A Heathrow airport worker who was sacked for wearing a nose stud has been reinstated in her job.
Mrs Lalji maintained that the nose stud was part of her Hindu religion. Backed by the GMB union, the mother of three appealed against her dismissal and was duly given her job back.
A spokesperson for the company said: “In the course of this research we have found that the rules relating to facial piercings are mandatory only in catering operations. Though this is not clear in the handbook, which is given to all employees, it is specific in the text of the company’s HR Directory, which is the primary source policy document.
“Since Mrs Lalji is not engaged in catering, her dismissal resulted from a misunderstanding of the rules and is therefore unjustified.”
Tahir Bhatti, GMB organiser said: “GMB is pleased to have been able to assist Mrs Lalji in this matter and welcomes Eurest’s decision that she is reinstated in her position immediate and without detriment.”
3 Responses
Farcical
All of this is farcical, the religious discrimination laws are a joke that should never have been passed. We should of gone the same route as the French and banned all visible symbols of religious affiliation within schools, public institutions etc. and left employers to make their own decisions.
Religion is a choice not a factor of birth, and as such should remain like any other factor of choice – open to questioning, criticism etc.
No-one in the HR profession would dream of leaping to protect paedophiles, open S&M enthusiasts (I just like to expose my pierced nipples at work style), open drug users (I’ll just pop off for my smack break now) and so on. Yet these are all choices (maybe in your book not equivalent to religion but they are in mine) and in the case of paedophiles it may well be a compulsion that they cannot help (if we assume that sexuality is inherited in the main). Yet we are free to discriminate on all these things.
Britain needs to affirm its status as a secular nation, we have the lowest religious attendance at worship of any western nation, most people grudgingly label themselves Christians but have never read the bible, taken part in prayer (except when forced to at school or for christenings etc.) with a commitment to free-worship (I’ve no objection to people choosing to believe things) which has no place in other people’s lives.
I work in the Middle East, no-one here considers the veil a symbol of religious commitment (it’s a Saudi cultural thing), the Holy Koran suggests that for modesty’s sake women might want to cover their hair (but plenty of gulf muslim women choose not to and no-one objects), there is freedom of worship in most countrys here (except Saudi) and yet no-one wears ostentatious showy religious icons, and most of the clothing that Westerners consider to be “religious” in origin is in fact cultural in origin.
In an age of enlightened debate, with Atheism and Agnosticism becoming more prevalent – we should all resist the politically correct nonsense associated with religion. You are free to believe what you choose, you are not free to inflict it open other people.
Further comment
In the original press notes that I read they were pointing the finger firmly the person being an BA employee hence my comments about the dismissal of the person wearing the cross last year. It would now appear that she was employed by part of the Compass Group (Eurest) working on BA site.
However having worked in an environment where our staff were working on a clients site and therefore could be seen as being clients staff we were expected to ensure our staff complied with all their policies and procedures.
I therefore doubt that Eurest acted without the say so of BA.
I still feel this does count as double standards. The piercings in question are like I understand optional as my understanding that whilst some Hindu women have their noses pierced as part of the Shringar ritual when they marry it is tradition and it is not a symbol of their religion. Having looked up the Shringar ritual on the web it only talks about it being the full beautification of the bride consisting of sixteen parts from head to toe and nothing about it being a mandatory part of the Hindu religion.
So taking the previous case of the women showing her religious beliefs by wearing a cross I would suggest that this has even less merit of being religious discrimination as like wearing a cross it is voluntary and it main purpose appears to be to show she is married and a beautification aid.
Eqaulity ?
Nice to see BA Equality Programme at work. Is this not the same company that sacked a christian employee for wearing a cross at work last year.