I don’t get what you’re saying here about the rotating equipment…
What I am asking is, would you support firing a woman for not wearing the Muslim-style headscarf in an *office environment. * In this scenario, the headscarf is required because the employer is Muslim, and covering of woman’s hair is required in Islam…NOT because she works in foodservice and needs a hairnet or is in danger of being caught in a piece of equipment.
One more comment, OtakuLoki. So in your thinking, for anything that is common, safe, and legal but also *offensive and disruptive * to the majority of the employees in a workplace, it is OK to allow firing someone for doing it?
OK what if a black, Asian or Hispanic employee was offensive to a bunch of racist white employees. Can we fire them?
What if a Democrat employee was offensive to a bunch of conservative, Republican employees. Can we fire them?
Also, you have to look at why it is offensive and therefore disruptive.
Religion prohibits pork, therefore making it offensive to the religious, therefore making it disruptive.
Just as, racism promotes hate of certain people, therefore making it offensive to the racists, therefore making it disruptive.
Just as conservativism dislikes liberalism, Democrats are liberal, therefore making a Democrat offensive to the conservatives, therefore making it disruptive.
We gotta draw the line somewhere.
Explaining a situation where keeping one’s hair tied up is a safety issue. An example
That is different from what you had been asking though. You made a blanket statement and I pointed out at least one situation where I wouldn’t think it inappropriate. I was pointing out there were times where a hair restraint could be a legitimate safety issue.
If it were as you’re describing now, I’d agree he’s asking her to show an outward obeyance to Islamic law beyond what would seem to me to be reasonalbe to expect of non-Muslim persons.
OTOH, would you think that a middle eastern style restaurant could require serving women to wear Muslim-style headscarves as part of the ambiance that the owner is trying to present? Whether the workers share the religious beliefs or not? I’m afraid, here, I’d think it would be a legitimate dress code, honestly.
No question about that. I just don’t see eating pork as being analogous to a civil right, as you seem to.
BTW, where are you that you believe all Democrats are liberal? 
I don’t think there’s near the correlation there that you think there is. Some Democrats are certainly liberal. Some are pretty conservative. (I have trouble thinking anyone liberal if they pervert the House rules in a legislature so that they absolutely control what bills get voted upon by the full house.)
I’m not sure why I’m defending these people at all. I think it’s a pretty dumb rule and no one I know with dietary restrictions has ever tried to force them on me(and I’ve worked with Mormons, Jewish people, vegans, diabetics, and recovering alcoholics, sometimes all gathered around the same table.) The only exception was an HR manager who overrode everyone else’s restaurant choice one year for the Christmas party because she was on Atkins.
We don’t know all the details, mainly because of the slanted nature of the article. BUT, if putting pig parts in the communal microwave or fridge was upsetting to the majority of employees, then it shouldn’t be surprising that a manager would do something about it to keep the general peace.
And, as others have pointed out, eating a BLT is not an expression of religion, as wearing a headscarf or cross would be.
You have breakfast, dinner, midnight snacks and weekend meals and any number of federal holidays with time off, plus vacation days, PLUS maternity leave, to eat whatever the hell you want. She could go eat OUT for lunch, she could eat her lunch in the car. Sensibly if she wanted “special accommodation” to eat elsewhere except the lunchroom she should have tried that, too.
Most employee contracts can fire you without cause. At least she has a good anectdote now. But if you’re going to pick a principle to get sacked over, a fucking sandwich seems like a pretty stupid way to go.
So isn’t asking the employee to refrain from eating pork (which would be asking her to show an outward obeyance to Islamic law) “beyond what would seem to me to be reasonalbe to expect of non-Muslim persons”? I would say that it is. Pork is a very common food. It’s in many of Americans’ favorite lunchtime foods: pizza, ham and cheese, BLT, salads, hot dogs, etc. Asking the employee to avoid eating it would restrict her freedom of choice of food and could be an inconvenience for her.
If you don’t agree, what is the test for whether something is “reasonable”?
I think this would be OK, because the reason for the requirement would be solely because of “the ambiance that the owner is trying to present” not because it’s his religion. Just like employees of a Mexican restaurant might be asked to dress in a certain way to convey an “ambiance.”
It’s not about the right to eat pork. It’s about the right to be free from religious discrimination in the workplace. The prohibition on the pork was based in religious beliefs. The employee didn’t follow the employer’s religious belief while on company property, so she was fired. Keep in mind, this had nothing to do with the quality of her work and the rule had nothing to do with the operation of the business.
Oh and you never answered this question: So in your thinking, for anything that is common, safe, and legal but also offensive and disruptive to the majority of the employees in a workplace, it is OK to allow firing someone for doing it?
My main thought is, there could have been other things put in place to avoid the need for the rule in the first place. There could be a separate eating place for non-Muslims. A separate place to store non-Muslim’s food. There should have been an attempt for a compromise, an attempt to accommodate all the employees. Just like I am sure non non-Muslim employer might accommodate a Muslim’s need to pray facing Mecca however many times a day… or I am sure a non-Muslim employer might provide Muslim employees their own refrigerator and microwave.
NOT eating a BLT is an expression of religion in this case.
I really don’t see this as showing any more than respect for the majority of one’s co-workers. It’s as simple as that. Not eating pork in front of anyone who is forbidden from eating it, who believes it to be unclean, is just being considerate.
While many common foods include pork, it’s also not precisely difficult to avoid, either. Pizza’s are easy to get without pork, PB&J doesn’t use pork, mac & cheese and chicken, many lunch meats are pork free - usually you have to pay a premium to get pork luncheon meats. Heck, if she couldn’t go without her bacon, what’s wrong with turkey bacon? Some of that stuff is even kosher! Many hot dogs are made to kosher specs without pork, in fact, most of the better ones, as I understand it.
I do not see avoiding pork as any kind of hardship, and you seem to see it as one. My definition of reasonable is will avoiding something force the person affected to violate their morals, their values, their religion, or adversely affect their health. So far, the only reason I can imagine to knowingly bring pork into a workplace where she was hired knowing about the no pork rule is to piss off people for no good reason. That level of obnoxiousness is not something I think should be protected.
So far the only values that I’ve seen attached to eating pork at work is convenience, or to demonstrate one’s contempt for the beliefs of one’s co-workers. The level of inconvenience associated with avoiding pork seems so miniscule to me, I cannot fathom making it an issue.
<snippity>
Odd, that’s how you were arguing it just a moment ago - pork is so common it is a hardship to have to avoid it.
But what about the other worker’s rights not to have their own religious beliefs trampled on? The majority of the other workers at the workplace were reported to be Muslims - why must they expect to have the most offensive of the items forbidden to them waved in their faces while at lunch? And, she was fired for violating, repeatedly, a clearly stated company policy. That policy should have been written, and you can argue that because of that she has a case. I’ll even agree it’s likely you’re right.
I’m afraid I still see your position in this as, in your zeal to protect yourself from contamination by religious rituals, you’re insisting on your right to insult, and offend, anyone you don’t happen to agree with.
Not anything, no. I draw the line at forcing anyone to do something illegal, or that would conflict with their morals, values, religion, or health.
(Please note, that little ‘illegal’ in there deals with the egregious discriminations you’d mentioned earlier.)
But where does eating pork fall on that line? Refraining from eating one specific form of meat is not the same thing as expecting someone to don a burka, or wear a cross, or take part in daily prayer. What is the real inconvenience in avoiding pork? Until you can convince me that there is a cost to being forced to avoid pork for one meal a day - who cares?
Besides, I can imagine, if the Muslim workers are bothered enough, this is behavior that is costing the owner of the business in terms of overall efficiency of his workforce, he has the right to fire her. Or do you really think, in order to protect her right to eat pork free from religious contamination, he should fire all the Muslim workers he has instead? If one insists on repeating forbidden behavior that is disruptive and offensive to one’s co-workers I’d think the employer/owner does have a right to terminate her.
A negative action is never an expression of religion. Never. Even kosher and hallal foods have rituals associated with them, avoiding pork is simply one part of that.
I am an atheist, and even I fail to see how she was been discriminated on. Actually they had more than enough reason to fire her if what she did was offensive to a majority of the employees. If she needed her pepperoni so bad she could have either eaten it outside the company, seeked alternative accomodation, or simply gotten another job. She was just been a jerk.
You’re talking about “at-will” employment, which means that you can leave for any reason at any time or your employer can show you the door for any reason at any time.
However, when the employer shows you the door and they tell you its for a reason – as they did here – that reason has to be legal. In this case, there’s a strong question as to whether or not the reason was, in fact, legal. Was this a case of an employer dismissing an employee who repeatedly flouted a reasonable workplace rule or was this a case of an employer dismissing an employee who refused to conform to an unwritten rule in her workplace which was designed entirely to benefit employees of one religion despite the fact that the workplace is not a religious entity and therefore does not have the exemption that religious workplaces have from certain equal opportunity/discrimination laws.
Is avoiding pork a hardship? Depends on your definition of “hardship.” I would personally consider it very bothersome to have to restrict my choices of lunch every single day to conform to someone else’s religious standards. If I were to wake up on a Friday morning and think “Mm, I’d really like this leftover mu shu pork for lunch, ir would be really tasty.” but couldn’t have it because someone else was going to be offended should they know I was eating it – not injured, not made ill, not subject to an allergic reaction, just offended – that would start to bother me greatly. Unless you’re paying for what I’m eating or I’m waving it in front of your face taunting you with it, it’s not your business.
But whether or not this was illegal discrimination is a finding of fact for a jury. Even if this woman was being a jerk, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the company was justified in having this rule to begin with (especially since it was never put into writing) and that’s the real question.
Do I think it reasonable to fire someone for eating pork? - No
Do I think it reasonable for someone who finds a particular food (or category of food) offensive - for any reason - to ask a co-worker to refrain from brining it for lunch? - Yes
Do I think the right thing to do is to avoid eating foods that cause offense to others in front of them? - Yes
Do I think there is some sort of discrimination going on here anyway? - Yes.
It’s not like we’re in the middle of Ramadan and the company was asking non-Muslim employees to fast as well as the Muslims, but the quoted stuff from the employer was telling, at least to me - his attitude that pork was so unclean as to not be permitted in the building at all, and the way he said it like it was obvious to everyone. This doesn’t require concious malice on his part. It may well be part of his cultural conditioning to look down on anyone who eats pork. In my experience, Muslims aren’t very forgiving of even accidental ingestion, delibrate consumption of pork can make them really look down on a person.
Given that this IS a majority-Christian country, and many are not fully conversant with Muslim traditions/customs/hallal if this is the company policy it SHOULD be written and new employees made clear on it, because it is so atypical a restriction for the area. That way, employees know up front, regardless of religion, and no one can later say they weren’t warned.
Another thing - due to food allergies I am extremely concious of what things are in what foods, but I’ve met a lot of people who are totally oblivious as to the actual contents of what they are eating. It would not surprise me to find an adult of any age who was unaware of the pork content of pepperoni or other sausage, or of lunch meats. Mainly because I’ve met a lot of such adults. They don’t have to worry about these things, so they pay no attention to them.
Anyhow - as usual I suspect we’re only getting half the story.
We’re talking about things that are annoying in the workplace. And nearly everyone gets over it. Eating pungent foods is far more invasive than merely “knowing” that someone is eating something you wouldn’t eat.
Also, how many people need to be offended before you need to cease and desist? What if the muslim population was 37%? Do you tell them, “Too bad…we know this is extremely offensive, but you’re not in the majority.”?
My brother was once denied a job for which he was incredibly qualified, solely because he refused to cut his hair. Was this illegal?
Would it have been illegal if the boss had been a member of a religious group who considered it taboo for men to have long hair?
This is a ridiculous argument. “At-will” employment means you can fire folks for any reason, except for a small number of illegal reasons. Forbidden reasons include:
-Religion
-Race
-Marital Status
-Age
-a few others
Forbidden reasons do NOT include:
-Lame senses of humor
-Bad taste in clothing
-Eating the wrong thing in the cafeteria
-Failure to sing the “My Little Pony” theme song every morning
The only question is whether this woman was fired for a forbidden reason. The closest we get to a forbidden reason is religion, but that’s patently false: her own religion was not at issue here. Had her own religion been at issue, we would at minimum have expected her to be fired the first time she ate pork, inasmuch as it would demonstrate that she was not a practicing Muslim.
But she wasn’t fired then. She was retained as an employee with no regard to her religion, but was told to comply with her employer’s whim. She refused to comply. You’re absolutely allowed to fire someone for refusing to comply with your whim.
Incidentally, I’ve gotten my employer to stop an employee from a particularly disgusting eating habit: in our tiny office, she was bringing in her Foreman grill and grilling cheap hamburger meat, leaving the entire building smelling like stale meat grease for hours afterward. I could barely breathe, had to open all the doors and windows to air the place out, and eventually asked that she be stopped. I said nothing about the stinky tuna she switched over to eating, even though she left the unwashed dishes in the sink overnight to rank up the place.
Strangely, she didn’t sue.
Daniel
We had a whole thread about that very topic here a while back. It was very interesting.
From the article:
"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. "
See, this has nothing to do with offending someone by eating “smelly” food, or even doing it in the presence of hardcore religious folk. It was the concept of pork that she was fired for. She could have sat in the lot in her car and it wouldn’t have made a difference. For this reason, I think it’s clear she was fired for not practicing her employer’s religious behavior. To all the posters that were talking about a “gross-out factor”, that’s not what was happening.
It doesn’t have to be a gross-out factor: it’s a company’s whim, and it’s not a forbidden whim. She wasn’t fired for her religion. She was fired for not obeying her employer’s whim.
Daniel
I never said she was fired for “her” religion. She was fired for not observing “their” religion. You can sugar-coat it all you want, but the basis for her dismissal was religion. And THAT’S illegal.
I don’t get what’s so difficult to understand here. She was fired because she was asked not to do something by her employer and did it anyway, on more than one occasion.
I think she was being an asshole. Obviously, she has the God-given right to be an asshole, and her employer has the right to fire her ass for it.
(Honestly, I think if this woman had been a model employee in every other regard, this wouldn’t even be an issue. But that’s just me.)
First off, it’s not sugarcoating it: I’m not at all convinced that you’re right. She wasn’t asked to perform any religious act; she was simply asked to refrain from an act that many employees found offensive. That’s a huge difference.
Second, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong to say that it’d be illegal if she was fired for not observing their religion. According to Nolo.com:
Where do you get that it’s illegal to fire an employee because of the employer’s religion?
Daniel