Should employees be able to discriminate against women because of religious beliefs?
In the US and most common law countries, the balance that is considered is whether the accommodation of religious beliefs is a "reasonable accommodation" provided by the employer, or whether the accommodation would place "undue hardship" on the employer. If the former, then the employer has to make the accommodation, and if the latter, then the employer does not.In the particular instance mentioned in question details, the US EEOC has issued a finding that accommodating the belief of Muslim men that they shouldn't shake hands with unrelated women is a "reasonable accommodation": No-Handshake Religious Custom of Muslim Employee Must Be AccommodatedSee also this Quora question: Is it appropriate for an interviewer to refuse to shake hands with a woman for religious reasons, putting the female interviewee on the spot? Isn't it grounds for a lawsuit as gender discrimination?
Is it legal to fire/not hire someone if their religion interferes with their work in the US?
In an interview, a prospective employer can not ask certain questions such as an applicants religious affiliation, but can ask others which would help discern if they candidate was appropriate to work a job. Talented hiring managers know how to interview and identify correct candidates and put them in positions to be successful. Currently I am aware of a woman who works for a Quick Service Restaurant Franchise in my hometown who is Hindi and could never eat a hamburger if her life depended upon it. The crew and managers of the restaurant that she is the best employee on the grill. She just recently returned from time off to India and the General Manager and Lunch Manager is anxious for her to get back in place. Many job applications and on line apps have legal notices stating that fabricating any information or misrepresenting themselves can be grounds for action including immediate termination. The candidate is expected to both document in writing and tell the truth in an interview about all factors of his candidacy, and lying merely to get the job would be considered legal misrepresentation.Using the example of the of the meat market, a savvy hiring manager would both review with a prospective candidate a job description that explains such duties and then ask them a qualifying question such as, "Is there any reason why you would not be able to execute all the specific responsibilities of the position as you understand it?" Lets say the candidate says "No" during the interview, and then later explains they can not touch the meat because of their religious views. The candidate factually lied during the interview. This can be grounds for corrective actions from reassignment up to dismissal, since the candidate factually misrepresented himself as part of the interview process. There's an maxim in hiring: Hire slowly. Fire Promptly.
Is it legal to deny a job to someone based on his/her religion in India?
Thanks for A2A.The question of legality of denying someone a job or employment based on religious grounds depends on whether the employment is under a public or private employer. There are several constitutional safeguards to protect against discrimination based on religion in public employment. And it is illegal and violation on Constitution if an employer denies a job simply on religious basis.On the other hand, presently no law prohibits employers in India’s private sector from discriminating against job applicants on the basis of religion. There is no law which compels a private entity to select its employees equally from all religions or without religious discrimination, therefore even though it may be unethical, it is not illegal.Speaking of constitutional safeguards, Article 14 of the Constitution states that “the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws”. Article 15 prohibits the State from discriminating on grounds of religion alone. Article 16, too, protects Indian citizens from being discriminated against on grounds of religion in matters of employment under the State.But all these constitutional provisions prevent discrimination & prejudice in public employment. Whereas, public employers are organisations falling under the definition of “State”, as defined by Article 12 of the Constitution, includes “the Government and Parliament of India and the Government and the Legislature of each of the States and all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India”. As the private employers do not fall under the definition of “state”, they are not bound by the religious discrimination clause of law.
Is it illegal to tell employees not to talk about religion at work?
I am a manager at a warehouse and i just had one of my employees complain how some of the other workers are talking too much about church and good including bringing cds and playing the music loud talking about their word. and not all our employees are from the same religion. i noticed that they spend too much time talking about their religion. i believe that religion should not be brought to work. i dont want to tell them because im not sure if its illegal
Can an employer enforce their decision to play only Christian music in the workplace?
you can doublecheck the FCC rules about copyright violation. There are rules about playing music in a workplace and for certain situations you have to have specially licensed CDs or you have to have purchased a license for certain songs through a licensing company. If the music is just background noise and you can ignore it and no-one acts any differently, then maybe you could get some earbuds and listen to your own music or something. If the content is offensive to you then you can produce your own CDs with family friendly music (totally non-offensive stuff, here), and request that your stuff get cycled through, too. If the music is just for the "hold" system, then it's a marketing thing and as long as he's licensed properly then he's just marketing himself. But if it's actually getting pumped into your private workspace, and you're not a christian, (or you are a christian, but it's irritating to you), and you feel that it's propagandizing (which alot of christian music is), OR if your coworkers begin acting "evangelical"then you tell whoever it is to stop right away (try to be polite about it) then you tell your employer about it right away and say quite clearly that you don't appreciate being evangelized in the workplace. You have to complain first to whoever's doing it, then to your immediate supervisor, then to his supervisor if nothing happens, and if nothing changes, then you have a harassment suit on your hands. By federal law, it is illegal to harass anyone in the workplace based on gender, race, ethnicity, religious affiliation... and some number of other items. here's a site that might be of some help to you, http://employeeissues.com/harassment.htm you also might want to take an EEOC approved training course so that you know what is considered to be harassment. Getting angry about it is not the way to go, you want to reach a situation in which you can continue to be productive without feeling discriminated against. Being able to wear earbuds while in your private office might be an acceptable solution to this. Or perhaps being able to not listen to any music at all in your office might be an acceptable solution.
Where can i find a list of legally recognised religions in the uk?
See EDIT below for additional material. The difficulty with this one is that there is no -- what shall we call it -- official registration (?) of religion in the UK, unlike most other countries. So there isn't really a definitive list. We're a lot more relaxed about this sort of thing in the UK -- personally I see this as a good thing because avoids a lot of antagonism between religions and the State. Janeinla is referring to an event whereby a soldier (pretty sure it was the Army rather than the RN ... doesn't really matter) put down their religion as Scientology and the bureaucrats got upset about it. (You can imagine, no neat pigeonhole, oh dear do we have to provide a minister for him etc etc.) It was pursued and eventually acknowledged, by the Ministry of Defense, that it was fine. (Disclaimer: That's how I remember it, anyway.) However Scientology recently got VAT exemption backdated to whenever it was first queried and that must be based on either being a religion as recognised by the Inland Revenue, or as a charity. Now I haven't seen any letterhead recently that has any kind of a charity number (which they'd be required to have) so that would suggest that IR have decided it's a religion too. So the MOD and IR both think it's a religion (apparently) -- pretty major chunks of the Government. I'm not any kind of official Scientology representative so this is pretty much educated guesswork. I could probably make some enquiries if it's really important. Hope it helps, anyway. EDIT: In the UK there is no "legal sense". As Janeinla pointed out it fits the definition of religion and, as I said, it is not registered as a charity but is exempt from VAT. Therefore the taxing authority (ie. the Inland Revenue) must consider it to be a valid religion. Unfortunately you can't have the answer you want. Okay I went to the government website and found this: "How does the law define religion or belief? Employment law defines religion or belief as any religion, religious belief or similar philosophical belief. There's no specific list, but it includes all major religions, and less widely practised ones." The closest I could find: so there's no list. If there was a list then Employment Law would refer to it. .
Is it legal for a company to prevent friending on FB between employees?
"Between employees" is often different than "between boss and subordinate."Let's say you're someone's boss. You're somewhat religious. You friend your employee, and find out they're very anti-theist and often insult the religion you follow. They never bring it to work, though.Shortly after, you need to fire them. Oops! You've just opened the company up to a religious discrimination claim. If not for the Facebook bit, you would've been well protected--you wouldn't have even known their views on religion, and they may not have known yours. But now you both do.I will never "friend" a boss or subordinate until after I leave the company. Too much potential for trouble.