I have always been critical of the diversity and equality nonsense. Especially when workplaces are expected to make special allowances for religious belief. Religion is a personal and private matter and has no place being brought into the work environment. The workplace is a place of work, not prayer and employers should not have to have their enterprise adversely affected by the religious belief of employees.
So, on the face of it, this is a sound judgment.
A new ruling by a High Court judge – the first on the issue in nearly a decade – says that Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a “core component” of their beliefs.
The judgment – which upholds an earlier decision – means that individual Christians do not have any protection from being fired for not working on Sundays.
Campaigners said the decision puts Christians at a disadvantage to other religions and means the judiciary are deciding what the core beliefs of Christians can be, which they say is an interference in the right to practise religion.
The idea that it interferes with their right to practice is false. There are other opportunities to go to church if that is what they feel they need to do. And, any contract that involves working out of hours is usually up-front about it. So, if church on Sunday is an absolute must, then don’t take a job that involves working on Sundays. Expecting your employer to change the arrangements to fit in with you is not only wrong – and a breach of the contract you entered into – it will also, inevitably, impinge on those who will have to pick up the slack.
So, yeah, on the face of it, a correct judgement. But – and here’s the worry – does it also mean that employers can now convert those prayer rooms back into their original functions, or does this ruling only apply to religions that don’t threaten to blow people up for disagreeing with them?
Removing my tongue from my cheek and on a more serious note – hopefully this judgement will be the start of a new trend – one where employers do not have to make allowances for religion in the workplace – any allowance for any religion.
I tend to disagree LR. Not because I’m religious, far from it. Nor in this particular case because I would have assumed Sunday working would be a pre-requirement for anoyone taking a care job. It’s one of the few essential 24/7 jobs.
However,when the Sunday trading laws were passed there was a firm promise of a religious opt-out. As always with modernising laws they eventually ratchet up and protections are removed, I see this as just one more example.
I disagree with the religious opt-out as people already have one; don’t take a job that involves working on their Sabbath, just as many people don’t take jobs that involve working all sorts of other unsocial hours. When I took the Sainsbury’s job, I realised full well what it entailed and went with it until I was in a position to get something more suitable. That said, I still work most Saturdays and am prepared to turn out over the weekend – day or night – should a client ask it. I fail to see why religious belief should be given a free ride. You sign the contract, you do the hours or you don’t take the job. That’s true equality.
But, yes, agreed regarding this particular case – 24/7 organisation is inevitably going to expect a commitment across the full week and to want to opt-out is to take advantage of one’s colleagues who have to take up the slack.
Well there was the case at Bentley Motors where they stopped the priest from visiting citing multifaith issues. As in the Christian priest couldn’t possibly handle Muslims or Hindus etc, though any reasonable priest of whatever religion usually is happy to help any person of any religion in minor ways. Also ignoring the fact that the Christian priest can’t handle atheists either who are probably the majority.
But I don’t think the priest came to the work place for purely religious purposes, more likely he was handling personal issues.
However is there a case for a priest to enter a workplace? I don’t think so, even if wasn’t being paid. If people had personal problems, they can do that in their own time, not during work. And they can go to whomever they think is best, spiritual, homoeopathic, religious, or just purely psychological.
So I don’t think this is a case of crushing religious freedoms. More a case of allowing more religious freedom. Rather than have a priest of one religion handling everything allow people to sort out their own religious freedom issues themselves in a place and manner which doesn’t impact on others, ie the workplace.
Some organisations have counsellors. Railtrack did for a few years. The reasoning being that there were soft issues that might have an adverse effect on peoples’ work, so it benefited the company to be able to handle it in-house. That went about a decade ago. The service though was entirely secular in nature and so it should be unless the organisation decides otherwise.
London Underground have a strong counselling team to help drivers who have had to suffer the problem of “one-unders” (i.e. suicides). Many of their counsellors are suitably trained LU staff though; I don’t see why religion has to be dragged into it. Most of us are *not* psychopaths.