicrimination against homosexuals? Besides, what in the world do you mean by “The Gay” anyway? What specifically do you mean by this? What behavior would this be?
Anyway, where is the law that protects those who feel that they must eat pork (even though they don’t really have to) at work? Where?
To me this is about common courtesy. If I knew that eating (let’s say) broccolli in front of someone made them really grossed out, made them feel compelled to wash down their whole kitchen, and they’d asked me several times to not do it, I’d just not eat freakin’ broccoli around them. It isn’t as if I have to eat broccolli. Like I’ll die if I can’t eat it until I get home. It’s just one food and there are so many others to choose from.
So if I deliberately choose to eat broccolli in front of them, knowing ahead of time that it’ll gross them out Big Time, then I’m being a first class selfish cow. If I keep on eating broccolli in front of them after they keep on telling me to please not do it because they find it disturbing and disgusting, it also is going to look suspiciously like I kept on eating the broccolli because I enjoyed grossing them out and causing them distress.
Once again, first class selfish cow. In what other context would this not be the case?