NEWS: The "Other White Meat" will get you fired!

An interesting turn of events, post 9/11 the news rife with stories of how Muslim employees claimed, and actually were discriminated against by their employers. The thought that a pizza with "Canadian Bacon", or sausage could lead to dismissal is beyond what most could consider reasonable.



This will no doubt lead to litigation and some unwelcome publicity for Rising Star, who would probably be best served by settling as quickly as possible.

[edit on 4-8-2004 by Nerdling]

So if my boss is on a low carb diet and i bring in spaghetti will i get fired too?

Originally posted by foxtrot_uniform
So if my boss is on a low carb diet and i bring in spaghetti will i get fired too?

Not unless his religion says he cant have carbs.

Although, his religion does not say that other people can't have carbs.

I have only seen 1 instances of food control in offices in my career:

An employee was asked to stop bringing fish for lunch because a coworker had a serious fish allergy.

We must respect everyone's religious beliefs so I totally understand the owner of the business not eating pork himself, but to fire someone else for eating it? I doubt that anywhere in her employment agreement it stated that she had to convert.

This is a no brainer. If you work for an employer who had you agree to certain company policies and you intentionally violated them, then he as ever right in your termination.

People, if it was told to the worker before hiring the company is completely within their rights to terminate.

Harsh but completely legal.

This looks to be a reverse discrimination issue here.
Under federal law, what this company did was illegal. A company cannot force sombody to follow the codes set about by the religious preference of the owners. There have been numerous law suits in the past on this type of thing. What is even worst, as the past events have shown, if a Muslim (and no I am not singaing them out here but using them for an example) was dismissed for something involving their religion, They will be all over the news hollering discrimination.

This is true so long as the rules of the company do not infringe against your personal rights (race, religion, sex, etc.) Terminating an employee for this reason from a large company will most likely result in the employee never having to work again from the proceeds of the large settlement soon to come.

Problem is Fl is a "right to work" state, which means basically the employer can fire you and doesn't have to give you a reason. (happened to me). She'd have to PROVE that this is what got her fired, and this will be VERY difficult to do in this wacked state... As Super Chicken would say, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it Fred..."

Again, this is perfectly legal. They are not saying you can't perform your cultural or religious practice. They are saying NO PORK on company property.

No religion says you MUST eat pork. Unless you are a member of "The Church of Waffle House." Long live the HOUSE

Originally posted by Gazrok
Problem is Fl is a "right to work" state, which means basically the employer can fire you and doesn't have to give you a reason. (happened to me). She'd have to PROVE that this is what got her fired, and this will be VERY difficult to do in this wacked state... As Super Chicken would say, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it Fred..."

Agreed, but as the news report states it was for

However, 10 months after being hired by Rising Star, religious differences led to her termination.

.
So the proof would seem to already be on the employees side.
I for one would like to know what the outcome on this will be.

Originally posted by Gazrok
Problem is Fl is a "right to work" state, which means basically the employer can fire you and doesn't have to give you a reason. (happened to me).

Actually, the state laws concerning "Right to Work" only cover discrimination based on membership or non-membership in a labor union. Here is a link containing the pertinent sections of Florida labor laws:

www.nrtw.org...

i say send 'em bacon bits in a white envelope through the mail.

Originally posted by flycatch
This is a no brainer. If you work for an employer who had you agree to certain company policies and you intentionally violated them, then he as ever right in your termination.

Your post is -definately- a no-brainer. I'm not calling you stupid, I'm just suggesting that you've leaned on your principles without considering the logical implications.
First and foremost you have to remember that it is illegal to discriminate on religious grounds. This means you may not set regulations which create a religious bias.
Suppose that tomorrow I bought Walmart and became the employer of a couple of million people. Now let's say that I scheduled everyone to work sunday morning, and made their job on sunday morning to attend catholic mass, or they will be fired. Am I justified in enforcing my workplace policy?

The question here is, can the employer cite a business-related reason for the termination? Does this business deal heavily with Muslim clients -in that office- who actually -see- or are made aware of the consumption of pork, which is harming business? Is there any application of the health code to this matter? Is the employee doing this with malicious intent: to personally offend the employer? The answers are likely "no" and if that is the case then this employer has made the presumed much more than a business relationship with the employee, but a personal mastery over the employee. It frightens me to realize that such a presumption is not patently illegal (although in this case discrimination covers it), however it is wrong and not one of us can claim to honestly believe otherwise. (Unless somebody here -does- consider their employer a personal master...)

What's next? Requiring registration for a certain political party? Requiring employees to give a percentage of their paycheck to some specific cause? Oh here's a really good one- require employees to pray audibly for the entire duration of the work day! That last one goes hand in hand with the no pork requirement.

However, 10 months after being hired by Rising Star, religious differences led to her termination.

Yes, but who is stating this? The ex-employee? The author of the article? If not the employer, then it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

As for "right to work", I'll admit I haven't checked into it much, but I do know that employers here do not have to give a reason for termination. Mine didn't, and I checked into it, with two different lawyers saying I didn't have a case in Fl.

Two things with this that should be noted based on the article itself.

1. The woman's lawyer and employer are both aware that the outcome of the litigation will be precedent setting because the employer is maintaining his right of religion to forbid certain food products from the workplace. The employer states:

"Our point of view is to respect the laws of the land and the laws of the land as I understand it is to the accommodate people's right to practice their religions if you can," Kweli said.

2. An Orlando attorney with close ties to the Muslim community sees the potential of the employer's stand to backfire.

"They're making it seem that if you don't follow a certain set of religious practices and beliefs then you're going to be terminated and that's wrong," Nejame said. "If this case prevails, what it will mean -- the implications of this case -- is it will eliminate accommodations of religion."

Personally, I think she should have lied and said it was turkey bacon.

I though we in this country have and equal opportunity act to protect employees from discrimination in the working place.

This from the local6 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.

However, by the company's own admission to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, that policy is not written, Local 6 News reported.

So it's not a he-said she-said case; there is proof of why she was terminated.

The company was foolish for not having new employees sign a letter stating that they were willing to comply with such a discriminatory policy. Whether it is legal or not is another question.

jsobecky,

Thanks for the aditional information, I know that we are protected against discrimination and if this case goes to court (I don't know if it has) the lawyers can find loops in cases like this.

Possibly some confusion over 'right to work' versus a 'at-will employment' state?

My state is totally 'at-will' employment, unless otherwise guaranteed by a contract. This means that if you decide you want to quit your job and go fishing, you have that right with no repercussions. Sounds great, huh? Well, the flip side is that it also works for the employer. That's right--they have the option to fire you, at any time, for any reason or no reason. No matter what's going on pretty much, they can just say "oop! You're outta here!" with no justification whatsoever. This makes the area attractive for businesses, in the manner that they can treat everyone as badly as they want, with virtually no repercussions. No matter if the company handbook says something is a dismissal offense or not, they can change the rules at any point, or simply give you the axe without explanation. I've seen it happen too many times.

In this case, regardless of the employment laws of the state, the person who got fired for eating the pork will likely get a large settlement out of it, as it should be. If it were an "at-will" state, but the reason for dismissal was given as 'religious differences', then the case would still be cinched due to their admission of cause. If they'd just ditched them, it'd be different, but as the cause was apparently documented, the employer is just going to have to "eat" this one, pork or no pork!