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• Muslim Faces Dismissal for Praying (Yahoo)

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thanx,
Tiassa

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What did you expect of Australia? We're all whores down here, and complainers too. If that guy gets 50 minutes a day to pray, then so should every other worker. Not good for business. Instead of wasting the company's money, he should pray at home in his own time.

 

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How interesting

That's very interesting, Adam. In the US, we have a way of solving the problem. You tack the extra time on to the end of the day. Now, admittedly, that depends on his job, but I would think a good HR person would figure that out in advance. It seems like the only reason I would hire a Muslim to a job where I could not afford to accommodate his needs as a human being would be so I could have the pleasure of firing him. Or, of course, I could be an idiot and not realize that Muslims pray several times daily.

And for the record, because it's part of another thing we occasionally talk about ... that was very much in accord with the Western ethic, Adam.

I once called upstairs and said, "I've got an emergency, I'll be back in when I get back in." It took two hours, my boss didn't want to keep me around that long, and my job was such that it was work I could spread out, so I gave her a half-hour a night for the rest of the week.

Oh, and if you check the article, it's only twenty minutes; only two of the necessary prayers fall during his work day.

And maybe Australia is a lot stricter, but when the guy says, "
"(Workers take time off to)smoke cigarettes or have a chat with each other or take the required 10 minute break to have a stretch every hour after working on a computer."

That "or" is important. Because it sounds very much like a work day around here. My last employer was cool about a number of things: in addition to our lawfully-mandated break periods, our employer allowed us a great deal of liberty. Need a cigarette? Take a few minutes.

In the end, nobody worried about being "fair" about how much time who spends where. In the end, the criterion was simple: Are you getting your work done?

Or take my friend's employer, who set new hours. Everyone's in an hour earlier now. But the problem is that none of the day was rescheduled. The testers still get their stuff at the same time of the day, so they end up with less time to work on it, and as a result the programmers are working harder each day to keep up with a broken cycle. And all the time, management keeps yelling about the numbers. Yet management most certainly will not do anything about the fact that they call their people in for an hour when there is no work. So people get into the habit of leaving work to do the next morning so they don't get yelled at ....

Labor and productivity don't get along well with rigidity in the time structure, and most employers know it.

While I understand the very Western rejection of this man's right to pray, I also wonder about all those other workers that seem to be taking a few minutes here and a few minutes there.

Not knowing Australian labor law, though, perhaps this is something that's clear-cut in the laws.

thanx,
Tiassa

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The man ahs a right to pray. And here, we're supposed to get ten minutes off every hours, and an hour in the middle of the day, something like that. But one worker can not have more paid time off than any others simply because he follows some religion. Religion here is not such a big deal. It's a hobby, something quirky that some people do in their own time. It can not be allowed to interfere with anything serious, such as the company's time and money. That's the way it is here. Even if he only requires another twenty minutes, well, he either does that in the same breaks that everyone else gets, or he can get stuffed and the company will hire someone who is 20 minutes more productuve than that guy. If he is getting any more time off than the others, then every oher worker has the right to say "I want that extra 20 minutes off too", and one of them might say "Well, my religion says I get four hours off in the middle of the day", and pretty soon all of them want those four hours free in the middle of the work day. It doesn't work. As for letting the guy work later, after closing time; yes, it depends on the business, but allowing that can cost time and money again, as the company must keep its doors open, maybe run expensive machines longer, maybe keep the security guards on longer...

 

James R

Big Company Inc. employs heaps of people. They make radios, and doing so requires an assembly line to operate. While running an assembly line, medical personnel must be on the premises, and there must be a security guard, and all the lights must be running. Big Company is required to take out insurance for all workers to function from 9am to 5pm.

Employee 24601 wants to pray for two hours in the middle of the day, and work late. This would require:
- An assembly line to operate longer than usual, costing more money.
- Medical staff to remain on, costing more money.
- Security staff to remain on, costing more money.
- The lights to remain on, costing mroe money.
- A new insurance policy, costing more money.
- 24601 must be paid after-hours wages as well.

Now, since I also work for Big Company, and I just saw them do all this for 24601, I'm going to assume I have the same rights as 24601. And I'm going to say that my religion requires me to relax all day in front of the television, and I can work from 5pm to 2am. Again, that would cost the business a fortune.

Basically, personal hobbies should have no place in a business. They can't be allowed to cause any changes at all in working conditions. A job should be required to fit with OHS regulations of course. But there is a itme and a place for everything. Personal hobbies are for your own time.

 

Workin' 9 to 5, what a way to make a living ....

But what prevents him from, as I pointed out in my own work experiences, giving it back at the end of the day?

We used to have an expression: "9 to 5" (it became a song) which described the "normal" workday. In reality, a proper 8-hour workday is about 8:30 to 5:00, by the laws of most US states, for instance. However, I worked from 7:00 until 3:30, getting officially paid for 7.75 hours of work.

If it wasn't for the fact that I needed to be in the office at 7:00, nobody would have cared when I came in, as long as I put in my 7.75.

That's what I don't get about it. Respecting business hours (the office locked its doors at 7:00 pm), if I could fit my 7.75 into the day, then however I did it was fine. Except, of course, that my job needed me in at 7:00 and no later. The guy at the desk next to me? His job didn't need him in until 8:00. On the other hand, because other parts of his department were functioning at 7:00, it didn't matter when he came in as long as he got his 7.75 without violating labor law by skipping breaks.

If the Muslim can't fit his prayers into the accepted pattern of his workplace, he can try to change his hours to reflect those intermediate needs. To go straight to the point of dismissal for praying seems more than a little hasty.

If it depends on the business, don't you think the business owner ought to show that as his reason? Why would the security guards have to stay any longer? At the end of the business day do they go home? (In the US, the guards are there to guard the building. There's a day crew that's heavier and attends to the regular business hours of the facility, and there's a night crew which attends to the cleaning staff, anyone working late, and generally protects the building overnight.

As to the four-hour thing ... come on ... don't those examples get a little ridiculous? We just make Rosh Hashannah jokes in the US.

But I've watched Muslims go through Ramadan ... that taxes an employer.

When we get right down to it, it's about the choices people make. The choice to be Muslim, the choice to be in the armed services, the choice to raise children. In the US, the National Guard frequently runs TV ads reminding employers of the importance of allowing their employees who are in the Guard time for training. In the US, we have many disputes over child care. As it is, it's not fair that someone should get a privilege and leave early without getting fired even though vacation and sick time are used up, but someone please think of the children ... hey, it's a choice to be a working parent, too.

My own employers have generally been very cool about things like that. They realize that employees don't perform well when wrestling with conscience issues. Maybe I'm missing something: is there something about Australian law that makes it this way?

If I'm not mistaken, the need to be in communion with God is one of the broad factors that led to labor laws protecting workers. Does the idea of working every day for sixteen hours strike people as odd? Even those who, by whatever choices, are doing it? Seems to me it is. The people I know who work themselves to death don't seem happy about the circumstance. But back before there were labor rules protecting workers and making sure they had rest periods, people worked themselves to death. Weekends, as we see in 8x5 and 10x5 union contracts, are heavily tied into the need to attend church.

Was it unreasonable to ask businesses to do this? Seems to me that we're getting better productivity out of workers by the lazy rules that allow breaks, and call for weekends, and all that sort of stuff.

But that's just me. I'm probably wrong.

thanx,
Tiassa

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Adam ...

Try dealing in reality.

thanx,
Tiassa

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Reality

Reality is that if anyone can claim any changes at work based on their personal beliefs, I should be able to claim a four-hour break in the middle of the day because some religion I make up specifically for the purpose of getting that break says I have to have that break. If the workplace completely shuts down at 5pm, well, they just have to stay open and deal with it.

However, let's focus only on my religious practices which I can fit into normal breaks within the normal pattern of work each day. My religion requires ten-minute devotions five times a day. But I can work it so I only need do two of them at work. However, during my devotions I am required to prance around the cafeteria naked, singing at the top of my voice. I'm also required to rub up against women and men while making silly faces. Is that completely absurd and over the top? Why? Where do you draw the line betweem silly and acceptable personal practices which can be performed in the workplace?

- What if those sessions required twenty minutes instead of ten?
- What if they required four hours?
- What if every worker decided to take 20-minute (of 4-hour) breaks?
- If 20-minute (or 4-hour) breaks are not to be considered, why not?
- Can he practice trombone in the office in his 10-minute breaks, whenever he happens to take those breaks? It may be disruptive, but it's his personal business, and he may feel it's very important to him. What about gymnastics, tumbling down the carpet between cubicles?
- Where exactly do you draw the line?

 

Re: Adam ...

You did, by the way, completely avoid answering any of that Big Company stuff.

 

Re: Reality

Okay, so most of that is completely over the top.

My point is, religious practices differ widely. Does a company have to make exceptions for all religious practices?

 

James R

Yes, you're quite right. Our laws are, at the moment, desiged to protect any type of minority. And they are gladly being exploited by everyone who has an opportunity to do so.

What do you notice about labour and prices in Australia? Some takes a job, works there for a while, then either gets pregnant or has a four week holy vacation, whatever, and suddenly is totally unproductive yet still being paid. Or maybe the union goes on strike, gets higher wages. Whatever the particulars, everyone is saying "Give me more!" without considering a very basic principle: While it is good for individuals to gain, it is better for the individuals if the group they are part of also gains. Instead, everyone is out for their own arse. "I'm pregnant, I want three months paid leave, and I don't want some new guy in my desk when I get back." Or "Sorry, it's Ramadan, four weeks off, pay me." Or "We union chaps work hard, I want another 10k per year." The result? Companies move overseas. Those idiot workers lose the comfy jobs they had. All they had to do was fair work for fair pay, but instead they started scrambling for more and more, looking after their own arses, and boom, it kills the local economy. This is happening right now by the way.

And as for my hypothetical examples: I require four hours in the middle of the day to sit there watching television, my form of worship. Since I can watch TV and play with my computer at the same time, I can quite happily do some computer type job while watching TV. The company doesn't even have to supply the TV, I'll bring in my own from home. Surely they can't have a problem with that, right?

 

Something like that

This is a fair question. On the one hand, employers do need to think ahead. To the other, they can't account for everything.

In the northwestern United States we have many imports from India and Asia in our technology firms. It seems fair enough that employers should be prepared to deal not only with the traditional Christian and Jewish issues, but also Muslim and Hindu.

But just as we see in our Americans With Disabilities Act, an employer is not obliged to coddle an employee, but is obliged to attempt to make reasonable accommodation. An employer would be irresponsible to put a blind man behind the wheel of a taxi cab, but if a few braille signs and fitting backup alarms on the cabs are what it takes, it's not unreasonable to ask.

As with your examples, I would ask you to provide an example of such a four-hour ritual while also supporting conditions that make a standoff inevitable.

As to the cafeteria--food safety laws supersede other things as such. Urinating in the coffee may be free expression, but it's against the law because it makes others sick. Furthermore, I'd be interested to examine the functional aspects of a religion that operates that way.

More reasonably, think of the preparation of kosher foods. Jews seem to get by okay; there wasn't a rabbi blessing the food in the cafeteria of the insurance firm where I last worked. On the other hand, a friend of mine works for a catering company, and they won't have it on their reputation to be serving Jews or Muslims from gear that has handled pork. They've found the minor investment in equipment and training actually serves the business well.

As to four-hour breaks and such, it depends on labor laws. Around here, it's not quite two separate shifts, but in some places it is.

But if the employer can show that rearranging the time structure to allow two prayer sessions and recouping the time at the end of the day is absolutely impossible, then they can move on to dismissal.

Mostly, Adam, I'm curious about the issues involved. That's why I didn't raise any. I can tell you this or that about American labor laws, but it might be that much different in Australia. So ready, set, go ... and thank you for defining what the important aspects of the issue are. I would have thought questions of law and such, but rather it was a principled argument.

I found that particularly interesting.

But since companies can't predict the future, and can't account for everything in advance, it's fair to say that they'll get to the four-hour cafeteria orgies when they come up.

thanx,
Tiassa

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Here's a question. What if the company is run by the KKK or some such, a group which can not have Islamic prayer in their place of work? Since their beliefs must be as valid as that other guy's, and it's their place, surely that makes firing the guy acceptable?

 

I notice it does not say the man's prayer sessions were taken during his other breaks. It mention ten minute breaks, and prayer sessions. So another question: If these prayer breaks occur at certain fixed times, what if he was an emergency theatre surgeon? What if he was elbow-deep in someone's guts, and it hit 2pm, and he decided "Well, sorry chum, time for me to go pray..."?

 

Busting out the carpet

Well, as the article also notes: The union movement said El-Masri had offered to make up the time lost by working an extra 10 minutes at the end of the day.

It would appear that one of them is. It would also appear that the other, at a time inconvenient for the scheduled break, has been offered to be made up at the end of the workday, as I keep mentioning.

That's a matter to be resolved from at least two different aspects:

• What does the Koran say about priorities?
• Don't you think that, after medical training and so forth, that a Muslim surgeon would have figured out the answer to that question?

Heck, why don't we just wait 'til the Iraqis are praying and then start the bombing?

In other words, while I don't have a direct answer, it seems to me that we would have run into this problem well before the present if it was a common thing. I mean, it's 2002, and I just don't hear about surgeons busting out the carpet in the middle of operations.

thanx,
Tiassa

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Re: Busting out the carpet

Oddly enough, I do have a direct answer: "Leave your personal hobbies at home, you whacky people." It's religion. A surgeon with religion seems dangerous to me. What if the surgeon happened to come from that crazy bunch in America that refuses to allow blood transfusions? Silly idea that would never happen, I know. Another extreme example. It doesn't even have to be religion. What if a surgeon was a rabid-anti-war protestor, and his deeply held beliefs had him running off in the middle of the day to throw eggs at Bushy?

At work, you do your work. Leave your personal hobbies at home.

 

James R

I thought scientist-types didn't make wild assumptions.

Yes. After taking time off to deal with an entirely personal matter that should not be a drain on the company.

Yes. It's called "inflation".