Pity the managers in religious disputes

Last year ended as it began: with managers trapped in religious arguments.

In January 2013 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that one employee had a right to wear a cross at work while another did not. And at the end of December, Marks and Spencer, the UK retailer, faced boycott threats when a Muslim employee insisted customers go to a different till to pay for alcohol.

These were British disputes but they resonated widely, reported from New York to Shanghai.

My sympathy is with the managers: they are asked to judge questions that divide religious scholars while politicians and a febrile press inflame these workplace disputes to spread their own toxins.

Does the Muslim prohibition on consuming alcohol or pork mean employees can't touch them, even when they are sealed in glass or plastic? Anyone walking through a supermarket can see Muslims who have no problem sliding these products past the barcode readers. For those who do have a problem, M&S says it has long had a policy of placing them in the clothing department or bakery instead. It told the Jewish Chronicle that it did the same with Jewish staff who did not want to handle pork or seafood.

To employ someone on a checkout who would not deal with all customers equally was a mistake, as M&S admitted - but that did not prevent an outpouring of press bile, and suggestions that customers were ready to take their business elsewhere.

When these disputes flare, companies find themselves caught in culture wars that have little connection with their businesses. The result is that nuance is lost, along with any recognition of companies' efforts to behave reasonably.

Take the case of the British Airways employee allegedly sent home from work for wearing a cross, one of the subjects of the human rights ruling I mentioned earlier.

This was portrayed, once again, as an example of how companies strive to accommodate every religious whim - unless it is Christian.

What happened was different. In 2004 BA introduced new uniforms, including an open-necked blouse for women, to be worn without jewellery. Any adornment for "mandatory religious reasons" was to be covered up if possible, but allowing male Sikhs to wear turbans, and bracelets with shorts sleeves during hot weather, and female Muslims to wear headscarves.

For two years, the complainant, an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian, wore a cross under her clothing. Neither she, nor any member of the 30,000-strong BA uniformed workforce complained.

In 2006 she started wearing her cross above her uniform and when she refused her manager's request to put it back under her clothes, was sent home without pay. BA offered her a non-uniformed job, where she could wear her cross openly, which she refused. Shortly after that, the company reviewed its policy and announced that staff could wear a cross or Star of David openly.

The employee claimed she had been treated unreasonably - and lost at every stage in the UK, from the employment tribunal to the Supreme Court.

However, the European court decided that, as responsive as BA had been, its earlier ban had been disproportionate - a ruling greeted with joy by the politicians and newspapers who usually regard the court's rulings as the work of the devil.

At the same time, the court dismissed a claim from a nurse who had protested against her hospital's insistence that she remove the cross from around her neck, in line with a rule that no chains or Sikh bracelets be worn in case a geriatric patient grabbed one. She had refused her managers' suggestion that she wear her cross as a brooch instead.

Most workplace disputes do not come to this because most people are reasonable. Managers try to accommodate their employees' requests, whether religious or personal, and most employees accept compromises and try to make it easier for their companies to help them.

When these exceptional incidents hit the headlines, it is usually because someone wants them to for reasons that have nothing to do with work.

It would be nice to think that managers will be spared the consequences in 2014 but I doubt that they will.

[email protected]: @Skapinker

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