Woman fired for eating pork

[Iridium]

If this issue got all the way to the courts, obviously the relationship between the employee and her employer deteriorated so much that the problem couldn’t be resolved through discussion. It looks like neither side was willing to compromise or offer a solution because their own principles/beliefs were too important to concede. The employer sets a policy for religious, “company branding” or workplace harmony reasons that most employees can accomodate easily. One employee, whose belief in eating pork has nothing to do with religion (but is a belief nonetheless), is prevented from doing something that in her eyes is harmless. If the policy prohibited pork products everywhere on the premises, then yes, she would have to deal with more inconvenience than other employees at lunchtime. Maybe a small inconvenience, but perhaps important to her. Just like keeping halal seems silly to non-muslims/non-orthodox muslims, but is important to those who practice it. Not taken to extremes, non-relgious beliefs (e.g. being vegan) should be as respected as religious ones.

Islam isn’t monolithic, people keep halal and other tenets to varying degrees. In the same way, some people like eating pork more than others. While a certain act (eating pork, not eating it) gains additional “legitimacy” as a belief by being attached to a certain religion, it’s not really fair to have the employee “deal with it” because eating pork is a less important belief than halal. The majority is important, but if this inconveniences the minority, there should be reasonable accomodations.

If the manager had any tactical sense at all, he would’ve tried to accomodate her by allowing her to eat elsewhere in the building, out of sight, or take longer lunches since she couldn’t eat pork on the premises. She also could have been more accomodating by not offending the muslims there, since it probably made management less willing to respect her beliefs.

Where I work, employees don’t bring pork products to potlucks and some always try to bring vegan stuff for the two vegans. Similarly, some (not all) muslims, take 2.5 hour lunches on Friday to pray (made up by staying later). If your workplace relationships are good, it’s easy to respect and accomodate different beliefs/religions/etc. This could have been solved without resorting to litigation.

[Phedre_no_Delaunay]

@Diogenes the Cynic

The woman was not being asked to observe anything for religious reasons, she was asked not to contaminate a halal kitchen. By doing so, she was preventing everyone else from being able to enjoy their meal without being forced to violate their own religious beliefs, as well as being physically repulsed.

If that were the case though, the rule would have only been “no pork in the lunchroom.” Instead the rule was “no pork on the premises.” By that rule, as others have stated, she was not allowed to eat pork at her desk or in her car in the parking lot, where it would NOT have affected anyone else’s ability to eat.

[Dog80]

@doreen

What accomodation doe she need? They aren’t preventing her from doing something that her religion requires nor are they requiring her to to do something her religion forbids.

According to you then, a company can prevent their employees from doing anything, as long as their religion doesn’t require it?
Well, Christianity doesn’t require one to drink water, should water drinking be forbidden too? What about breathing? That isn’t required either.
How about people who do not have a religion at all?

[holmes]

@Iridium

This could have been solved without resorting to litigation.

Absolutely. I worked for Jews who were Kosher beyond Kosher and there were rules. Which I understood and respected. They also respected me and had enough confidence in their religion that they actually purchased a separate microwave for me to use…they realized that it didn’t reduce their belief if they allowed me to practice my diet. When I went on my own and employed a religious Jew, I did the same. NO one freaked out or got emotionally or physically ILL, by the knowledge that we were eating food that went against each other’s belief.

When they closed for holidays, I got paid…because they realized that they were taking money out of pocket when I was more than willing to work.

I wonder how far this would have gone, could she eat pork on the street and still be in compliance? What if she spilled bacon grease on her shirt, while eating outside? Does she get fired? Get sent home? How well does she have to wash her hands?

I ask because I have a no smoking rule in the office. Yet during lunch, several employees go outside and smoke. When they walk in, they reek of cigarette smoke, their mouse, keyboard, phone even monitor has that ‘smoke’ look. It drives me nuts, but there’s line that I can’t cross…even if I managed to ‘ban’ smoking from 9 to 5. They still smoke at home and walk in smelling of smoke.

I live with it. Running a business requires compromise, especially if you know the person you’re hiring doesn’t have the same beliefs has you going in. They knew she wasn’t a muslim and therefor should’ve had the forsight to account for this or not hire a non-muslim; then force her to behave as a muslim.

There’s always a way to work this type of stuff out, but only if both parties aren’t fanatics.

[clairobscur]

@Dog80

We still don’t have proof for the existence or non-existence of God, so this issue is still open. On the contrary, we do have proof that pork or other foods are not unclean. Denying this scientific proof is religious fanaticism, like saying the Earth is flat.
.

Not the same at all. “Unclean”, in a religious context doesn’t mean “health hazard” (and anyway, the fact that pork can be a health hazard probably isn’t the reason why it came to be banned in some cultures, but it’s another debate). Pork is unclean basically means “god said that someone who ate pork is tainted”. You can’t disprove that scientifically anymore than you can disprove “lizards are sacred and shouldn’t be harmed because the gods said so”. It has nothing to do with an objective, scientifically disprovable statement about the value of pork meat as food, the shape of the earth or the self-awareness of lizards.

[Aldebaran]

@Iridium

The employer sets a policy for religious, “company branding” or workplace harmony reasons that most employees can accomodate easily. One employee, whose belief in eating pork has nothing to do with religion (but is a belief nonetheless), is prevented from doing something that in her eyes is harmless. If the policy prohibited pork products everywhere on the premises, then yes, she would have to deal with more inconvenience than other employees at lunchtime. Maybe a small inconvenience, but perhaps important to her.

Which is in my view on it and as far as the limited information goes exactly the whole case.

Just like keeping halal seems silly to non-muslims/non-orthodox muslims, but is important to those who practice it.

Every Muslim takes the Muslims who adhere to halal rules very serious even if they themselves do not follow all of them or even none at all. Your idea that it might be “silly” to other Muslims is a fantasy I’m afraid.

Not taken to extremes, non-relgious beliefs (e.g. being vegan) should be as respected as religious ones.

In this case it is the employe who took it to the extremes.

Islam isn’t monolithic, people keep halal and other tenets to varying degrees. In the same way, some people like eating pork more than others. While a certain act (eating pork, not eating it) gains additional “legitimacy” as a belief by being attached to a certain religion, it’s not really fair to have the employee “deal with it” because eating pork is a less important belief than halal. The majority is important, but if this inconveniences the minority, there should be reasonable accomodations.

1. She works for a company owned by a Muslim and it seems that they focus on a clientele in Yemen that is 100% Muslim.
2. It seems that almost all the personnel is Muslim.
3. It seems that she was well informed about the effect of her behaviour on the personnel and the owner of the company.
4. It does not seem that she even asked for “accomodation” and if a company owner says that the premises must stay in a halal state, then those who work there should follow the rules of the company. If you work somewhere where you are supposed to keep the workplace hygienic then you are supposed to respect these hygiene rules, no matter the reasons behind that rule.
5. It is clear enough that she only wanted to make trouble, knowing very well that her behaviour was extreme and provocative into the extreme.
   Salaam. A

[Dog80]

@clairobscur

Not the same at all. “Unclean”, in a religious context doesn’t mean “health hazard” (and anyway, the fact that pork can be a health hazard probably isn’t the reason why it came to be banned in some cultures, but it’s another debate). Pork is unclean basically means “god said that someone who ate pork is tainted”. You can’t disprove that scientifically anymore than you can disprove “lizards are sacred and shouldn’t be harmed because the gods said so”. It has nothing to do with an objective, scientifically disprovable statement about the value of pork meat as food, the shape of the earth or the self-awareness of lizards.

Do you have a cite for that? I always thought that those foods were originally banned because they were dangerous, and that the “spiritual taint” thing was added much later after wrongly interpreting the original laws.

[Aldebaran]

@clairobscur

Not the same at all. “Unclean”, in a religious context doesn’t mean “health hazard” (and anyway, the fact that pork can be a health hazard probably isn’t the reason why it came to be banned in some cultures, but it’s another debate).

In fact that is exactly the reason behind it. It was and still is considered a unhealthy food.

Pork is unclean basically means “god said that someone who ate pork is tainted”.

No. It should read: God said that porc is to be considered “unclean” (which is a modern way to name this) because it forms a health risk. ( And one could add: God knows best, but I have something against that sentence because it is easily and so often abused.)

You can’t disprove that scientifically anymore than you can disprove “lizards are sacred and shouldn’t be harmed because the gods said so”. It has nothing to do with an objective, scientifically disprovable statement about the value of pork meat as food, the shape of the earth or the self-awareness of lizards.

There is a lot published about the health risks that are brought in connection with consuming porc meat even in mordern times.
I never studied that issue, yet I can easily imagine why it is considered a health risk and especially in cultures and climats - and times - where conservation of slaughtered animals was/is at the very least problematic.
Salaam. A

[Mighty_Girl]

@yosemite

It also sounds like the employers were going overboard by not wanting it in the parking lot (for crying out loud.

CITE? I’ve asked twice. Nowhere in the article says so.

[Phedre_no_Delaunay]

@Mighty_Girl

CITE? I’ve asked twice. Nowhere in the article says so.

From the article in the original post:

Local 6 News obtained the termination letter that states she was fired for refusing to comply with company policy that pork and pork products are not permissible on company premises.

[Dog80]

@Aldebaran

In fact that is exactly the reason behind it. It was and still is considered a unhealthy food.

No. It should read: God said that porc is to be considered “unclean” (which is a modern way to name this) because it forms a health risk. ( And one could add: God knows best, but I have something against that sentence because it is easily and so often abused.)

There is a lot published about the health risks that are brought in connection with consuming porc meat even in mordern times.
I never studied that issue, yet I can easily imagine why it is considered a health risk and especially in cultures and climats - and times - where conservation of slaughtered animals was/is at the very least problematic.

Salaam. A

Then why should the employer care? Is pork so potent that merely being in the same room with someone eating it makes you dirty? The smell of pork can make you sick?

[Mighty_Girl]

@Phèdre nó Delaunay

From the article in the original post:

And how did we stretch ‘company premise’ to mean ‘parking lot’ and ‘her car’? Do we know they have a parking lot? Do we know she has a car? Do we know they had such rule? Why do we have to make up information that is not there to boost our argument?

[casdave]

Well Aldeberan, I’m sorry if I offended you as regards true muslims, however, I still stick with my other points and will show you how it is likely to appear in an employment tribunal

The problem you have in defending this, is that he indeed talked her about this a few times. If she didn’t want to agree, she could at that point have said so or leave.

Now as a pont of principle and honour, she might indeed has taken this course of action, however she was certainly not compelled to, in a tribunal the employer will need to demonstrate that that such converstations took place, that she was given a written warning, that the requirement for here to ahere to this rule was part of her employment contract, of which she had been given the opportunity to be fully aware, and that this was in the company handbook or company policy.

Nothing here was written down, she can deny the conversation took place, or it took place without her having a chance to put her side of the story, or that it took place when she was too busy to hear, like maybe she was already answering the phone at the time or perhaps the room was too noisy for her to hear.

She can also put her case that since this is not part of her contract, it is not a recognised company policy, that her manager is a religious zealot was simply has it in for her, and that manager did not follow company procedure such as counselling and written warnings, nor a proper written change to her contract.

See above. The fact is that her behaviour disturbed all the other employees and hence influenced the way they could do their job

Her defence is that the muslim portion of the workforce are ganging up on her, maybe because she supports the war on terror, or whatever reason she can come up with, the employer would need to demonstrate in some way that there was genuine discontent such as written complaints otherwise this is just worker tittle tattle on her because she thinks she does her job better than everyone else and that the others are simply jealous.

You see, the ‘fact’ that other workers are disturbed is not a ‘fact’ at all, unless there is some evidence it is merely an opinion.

At first sight they seem to work for a Yemeni clientele that is 100% Muslim.

…and how will the clientele actually know if she ate pork on the premises, do they have smelliphones over there in the US of A, in which case we could have a ‘scenternet’ on dial-up perhaps, bit of Aramis in the cable lines eh ?

Utterly irrelevant!

Upsetting all the rest of the personnel in this manner can easily lead to such a great distraction that it influences the safety on the workfloor.

Employer would need to demonstrate that her behaviour was compromising health and safety, this would usually be done by showing accident and near-accident report forms, how would that work ?

‘I was lifting a very heavy box and injured my back, I should have used the correct lifting appliance in accordance with company safety policy but I was so upset at XXXX behaviour in the canteen today that I neglected to do so’

or maybe

‘I nearly fell down the stair on a fresh mopped wet floor, despite there being warning signs. I did not see them because I was thinking about the behaviour of XXXX in the canteen today whose lack of religious respect distracted me’

I simply cannot see any health and safety issue here, nor can I see any reason whatsoever that any employee would be able to quote this persons behaviour in the canteen as an overriding or contributary factor to a health and safety incident.

Every employee has an absolute duty to comply with health and safety legislation, and to cooperate with the employer on achieving a safe workplace, this cannot by any stretch of the imagination be held as an issue that could affect the health and safety of others, even if they find it offensive.

I do not talk about asking people to do what they are not hired for.

…and your earlier words…

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.

Your earlier words make no mention of wether someone was hired for a particualr task, what your earlier words actually say is that if you were the manager, employees must do what you ask or order, what you mean and what you say are rather differant, what would a tribunal make of that ?

Does this mean that someone who is employed by you must cut the throat of an animal because you ask, because that is also based in religion, this is where we have to start looking at what is reasonable, and what is reasonable to a person of one religion, can be a heinous sin to a person of another religion, the attempt to enforce a religious based employment policy on a person who does not subscribe to that religion, without this written into their employment terms prior to said employment or without proper written consultation, is not reasonable.

I am quite convinced and reassured that I have my back covered in a way that only the devil impersonate would have a little chance to win such a case

Glad you have a sense of humour, but of course, the devil is always in the detail, and lawyers are sometimes described as having shaken hand with the devil(tongue in cheek of course)

A bigoted hateful line that drives you already in a corner if I would choose to have that exploited it in a courtroom.

No-one is perfect I guess.

I would begin with stating that in your opinion a “true Muslim” clearly is the one who owns a company and then let it be taken over from him by the people he pays to do the job they are hired for.

So you are stating my opinion for me, clearly you have great enlightenment, however, since I would be standing right next to you at the tribunal, the chair would almost certainly ask if I actually said that, or that I implied it, you would then be asked to strike the comment, I have learned from mistakes in tribunals, as a general rule it is not a good idea to state what a persons opinion is, especially if it is controversial and the person is in the room or available to rebut the claim.

What else can a Muslim employer not do in your opinion?

Set policies and employment conditions that discriminate against others on the basis of sex, or race or religion, unless that post is a specifically excepted one such as a personal home help for example.
At present discrimination on the ground of age, sexual orientation varies from nation to nation, government agencies will include these as discriminatory practices, and most large corporations, especially those who get contracts from the government will also work along the same lines.

A Muslim employer is an employer, nothing more nor less, same as a Jewish employers, or Catholic one, or completely secular employer.

The employer would likely come to some arrangement, this company is operating in the US and in the current anti-Islam climate with which the US is sadly burdened, could well do without the adverse publicity, it might not be how you wish it should be but it is how it is.

The employee in this case is on to a loser in the non-legal sense, even if she wins her case, which is likely.

She will become less popular at her workplace, if she continues to work there it will not be pleasant, and just about everyone infringes company policy and some time or another, its just that good managers do not want to lose good employees and generally will have a quiet word or maybe push out a written warning.

If she leaves voluntarily she might get an agreed good referance, but she will still have to find an alternative job, but if she tries to stay, she will probably find herself at the wrong end of company policy, and her referances will not be much good after that.
I could win her case, but I doubt it would be worth it to her, and I would advise mediation and compromise before getting anywhere near an employment tribunal, and the employers representatives would most probably agree.

[Aldebaran]

@Dog80

Then why should the employer care? Is pork so potent that merely being in the same room with someone eating it makes you dirty? The smell of pork can make you sick?

1. I think you should read my former posts on this thread.
2. I don’t have to say to an other Muslim how strict he/she must be in implementing halal regulations or how he must interprete them. If this particular Muslim (and as we see all the Muslims who work for him equally) wants to avoid that anything containing porc enters the business he owns because that is his interpretation of halal laws, then it is his decision to make.
   You can find quite a few scholars with quite a bit of importance and influence who would be most ready to support him in this.
3. What I think or not think about porc meat being in the same room as I am is of no importance in this discussion. Yet I can tell you that at home it would cause a wave of panic in the kitchen if all of a sudden I wanted to have bacon and eggs for breakfast. That panic and confusion would spread very quickly all over the place…
   My family knows since I was very little that I’m an excentric lunatic, but I am convinced that such a stunt would bring the ambulance of the madhouse -which I suspect to be hidden behind a tree always ready to grab me - in action.

Salaam. A

[Iridium]

@Aldebaran

Every Muslim takes the Muslims who adhere to halal rules very serious even if they themselves do not follow all of them or even none at all. Your idea that it might be “silly” to other Muslims is a fantasy I’m afraid.

Well, my friends who do not keep halal do not have any less respect for their brothers and sisters who do. However, they feel that certain tenets (hijab, halal, etc.) have varying degrees of applicability when it comes to their personal relationship with Allah. For unorthodox muslims, perhaps “irrelevant” (to them) is better. I used “silly” mainly to capture what some have said here already about eating restrictions being illogical. Some people will invariably find the beliefs of others to be strange, silly or irrational. That’s the point I was trying to make.

@Aldebaran

In this case it is the employe who took it to the extremes.

Personally, I don’t think there is enough information to determine who refused to back down, or didn’t bring forth alternatives. Either side could have taken it upon themselves to bring about a workable solution to this problem. It’s been done elsewhere thousands of times. Had the employee not offended all the other muslims, she may have been able to get their support in helping management find her alternatives. If her employer had thought to provide a solution for those who could not easily accomodate his policy, he would not have to deal with the disruption associated with bringing pork products onto the premises. Considering the political climate, it’s predictable that this story would polarize opinions.

[doreen]

@Dog80

According to you then, a company can prevent their employees from doing anything, as long as their religion doesn’t require it?
Well, Christianity doesn’t require one to drink water, should water drinking be forbidden too? What about breathing? That isn’t required either.
How about people who do not have a religion at all?

Nope, I don’t mean to say that an employer can prevent their employees from doing anything not required by their religion. But, if an employer tried to impose a rule prohibiting me from drinking water or breathing on the company premises, it wouldn’t prevent me from practicing my religion, and religion has nothing to do with the reason why an employer can’t prohibit an employee from breathing… When people speak of providing accomodations in the workplace, they are generally speaking of those accomodations required by either religion or disability. Employers don’t have to make accomodations desired for reasons other than religion or disability. If I work at a place that operates 24/7, I might prefer to have Sundays off because that’s when my softball games are. Employer has no obligation to do that. The employer may have an obligation to give me Sundays off to accomodate my religious beliefs. They don’t have to let me work an early schedule so I can pick my kids up from school, but they may have to if my religion prohibits travel during certain hours. The employer might have to accomodate this woman if her religion required her to eat pork for lunch, but it doesn’t. At any rate, the lawyer is complaining that it violates the woman’s freedom of religion , and *catsix appears to believe it does as well. If my religion says nothing about an issue which can be neutral , then it doesn’t violate my religious freedom to make a rule about it. It may be be a bad business practice, but that’s a different issue.

How about alcohol? Should the employer have to accomodate the desire to drink alcohol at lunch? Does it matter if the employer is Muslim? Suppose the other employees are sickened by the smell of the fish someone heats up for breakfast ( something I encountered in one job)? Can the employer impose a policy that fish can’t be heated up, or that fish can’t be heated up until 11:30 am, or get rid of the microwave or decide to no longer provide a dining area? Does it matter if the other employees are sickened because their religion prohibits the consumption of fish in the morning or if they are sickened just because fish is not a common breakfast food in the dominant culture?

[clairobscur]

@Dog80

Do you have a cite for that? I always thought that those foods were originally banned because they were dangerous, and that the “spiritual taint” thing was added much later after wrongly interpreting the original laws.

No, I don’t, and I’m unwilling to search for one because 1)I’m lazy 2)It’s not genuine to the issue at hand. Whatever could have been the historical origin of the ban, it doesn’t change the fact that considering the food religiously “unclean” isn’t at all the same as considering it a health hazard, which was my point. Or else you would find properly cooked pork in kosher shops.
To elaborate a little, though, the traditionnal explanation for pork being banned in some cultures is indeed that pork can be dangerous if improperly handled/prepared/cooked.

However, the main issues with this theory are that :

1)When properly handled, pork isn’t any more an unsafe food. And there are a number of other foods which are much more dangerous or even lethal when improperly prepared which are consumed (for instance, the taro is a base food, despite being toxic when improperly cooked). Being somewhat a hazard in some cases if not properly handled rarely had been ground for banning perfectly edible stuff in the history of mankind. And eating pork isn’t that much of a health hazard, anyway Most cultures somehow managed to survive despite eating pork.
2)If it were the explanation, then the ban on pork would be more widespread. At the contrary, pigs are quite universally raised and consumed wherever they can be.
So came the alternate explanation. Pork was banned simply because it wasn’t a culturally traditional food. In particular, pigs can’t be raised by nomadic people, contrarily to cows, sheeps, etc…They aren’t grazing animals. They can only be raised by sedentary people. As a result pork is the food of these despicable (nomads rarely hold sedentaries in high esteem), unwashed “others”, and isn’t a proper food for “us”, the “real people”. Add to this the “eek” factor related to the diet of pigs (human wastes, in particular). And the fact that it wasn’t a readily accessible meat, contrarily to the sheeps, for instance, that your tribe was actually raising, so you would have to go out of your way to eat it.
I’ve read another argument in favor of this theory which is that besides, pork was introduced relatively late in the middle east (so making it an even more “weird disgusting furiner’s food”). I wouldn’t swear it played a part, though, since I didn’t checked when various species of domesticated animals raised for food were introduced in the middle-east and by whom.
Of course, since it’s not like the origin of the ban is well documented, this theory is unproven and unprovable. But so is the more widespread “health hazard” one. If I favor it, it’s essentialy because it makes more sense to me. I would note also that the “health hazard” theory has also been favored by some people because it implies “It’s not arbitrary. God knew what is good for you”.

[Aldebaran]

@casdave

in a tribunal the employer will need to demonstrate that that such converstations took place, that she was given a written warning, that the requirement for here to ahere to this rule was part of her employment contract, of which she had been given the opportunity to be fully aware, and that this was in the company handbook or company policy.

As I said earlier: It plays against him that he didn’t make her sign some written statement. Yet as well as you would argue the way you do, he can argue that there were conversations about the issue. He can call witnesses for that and for everything else related that can be brought up.

…and how will the clientele actually know if she ate pork on the premises,

Who says that the clients never show up at the firm?

Employer would need to demonstrate that her behaviour was compromising health and safety, this would usually be done by showing accident and near-accident report forms, how would that work?

I can imagine a lot of situations where distraction from your work because of all the commotion that she causes can become a risk for an employees safety. It depends on the work he does and on the business the company is in, but in general you can find easily such an example if you really want to find one.

Your earlier words make no mention of wether someone was hired for a particualr task, what your earlier words actually say is that if you were the manager, employees must do what you ask or order, what you mean and what you say are rather differant, what would a tribunal make of that ?

A tribunal would make of this that I have my contracts as they should be.
Further it would make of this that if I give a secretary an order to close the door when he enters or leaves the office, that this is not something that should be written in the contract. Hence if I give the order that someone who is disturbing the whole lot that works for me - and with a behaviour that can easily be prevented - to stop doing this, I only give an order to make my company run as it should and my employees working as they should be. If you sign a contract with me, you don’t gain the right to stirr up trouble all over the place. You sign a contract to do your job and to let others do their job without you disturbing all of them.
You on the other hand argue that I can not make my company run as it should and hence prevent my employees from being distracted, upset, in a sort of mental and religious mess because one employee finds it funny to disobey my instructions on that aspect of her interaction with colleagues.
I would certainly wish you luck. But you are not the devil. Our lawyers on the other hand are very close to be satanic. That is exactly why they are for so long “in the family” so to speak

since I would be standing right next to you at the tribunal, the chair would almost certainly ask if I actually said that

I started from the supposition that instead of writing it on this forum, you actually say such a thing in the courtroom. That is then where all the fun begins.
I would not be standing next to you, my lawyers would. I would be following it very amused.

The employer would likely come to some arrangement, this company is operating in the US and in the current anti-Islam climate with which the US is sadly burdened, could well do without the adverse publicity, it might not be how you wish it should be but it is how it is.

My family has business running in the USA and to be frank, if that lady would have worked for me/us she would have been out of our sight with an arrangement that she would not likely have turned down.
Getting rid of her that way would be preferable then letting her go on with what she was doing (I have some slight suspicion that this was her plan all along: getting employed by a Muslim and then start having some fun).
Yet since I am a known lunatic I would of course find it a lot more fun to do otherwise. The primary reason to follow my common sense and get rid of her with wrting a check would be that she would not have the fun and sensation and attention she clearly intended and seeks to have.

I could win her case, but I doubt it would be worth it to her, and I would advise mediation and compromise before getting anywhere near an employment tribunal, and the employers representatives would most probably agree.

I would not make a bet you winning this somewhere outside the US.
Yet the USA is known for having courts accepting cases that are lunatical to begin with, and then even come to conclusions about it them are outright crazy.
So I would wish you lot of fun with this one.
Salaam. A

[Unregistered_Bull]

@jsleek

sort of related:
We had a Muslim exchange student in our home for a year. A whole year without pepperoni pizza. When he left, we ordered up a family size and it was so good.

How anal is the typical Muslim about pork? The only one that I know owns businesses that serve traditional pork laden American breakfasts and routinely eats at McDonalds for breakfast but simply doesn’t eat any pork. And when eating out doesn’t mind in the least if someone else has pork products.

[Phedre_no_Delaunay]

@Mighty_Girl

And how did we stretch ‘company premise’ to mean ‘parking lot’ and ‘her car’?

The company’s parking lot is a part of the company’s premises. I knew a guy whose company banned smoking from the premises, and all the smokers had to go stand on the sidewalk across from the parking lot. They were not allowed to smoke in their own cars in the company parking lot because “premises” encompasses the entire land owned by the company, not just inside the building.

The applicable definition of premises: a tract of land with the buildings thereon

Assuming this company has a parking lot, that lot is also company premises. If you are in your car in their parking lot, you are occupying their premises.