Harry’s Place

Ice cream logos? I think I missed that one. What’s that about?

I’m waiting for some BNP nut sueing their local council for employing “brown people”. Under the logic of the case above, he/she would win.

Well, you can guess my position on the subject. And if anyone disagrees with me, I’ll sue them for “hurt feelings”.

Mr Whippy!

Is there a way we can donate money to “Desrosiers hairdressers ” ?
Do they have an appeal for donation.
After all they came for the hairdressers and I did not speak out because I am not a hairdresser.

It is ironic that I would guess Desrosiers did vote UKIP at the last election - the only non racist party that would be against this.

Ice cream logos? I think I missed that one. What’s that about?

Here. In the words of Sir Richard Littlejon, “you couldn’t make it up”.

During the hearing Ms Noah, who lives in Acton, west London, told the tribunal that she was “devastated” that she was not offered the job of assistant stylist “due to my headscarf”.

Surely she was not offered the job because of her own decision to refuse to take it off while she was working?

“Ice cream logos? I think I missed that one. What’s that about?

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/35

I would have thought that if you got a job at the Doc Martin shop and were asked to wear Docs at work, not Cat or Timberland, this would be a reasonable request. Would anyone think it were wrong if someone with extreme facial tattoos and piercings failed to get a job as an accounts advisor at NatWest?

Despite claiming the issue was not one of religious discrimination, has the tribunal in fact been cowardly and dishonest? Is it likely that they would have come to the same conclusion in a purely secualr case, or where they intimidated and confused by religion, despite claiming it was not the issue?

There is no doubt in my mind that it was precisely the issue.

Or another question, why should a business feel it needs to control the dress and appearance opf their staff unnecesarilly?

I’m sorry, but this is straight equal opps. unless you can show a good reason to do something that would have the effect of harming the interests of a substantial identifiable group of people, it shouldn’t be done.

This parrallels with the removal of the police height bar - it might be nice to have tall police officers, but it isn’t necessary, and discriminates against women.

Would anyone think it were wrong if someone with extreme facial tattoos and piercings failed to get a job as an accounts advisor at NatWest?

Yes.

Or another question, why should a business feel it needs to control the dress and appearance opf their staff unnecesarilly?

Do you object to staff uniforms then?

I mean I could do my job as effectively in my pants.

Yes, I object to staff unifors, unless a clear case can be made for their use. In my work place we have no formal dress code, and we seem to get along just fine.

To play devil’s advocate for a second, Desrosiers’ logic does seem a little lacking. I don’t see that it wold make much difference to customers whether they could see the hair of the person who was cutting their own. I don’t follow how “visible hair” constitutes promotion of the business, or rather how “non-visible” hair risks a loss of business.

I tihnk it’s possible the hairdresser lost this case becasue their grounds for denying employment were spurious. Where would they have stood if they had simply maintained that there was a “no headscraf” dress policy?

“Or another question, why should a business feel it needs to control the dress and appearance opf their staff unnecesarilly?”

Because a person who starts a business carries all the risks and therefore has a reasonable claim to legitimately wanting to control the image of that business. That’s why most companies require a certain standard of grooming and a dress code.

If someone wants to look like Sid Vicious, that’s up to them, but no company owes them a job.

I mean I could do my job as effectively in my pants.

I work from home, and often do.

Brownie. What does the headscarf symbolise? I mean, why do some religious women choose to wear it? And is the philosophy behind this compatible with the ethos that hair-stylists want to promote?

In my own pants, not Mark T’s.

I feel very sorry for Desrosiers. She could have lied and used other excuses for not giving the head-scarf muppet a job; her error was telling the truth.

This case has educated all of us who run a business.

And is the philosophy behind this compatible with the ethos that hair-stylists want to promote?

I’d say it’s an irrelevance. Are you convinced by the “visible hair promotes business” line?

Pants or boxer shorts (or those odd Pierre cardin things that are a mixture of both?)

This judge was quite right - the hairdressers refused the woman a job on a guess that not being able to see her hair would affect business. Had they been able to show that it would then presumably they would have won the case.

One step closer to the abyss….Red Deathy, you have no concept of private enterprise nor civil rights…wearing a headscarf is a CHOICE, so is not hiring a fat person to teach an aerobics class.

Absoutely.

Bret,

the employee bear a considerable risk themselves, actually. But, if someone can do the job, it is thoroughly illegal to deny them the opportunity to do it for grounds otehr than directly work related.

you know, we’ve fought for these rights to stop the boss being a tyrant in their own workplace, and employers have to accept that the law of the land says quid pro quo, you want to run a business, there are some ground rules to follow.

This peice you’ve posted is interesting for what it says about yourself - first, in an employee v. employer dispute you’re taking the employer’s side. Second, this is a case of a Muslim as Muslim, not the usual concern of Islamofascism that is the main raison d’etre 9or reason for being, as they’d say in France)

Red Deathy: In my work place we have no formal dress code: What if the informal dress of a female employee at your work involves having bare arms or midriff, and a male staffer objects as this immodesty offends his religious sensibilities?

It’s an outrageous verdict and one that will have a very bad effect.

We know that the headscarf is a silent commentary on all women who don’t cover their heads. It’s saying to those women: you are a complete tart and don’t be surprised if you get raped.

Whilst that is an acceptable private gesture, it should not be one subject to this sort of legal privilege. Why would women who came to have their “crowning glory” styled want to have this silent admonition in front of them all the time they are there?

As always with these cases, it will now be extrapolated to all areas, so next time we’ll probably hear that the Sally Army has had to pay a fine for refusing a Satanist a job in one of its offices; or Avon cosmetics will be taken to task for refusing employment to a male Hassidic Jew.

The law, that once was tablets of chiselled stone now appears to have transmuted into a huge pile of elephant dung.

If a fat person can do aerobics, and can teach, and demonstrates that they meet all the required skills and abilities to teach aerobics, there is no good grounds to prevent them.

What next, should shop keepers be allowed to discriminate on grounds of accent? We don’t want common northwern sounding voices in this shop, nor Irish - it’s an open door to completely undermine all race relations legislation…

We know that the headscarf is a silent commentary on all women who don’t cover their heads. It’s saying to those women: you are a complete tart and don’t be surprised if you get raped.

me granny used to wear a headscarf and that was definately how she felt about my first girlfriends.

“Everything is a text”

“Would anyone think it were wrong if someone with extreme facial tattoos and piercings failed to get a job as an accounts advisor at NatWest?”

One of the best workers I’ve ever known had the full monty - tattoos, piercings, the lot. He was bright, capable, always cheerful and willing to go the extra mile.

But we couldn’t use him in a customer facing role - like it or not, companies have an image they have to maintain, and it was his choice to sport these accoutrements, and he did it in full knowledge of the fact that it would limit his job choices, and wasn’t at all upset at that.

Treating people as reasoning adults, eh? It’ll never catch on…

Surely women cover their hair because they believe not to is sinful.
Not really a good advert for a hair dressers is it ?
Can people who work at Gay night clubs with T-shirts saying “Homos will burn in Hell ?”

Ami,

the policy, which I’ve just skimmed would be to address the concerns of the offended staff member without interrupting the work fo the department, nor negating the rights of the female staff member to dress as she pleases.

“I’d say it’s an irrelevance. Are you convinced by the “visible hair promotes business” line?”

Yes. I’d refuse to have my hair cut by someone who thought that revealing one’s hair was a sin. To many, having one’s hair cut is a part of their identity and chosing who to trust with the task is important.

It is obvious that a person who actually uses Nikon cameras will make a better salesperson than someone who refuses to pick them up. I don’t see how this is any different.

I can’t see why any business that is in the business of seeling ‘image’ can’t hire staff accordingly.

Why should a gym hire a fat man with an unhealthy complexion to sell gym memberships? The argument that the person selling the memberships doesn’t actually have to use the gym themselves misses the point.

Brett,

so you’d refuse to be served by a barber in a skull cap?

“This peice you’ve posted is interesting for what it says about yourself - first, in an employee v. employer dispute you’re taking the employer’s side.”

I’m not interested which is which. I only care about fairness and reason. I don’t take sides based on pre-determined loyalties.

Yes. I’d refuse to have my hair cut by someone who thought that revealing one’s hair was a sin.

Firstly, are you typical? ;-)

Secondly, you’re inferring rather alot about her motives. She may be a religious headbanger, or simply a Muslim-lite. She may not go in for the “sin” line at all. And even if she does, your comment implies that the public at large are knowledgable about the reasons for a headscarf in Islam. I’d suggest they are not.

I don’t need to see what a butcher has in his personal fridge before I buy a pound of sausages, and I don’t need to see the hair of the person cutting mine.

My regular barber has hair that looks like it was cut with a shoe.

“Brett, so you’d refuse to be served by a barber in a skull cap?”

A skull cap has nothing to do with revealing hair. I would refuse to have my hair cut by someone wearing a sheitel though.

I’m not interested which is which. I only care about fairness and reason. I don’t take sides based on pre-determined loyalties.

Righht, so you’re fairness and reason says give employers a capacity to drive a coach and horses through any equal opportunities legislation, and give employers a gfree hand to sack anyone whenever they want on a whim, or make their employers do pretty much anything to keep their contract. That’s fair and reasonable.

Why should a gym hire a fat man with an unhealthy complexion to sell gym memberships

This is a false analogy. I accept the link between a gym, its aims and how it wants to promote itself and the image of the people doing the promotion. I don’t, however, buy that the simple act of wearing a headscarf by an employee compromises the ability of a salon to promote its business. I’ts far more important that the stylist is clean, personable, and well-presented. A headscarf or not is an irrelevance.

A skull cap is covering their hair, or at least a good part of it, how could you ever know it’s not covering up some hideous coifeuring botch-up? How could you tell? You couldn’t, you’d just have to sit and sweat out the fear that maybe your barber secretly has bad hair - could you handle that? Could YOU? And do you secretly worry that your barber might be wearign a wig for secular reasons?

A skullcap would still show much of the hair, but it’s a fair point. Does Desrosiers place similar restrictions on other elective apparel (assuming clothes are necessary)? If a male employee wears an ear-covering hat, it would look as if she were unfairly discriminated against.

Until then, I would express disappointment at this decision. Like the Scouts, membership/employment of Desrosiers is not mandatory, and they are entitled to require reasonable claims of propriety and behaviour.

If Bushra Noaha wants to work for a Muslim or accepting hairdresser, she can. I will be amused by the incongruity of her considering the display of customers’ hair to be less worthy of concealment than hers, but it’ll be their choice. Just as this was Desrosiers’.

Vidal Sasson has a receding hairline.

I feel further comment is superfluous.

In response to Julia’s point, one of my sisters recently acquired a (nother) tattoo, this time on the upper arm. She will, I accept, be unlikely to be able to wear sleeveless (or even white) tops in many offices. Her choice.

I will be amused by the incongruity of her considering the display of customers’ hair to be less worthy of concealment than hers, but it’ll be their choice.

As with Brett, I think you are inferring rather alot about what her makes her tick. Most of the Mulim women I know who wear headscarves - all three of them at the school where I pick up and drop off my kids - are personable people and happy to talk with women who do not cover their hair and certainly don’t give an impression of someone who regards non-hair-covering women as “sinners”, whatever it might say in the good book.

I think Brett has a point. While Brownie might be quite happy to have his hair cut by a scruff, I think that in a women’s hairdresser it is a different matter. Trying not to get into too hot water here, I would say that women, on balance, are more concerned about how their hair looks than men. The image is important and a woman who covers her hair seems to be a person who, at best, has an ambiguous attitude towards people making their hair look attractive.

I also have a problem with the *message* that a headscarf sends. It is worn for “modesty”. The implication being, of course, that anyone who wants to make their hair look attractive while not wearing a headscarf is being immodest. Not a good way to sell a hairdressers.

Of course many people might not read it like that but why should a business take the risk? It is a reasonable implication from the reasons given by many muslim women to justify why they wear a headscarf.

I would also suggest that someone who goes to court to complain of discrimination when all they have to do is remove a piece of cloth from their heads is not “muslim-lite”.

“Righht, so you’re fairness and reason says give employers a capacity to drive a coach and horses through any equal opportunities legislation, and give employers a gfree hand to sack anyone whenever they want on a whim, or make their employers do pretty much anything to keep their contract. That’s fair and reasonable.”

Perhaps you haven’t understood what “fair” and “reasonable” mean.

“This is a false analogy. I accept the link between a gym, its aims and how it wants to promote itself and the image of the people doing the promotion.”

And a funky hairdresser doesn’t have a similar compelling interest in projecting the the image that it’s stylests are similarly enthusiastic about hair?

Of course it does.

This was so obviously a trumped up case, apparently Mrs Noah (yes, she is married) only applied to the hairdresser’s after she was married, she nowd works in the travel industry. I am not familiar with how apprentices are trained in the hairdressing industry nowadays, but I don’t know if there was any evidence of a serious interest in hairdressing before she applied for this job. The woman who owns the salon is a Canadian with tattoes and facial piercings, the saloon itself looks like a disco, I can assure you that a whey-faced Muslim girl would not have fitted in. My local salon, which is more in the mould of suburban chic, has recently started employing a girl in a hijab. It has been a massive disincentive for me to go in there, and I might add, there are now advertising for new stylists, although I don’t know if it is related. What you fellows need to realise is that when us ladies go to the hairdressers’ we are not just going to get our hair cut, we also want a chat and a laugh. Mrs Noah may be absolutely charming, and have a keen sense of humour, but having seen her on the television, I can’t imagine chatting to her about Torremolinos or going clubbing. She was also turned down by 20 other salons, why isn’t she suing them, or maybe she plans to. If she was so keen to get into the beauty business, why didn’t she go for nail technician? That does not have the sensitivity of hairdressing. No, I’m sorry the woman is a total bitch.

Well said Brownie. Not all headscarf wearers are head-banging supremacist Islamist nutters. It’s a false syllogism. You see them in coffee bars and shopping malls wearing brightly coloured hijabs, sometimes half-on with normal Western figure-revealing clothing, with their non-headscarfed friends who seem to like them. They add to the gaiety of the nation. Relax.

“A skull cap is covering their hair, or at least a good part of it, how could you ever know it’s not covering up some hideous coifeuring botch-up? “

That wasn’t my point. My point was that the covering in question symbolises a deeply felt belief that any exposure of hair was sinful and shameful.

I should point out that my Pakistani- origin barber has excellently coiffed hair.

Sorry, hang on; does this mean that a bald person can’t be a hairdresser/barber? I wonder is that why Paddy Kane, my childhood barber, went out of business.

Sorry, but I’m sympathetic to Bushra Noaha here. She was willing to do the job required, so comparisons to Muslim bartenders who won’t serve alcohol are facetious. For the life of me, I can’t see what showing off her hair has to do with her job - do plastic surgeons have to be good looking? Do dental surgery secretaries have to have perfect teeth?

P.

What you fellows need to realise is that when us ladies go to the hairdressers’ we are not just going to get our hair cut, we also want a chat and a laugh.

You wouldn’t like my Vietnamese barber then - he has said about three words to me in 15 years.

I am fairly chilled about people who wear ostentatious religious symbols: dressing like a nun, wearing a scarf, carrying small symbolic daggers and arm bands, having a beard and long sideburns, whatever.

I think that, as a matter of policy, it is a good thing that people who are inclining towards overt religious displays are encouraged to think of themselves as part of the mainstream of society, and not to self-segregate.

However, I wouldn’t get my hair cut by a hairdresser who had a bad haircut. I’d be unconcerned by a headscarf wearing hairdresser, but certainly wouldn’t have my hair cut by somebody who was wearing a complete veil, for example. I know that wasn’t the case here, but I think it would be wrong for an industrial tribunal to force a hairdressers to employ somebody who had chosen to mask their entire face.

And as a person running a business, I know that the success of my business (and therefore the prospects for continued employment of all my staff) depends in part of my projecting a good image of my business. Workers should be protected against unfair discrimination. However, the law shouldn’t utterly prevent employers from setting their own standards, on neutral grounds.

It looks as if this is kind of what has been attempted here by the Tribunal. I fear, though, that the effect of the judgement will be to lay down hugely uncertain, and difficult to comply with standards, which will open employers to large financial risks.

“Because a person who starts a business carries all the risks and therefore has a reasonable claim to legitimately wanting to control the image of that business.”

Brett, I wouldn’t be surprised if this “logic” has been used by male-oriented businesses to not hire gay men because it wasn’t in their “image” to have someone camp around.

P.

The payout was for “injury to feelings”. This comes to mind.

to address the concerns of the offended staff member without interrupting the work fo the department, nor negating the rights of the female staff member to dress as she pleases.

What exactly does that mean in practice, Read Deathy? How do you “address” his concerns if he is adamant he doesn’t want that expanse of flesh within his sight in the office?

Avon cosmetics will be taken to task for refusing employment to a male Hassidic Jew.

I have a short humorous documentary about a small traditional bra shop in the Lower East side of New York run by an Orthodox woman and her adult Orthodox son, which we show at Jewish feminist body image type workshops. Without exception, the presence of this charedi garbed man in the shop excites the most comment and is objected to strongly by the workshop participants, whether completely secular or ortho women or anywhere in between.

However, I wouldn’t get my hair cut by a hairdresser who had a bad haircut.

Wy not? Hairdressers don’t cut their own hair, do they?

Red Deathy says:

“What next, should shop keepers be allowed to discriminate on grounds of accent? We don’t want common northwern sounding voices in this shop, nor Irish - it’s an open door to completely undermine all race relations legislation…”

Yes of course they should. Do you think the BBC don’t discriminate on grounds of accent and dialect when they employ journalists?

Please get real. These are just attributes, like the ability to add up or sing. This woman had the acquired attribute of covering her hair which is not appropriate in a hair stylists. End of story.

“However, I wouldn’t get my hair cut by a hairdresser who had a bad haircut.”

Do hairdressers cut their own hair? Honest question. I imagine it’s possible but requiring quite a level of dexterity.

Another question: how do hijabbed women get their hair done? Do they do it at home, get a friend to do it, or are there “special” hairdressers with a secret knock?

I’m full of the questions today.

P.

She didn’t get the job because she’s frumpy, dresses like a granny and won’t display her hair, all of which are entirely valid grounds for not giving her a job in a trendy hair salon. Stylist’s hair styles *are* a reliable indicator (to women anyway) of a salon’s style and ethos.

£4k for hurt feelings? C’mon. Every non-muslim hairdresser in the UK will now find ways to avoid offering interviews to applicants with muslim-sounding names. This is a crazy ruling.

(Are there female muslim hairdressers that require stylists to wear a headscarf? Could a non-muslim, rejected applicant apply for compensation because she wouldn’t cover her hair?)

Yes of course they should. Do you think the BBC don’t discriminate on grounds of accent and dialect when they employ journalists?

They did in the 30s, but not now.

Have you listened to FiveLive recently?

As with Brett, I think you are inferring rather alot about what her makes her tick.

Fair point. I am not offended by her wearing the headscarf. Most Muslim women I know and who do so are like the ones you know (and a fair few don’t wear a headscarf).

I may not be unsympathetic towards her, but I am also sympathetic towards a private business to make reasonable demands of its employees. I don’t have a problem with minor tattoos, but fully appreciate why a customer facing employer would.

Once again, is there any evidence of the company not placing comparable restrictions on non-headscarf wearing employees?

Not all headscarf wearers are head-banging supremacist Islamist nutters.

By definition, the Islamic headscrarf is head-banging supremacist mysognisy. It should be banned forthwith.

When I was at school, my Dad always took me to the same barber shop. I had my hair cut by punks, Phil Oakley lookalikes and completely bald hairdressers. Guess what? I still came out with a short-back-and-sides. Becuase, guess waht else? Hairdressers cut your hair how you ask it to be cut!

Wacky but true.

“Brett, I wouldn’t be surprised if this “logic” has been used by male-oriented businesses to not hire gay men because it wasn’t in their “image” to have someone camp around.”

If a person is demonstrably camp (and for some reason can’t switch camp mode off|) and their Graham Nortonesque behaviour for whatever reason that doesn’t suit the tone of the business, I wouldn’t think that it were wrong to refuse to hire someone on those grounds, provided (a) that this did not apply to gay men who were not camp, and (b) it applied to heterosexual men who were.

I’m not giving employers a blank cheque to act on every whim and prejudice. But a funky hairdresser has a compelling reason to hire people with funky hair. It is not unreasonable for the Doc Martin store to require it’s staff to wear footwear from their range and not a rival brand’s range. It is reasonable for a bank to require a level of grooming and sartorial conservatism in client-facing managers - even though they might be able, in theory, to do the job looking like Johnny Rotten cica 1976.

I imagine it’s possible but requiring quite a level of dexterity.

I know an old chap, in his 90s, who cuts his own hair. Yes, we can see that, Alfred.

I also know a Muslim cocktail waiter. He is very good.

Field,

Right, so an employer could refuse to employ someone because they don’t like Asian Accents? Bang, there goes any prospect of race relations law.

Bang goes any hope of job security.

BTW, Phil Oakley was the school caretaker, and not in any way related to the former frontman of The Human League. Phil Oakey.

I was very put off when I went for a mortgage loan and found the branch manager was a “tattooed” individual. This filled me with a degree of alarm. How could I have confidence in someone who thinks tattoos all over the body look great? This was further confirmed when I had to correct his arithmetic on a simple but very significant matter, to do with the calculation of the interest rate.

Why should banks have to employ people with tattoos?

On the subject of hairdressers, I had an interesting conversation on the political situation in Kurdistan in my local barbers. Nice to have your hair cut by moderate Muslims with an interest in political freedom.

“Another question: how do hijabbed women get their hair done? Do they do it at home, get a friend to do it, or are there “special” hairdressers with a secret knock?”

Perhaps the owner of Desrosiers should find out - and then apply for a job there. I wonder if they’d ask her to dress and groom differently for the role? Would this be unreasonable? Just because it might make the women uncomfortable having the lovechild of Vivian Westwood and Frankie Goes to Hollywood wielding the scissors doesn’t mean she wouldn’t do a good job.

Sorry, but:

(a) Bushra Noah is not that “frumpy”.
(b) Bushra Noah was an experienced hairdresser before marriage, even according to Daily Mail Island - “Bushra had a job in a salon in London, where her tasks included cutting hair, highlighting, tinting and perming, before she left to get married in Syria in 2006.” Is Sue suggested that married women shouldn’t go back to the workplace? (Hey, the Daily Mail would be happy with that one I’m sure.)
(c) Paying out £4,000 shouldn’t cause anyone to lose their business.
(d) If the hairdresser claims that Bushra Noah was not right for the job for, quote, “for a host of reasons”, why did she only make reference to her headscarf?
(e) Why did she give her a reason _at all_? Why not just state that she wasn’t a suitable candidate? Instead, she ignored the candidate’s experience, made an issue of her physical appearance - and then was surprised the candidate didn’t take kindly?

P.

Adam Rutherford’s hair would put me off going to this salon far more than the extremely common site of a muslim woman wearing a headscarf.

Since when did hurt feelings cost £4000? I would have thought an apology was enough.

There must, surely, be a sensible middle-ground that protects employees from the arbitrary or opprobrious whims of employers, but that also allows employers to set the tone and ethos of their businesses.

Bushra Noah was an experienced hairdresser before marriage

Well yes, but it’s not that sort of salon, is it. Mrs wardytron used to go to a place in Camden called Tusk, where again your ability to cut hair was clearly only one of the criteria they used to determine whether or not to hire you, and was apparently lower on the scale of importance than whether or not you were enormously camp and bronzed and in your early 20s, with an absurd fringe.

Well anyway to cut a long story short I got the job.

I think what we are seeing here is the gender gap. you men do not understand the importance to women of feeling comfortable in a hair salon, of the whole aspirational aspect of image. As for Muslim women fitting in, the other day I was surprised to see a hijabbed woman sitting in my local pub, drinking coffee, with a crowd of white mothers from the primary school. Obviously some women are going to mingle, especially if they are born and brought up here, but it doesn’t mean they are going to be in a service industry or run a pub. Paul Maloney is bending over so far backwards to agree that this was the right judgment, he is disappearing up his own arse. As for the hirsute needs of Muslims. It is forbidden for Muslim ladies to cut their hair. I imagine it is also frowned upon, if not forbidden for religious women to dye or bleach their hair, or perm it, or to plait it. The idea is to just have perfectly straight hair, in a plait down your back. If they should require the ministrations of a hairdresser, one imagines this is done in teh privacy of their own homes. The Taleban shut all the beauty salons in Kabul and killed any customers or stylists they found, such is the hatred of Islamic fundamentalists of women feeling good about themselves. There is actually a charity run by an American woman, which is aiming to re-establish beauty salons in Afghanistan as she discovered that (funnily enough) it helped lift the depression that many of the women where in thrall to, living in that war-torn country. As I said, Mrs Noah could have done manicures or pedicures. She could have even done facials.

“(e) Why did she give her a reason _at all_? Why not just state that she wasn’t a suitable candidate? Instead, she ignored the candidate’s experience, made an issue of her physical appearance - and then was surprised the candidate didn’t take kindly?”

Yes, typical. Let’s just jump to the conclusion that reference was made to the headscarf in an effort to insult and abuse the women, rather than perhaps an effort to offer her a choice.

you men do not understand the importance to women of feeling comfortable in a hair salon, of the whole aspirational aspect of image.

Nonsense. We have all watched Desmond’s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb1sNwe25UQ&feature=related

I had a discussion about Kurdistan with my barber. It was interesting to speak to a keen supporter of Ocalan.

The report also says:

“The extremist Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir later admitted that it had ‘advised her’.”

To make it clear: I tend to think that religious symbols in the workplace are generally unobjectionable. I also think that employers are entitled to apply neutral dress codes in the workplace. Most importantly, the law in this area should allow small businesses to know what is required of them.

However, if it is really true that this woman is connected with Hizb ut Tahrir, then this whole issue becomes more akin to the BNP bus driver who was sacked. He lost his industrial tribunal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/5015500.stm

I had a discussion about Kurdistan with my barber. It was interesting to speak to a keen supporter of Ocalan.

I had an interesting discussion about the AKP with a taxi driver recently. His view was that they were fascists who were trying to destroy Turkey.

Paul Moloney- “Do dental surgery secretaries have to have perfect teeth?”

Frankly, I wouldn’t want to go into a dental surgery where the secretary had black teeth which had mostly fallen out. Would you?

The *point*- that a lot of people seem to be missing- is that hair is part of the hairdressing business and what the workers do with that hair is part of the image of the business. IN the same way, having a conservatively dressed banker promotes the image of a bank and a dental secretary with moderately good teeth (or dentures, bridgework or whatever) is essential. Either of the latter two could wear a headscarf.

One thing that made me unhappy was when our bookshop replaced its conservatively dressed, “bookish” ladies with a young lad who had army- style fatigues, huge doc marten boots and a gigantic mohican. The fact that he was obviously clueless didn’t help either

The last barber I talked too (I was commiting adultery on my Vietnamese chap) was an Iraqi who told me in detail about how things were getting better in his country. I mentioned it on here and a bunch of middle-class Scotsmen told me I had made it all up.

I just looked up ‘The Kabul Beauty School’ by Deborah Roderiguez. It appears that things are not so happy now. She has fled the country, and it is claimed that she owes lots of money. One of the aspects of her book that has caused a furore in Afghanistan is that she described helping a woman to fake virginity on her wedding night. (That could have come in useful for the French Muslim woman who was in the news recently, whose ‘husband’ had the marriage annulled because she was not a virgin.). The attacks on hairdressers etc have commenced again.

“Paul Maloney is bending over so far backwards to agree that this was the right judgment, he is disappearing up his own arse.”

Ah yes, it’s always amusing to be considered a paragoness of PCness. It certainly makes a chance to being considered to the right of Genghis Khan, as a friend dubbed me.

“you men do not understand the importance to women of feeling comfortable in a hair salon, of the whole aspirational aspect of image”

Sorry, but back in the 1970s, if a Jamaican woman had applied for a job in a hairdressers in a predominantly white area, I can imagine someone coming out with the same rubbish. “Oooh, but we’re not racist; it’s just that she doesn’t fit in with the rest of us. I’m sure she’s great at her job, but I like to have a bit of a natter about Coronation Street and the bingo - what would the likes of her fresh off the banana boat know about that?”.

Brett:

“There must, surely, be a sensible middle-ground that protects employees from the arbitrary or opprobrious whims of employers, but that also allows employers to set the tone and ethos of their businesses.”

“I’ve nothing against them there gays, mind, some of them are good mechanics, but the lads’d be walking around with their backs against the wall.”

P.

I can’t believe that P. is equating a piece of cloth with skin colour.

Oh wait he is.

I think it is terrible. Next they will be wanting to give middle-class jobs to working-class people thus making us feel uncomfortable about Jemima’s future every time we visit the bank.

One thing that made me unhappy was when our bookshop replaced its conservatively dressed, “bookish” ladies with a young lad who had army- style fatigues, huge doc marten boots and a gigantic mohican. The fact that he was obviously clueless didn’t help either

Sorry, but this proves my point exactly. Are you saying that conservatively-dressed people somehow know more about books than people who wear Doc Marten boots? Or that there is a inate connection between lack of knowledge about books and unconservative clothing? You seem to suggest you’d rather a clueless but prim woman over a knowledgable but punk guy (the line “The fact that he was obviously clueless didn’t help either” sounds like just an aside).

I thought the idea there was any connection between the way one dresses and how competent one is went out in the ’50s. Certainly in the software business, the idea is absurb; maybe it’s because I’m in a business where the cleverest guys tend to either dress like their mother bought their clothes them (with their Holy Communion money in Primark) or walk around the office barefoot.

P.

OK, regardless of my general views on religion in the workplace, this business owner has been victimised by a far-right political group.

This is a classic example of how Tories are hanging on to the idea that they are “on the left” even as they behave just like Mary Whitehouse. Bog off with Davis and form a new party!

Well, David, the Kurdish cafe owner says that.

Sorry to labour this point, but does Desrosiers place similar restrictions on other employees?

I can’t believe that P. is equating a piece of cloth with skin colour.

Morgie, I’d be quite willing to defend your appearance at any employment tribunal when some refuses you for a job you are the most qualifiied for (*) because you happen to look like the lovechild of Aleister Crowley and Siouxsie Sioux.

P.

(*)I have absolutely no idea what you are capable of - hairdressing perhaps?

Ms Desrosier said she insists all stylists wear their hair in “alternative” ways.

It is also funny how “alternative” has become a corporate phrase in this sense.

Certainly in the software business, the idea is absurb; maybe it’s because I’m in a business where the cleverest guys tend to either dress like their mother bought their clothes them (with their Holy Communion money in Primark)

Have Primark started selling Red Dwarf t-shirts then?

(a) Bushra Noah is not that “frumpy”.

Emphasis added.

(b) Bushra Noah was an experienced hairdresser before marriage…

That’s great. Did she work in a trendy salon?

(c) Paying out £4,000 shouldn’t cause anyone to lose their business.

Ms Noah was seeking £34k in aggravated damages. Legal representation is expensive, and fighting a case consumes time that would otherwise be spent earning money.

(d) If the hairdresser claims that Bushra Noah was not right for the job for, quote, “for a host of reasons”, why did she only make reference to her headscarf?

According to Ms Noah, during the interview Ms Desrosiers allegedly said she felt “uncomfortable” with Ms Noah’s wearing of a headscarf, and was allegedly “shocked”. AFAICT, this is what the case centered upon.

(e) Why did she give her a reason _at all_?

It appears the actual reason why Ms Noah was rejected was because Ms Desrosiers wanted a stylist who reflected the “funky, urban” image of her salon.

“It is also funny how “alternative” has become a corporate phrase in this sense.”

It also explains why every time I’ve glanced in through a hair salon’s window, all the women appear to be wearing hairstyles completely unsuited for them, seemingly based on pineapples.

P.

““I’ve nothing against them there gays, mind, some of them are good mechanics, but the lads’d be walking around with their backs against the wall.”

This is ridiculous. You’re equating things a person simply is (black, gay, a woman…) with choices people make (dress style). Choices have consequences. YOU are meant to make sacrifices for your convictions, but more and more this is being pushed onto other people.

I’m a vegetarian. That is my choice. It would be perfectly reasonable for a steak house to refuse to employ as a waiter (even though I’d not be required to cook the steaks) on the grounds that I didn’t believe I woud be able to convincingly recommend them to customers or muster any enthusiasm for their flagship product.

What’s more, for me to seek work in a steak house would not only be unreasonable, it would be perverse.

Have Primark started selling Red Dwarf t-shirts then?

Well, I didn’t list all the office stereotypes… there’s also the computer nerds who wear geeky videogame/SF-related t-shirts.

Ooops, that’s me.

P.

“You’re equating things a person simply is (black, gay, a woman…) with choices people make (dress style). “

Is being camp - slightly or screamingly - innate or a choice?

P.

I mentioned it on here and a bunch of middle-class Scotsmen told me I had made it all up.

I’m fairly sure that wasn’t me,

“Is being camp - slightly or screamingly - innate or a choice? “

In a sense its irrelevant. If one could persuade a court that one could only behave in the mode of Graham Norton on speed for biological reasons, then I’d argue that it was a disability. The disability would natuarlly bar the person from certain occupations for the same reason that a blind person isn’t able to be a convincing TV sales advisor. Or perhaps a person who could only function in ‘camp’ mode should be given that job as a funeral director and inflicted on grieving families?

Can someone pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease answer my question about other employees?

Sorry, but back in the 1970s, if a Jamaican woman had applied for a job in a hairdressers in a predominantly white area, I can imagine someone coming out with the same rubbish.

Such as, do they include Sunny Hundal’s brown people? The hijab is elective.

Well Ms. Noah won some money, but muslims in generel lost a lot more. This case will be circulated all over the world as a part on the ongoing ‘Those ‘M’ are really something different’ stories. About once or twice a week, some new story circulate in papers and on the web.

Is being camp - slightly or screamingly - innate or a choice?

Define camp?

Campness isn’t defined by sexuality.

For example: my most maddest ex had a friend whose husband and father of her child decided practically overnight that he wanted a divorce because he was gay after all and went overnight from being fairly masculine to being as camp as a row of tents. And yet I know someone through my OU studies who is frankly camper than a Caravan Park in an Oswald Bailey shop and yet is screamingly completely heterosexual. And my ex-flatmate who was gay but who was the most masculine person imaginable.

Campness is overrated, and no indication of sexuality or anything other than minor physical characteristics which may or may not be learned behaviour.

Mind you, I heard that loony Islamic apologist Willian Dalyrimple on the radio the other night (spouting crap as usual) and he’s got a lisp that would make Bonnie Langford proud.

Campness isn’t defined by sexuality.

I fully agree with you (eek). I’d have to, considering when my wife first met me, she said I looked like a gay Hari Krishna (big orange t-shirt, shaven hair).

My point remains though, that Brett seems to think that it would be fine for a business to discriminate against a gay man if showed any kind of campness that didn’t fit in with the “ethos” of the business. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, if you like.

Stan: He just needs some training, that’s all. Sit Sparky. [Sparky sits] Good boy, now shake. [Sparky shakes.] Goood boy. Now, don’t be gay. [waiting for the comand to sink in] Don’t be gay Spark. Don’t be gay. [Sparky looks at Stan with confusion and growls]
Kyle: Did it work?
Stan: I don’t know.
Cartman: He still looks pretty gay to me.
- “Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride”, South Park

P.

P.

My point remains though, that Brett seems to think that it would be fine for a business to discriminate against a gay man if showed any kind of campness that didn’t fit in with the “ethos” of the business. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, if you like.

But its nothing to do with sexuality though. If I had Tourettes, could I insist on being a train announcer and sue when they wouldn’t hire me? (though granted, it would make train journeys a bit more interesting that)

David T - the reference to HuT in the Daily Mail article seems to be in regard to the earlier Shabina Begum case.

Meanwhile, here is some relevant career advice from Sesame Street.

The business owner wants to promote a business that’s all about style and trendiness and hippitude and hair. It’s not impossible but it might be difficult to promote that as your staff cut hair wearing hazmat suits.

I very nearly feel like tossing away all employment legislation protection if this nonsense is a consequence. Nearly, but not quite. This woman’s religion is nonsense, I have no obligation to respect it, she has no obligation according to her own religious authorities to wear a headscarf so she is able to take it off, even by her own lights.

Where’s the problem? Take it off to help the business or don’t get the job.

If I had Tourettes, could I insist on being a train announcer and sue when they wouldn’t hire me?

presumably for the analogy to hold water you would have had to have been an experienced train announcer before (as this woman was an experienced hairdresser.)

I don’t know if it’s been said yet as I haven’t read all the comments, but if the employer argued that Bushra Noaha wasn’t the best person for the job simply because there was a better qualified hairdresser who had applied for the job I don’t think anyone could argue with that.

If that had been the case but Noaha claimed discrimination anyway - and won - then how should we regard the decisions of these tribunals?

Still waiting for your solution to the dilemma I posed, Read Deathy. How would you “address” the demands of the flesh -averse religious man in your workplace?

Surely the point here is that covering your hair sends the message “hair is naughty and must be hidden” which is not what a salon’s customer wants to hear.

“My point remains though, that Brett seems to think that it would be fine for a business to discriminate against a gay man if showed any kind of campness that didn’t fit in with the “ethos” of the business. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, if you like. “

My first response was to call you a liar, but then I considered that you’d perhaps you’d just missed the part where I said if ‘campness’ was the issue then it would have to apply equally to all regardless of sexuality.

If Ms Noaha could show that her objections to her headscarf were just shorthand for her race or religion, I’d be right behind her. But it seems perfectly clear that a funky hairdressing salon has completely reasonable grounds for wanting it’s staff to reflect the products and services it provides.

It’s funny. She is absolved from all requiremenst to show that adopting a restrictive mode of dress in her trade is reasonable, and everyone else has to suddenly prove their resonableness. But it was her choice not theirs - yet she is the only one no one expects to account.

Amazing world this. X can make decisions which have consequences for everyone but his/herself. X need make no sacrifcices for his/her convictions, because everyone else much modify their behaviour to accomodate X. Marvellous stuff!

“Surely the point here is that covering your hair sends the message “hair is naughty and must be hidden” which is not what a salon’s customer wants to hear.”

Precisely!

Thermaland, I’d suggest the points are:

when is a case of discrimination ‘discrimination’?

and

should there be limits on having the power to threaten to sue someone for alleged discrimination when none has occurred?.

presumably for the analogy to hold water you would have had to have been an experienced train announcer before (as this woman was an experienced hairdresser.)

Ah, but was it an ‘alternative’ train station?

(I think this is where analogies start to get confusing).

Morgoth with Tourettes would make a brilliant tour guide.

Just a question, but lets say a pop group like Busted hold auditions for a new guitarist, should the role be judged only on the applicant’s ability to play guitar, or should they be allowed to judge on a combination of musicality, looks, image and a shared vision? Could they say “Thanks Mr Gilmour, you played really well, but we were actually looking for someone much younger and with more hair”?

Obviously they could say that.

But then they’d have to pay Mr Gilmour £4000 for his hurt feelings.

I haven’t been able to read many of the posts, so apologies if I’m repeating points other have already made, but:
1) a hardscarf might mean its wearer thinks showing hair is sinful only for women or Muslim women. What if the woman here had merely wanted to cut only men’s hair?
2) it could be argued that the woman had been denied employment on the basis that she looked so obviously Muslim.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no apologist for headscarves - I think the purpose behind headscarves is evil and mesogynist. But if the potential employers here had feared that a Muslim would put off customers, then their decision was based on religious discrimination. Had their decision been otherwise, why did their argument(s) fail to convince the employment tribunal?

I once got sacked as a waiter for wearing a meat is murder T-shirt.

Desrosiers, like most employers at Tribunals, cannot win. Supposing this hairdresser had ignored her instinct and taken on Mrs Noaha and then found that her concern about lost business was, indeed, correct. What then? Wouldn’t the maelstrom likely to follow an attempt to dismiss Mrs Noaha in those circumstances cause the present situation to pale into insignificance?

sorry, misogynist…

As I understand it, 20 people were interviewed for the post, but NO-ONE was appointed. Mrs Noah was an experienced hairdresser? Why doesn’t she do what every other hairdresser does and pay home visists or rent a chair in a salon. These seem to be the normal way for hairdressers to carry out their trade these days. Purely on a doctrinal matter, I would have thought it was halal for Muslims to touch non-Muslims? Does anyone know? The train announcer thing is interesting. There was an item on the news last night that one of the Scottish stations (Edinburgh) has hired a Frenchman to do the train announcements. To be honest, I am getting a little hard of hearing and I am grateful that I don’t have to travel to Scotland. Although the man has a perfectly charming accent when spoken to face to face, once it has been distorted through a public address system, it is (for me)unintelligble. I have great problems on London Transport, they seem to use people with a wide range of accents, probably because they are not allowed to discriminate, and I can’t understand a word they say. Regarding Albert’s point: I imagine the Tribunal was embarassed by the whole thing and wanted to do something magnaminous for the bitch.

2) it could be argued that the woman had been denied employment on the basis that she looked so obviously Muslim.

Even if it could, why should religiously mandated conduct or appearance intertwined with religion enjoy special protection under accommodation law?
The thing that’s wrong with the law is not that it gives applicants for a job certain rights, but rather that these rights are triggered by divine superstition rather than lifestyle. If the woman had elected to wear a headscarf for nonreligious reasons, she wouldn’t have a case.

I think SueC touches on an important point. The Tribunal asked the impossible. They said Desrosiers made the decision based on “risk” without “proof”. But demanding a business ignore risk implies that the only real proof acceptable to the Tribunal is going bankrupt. In other words, the Tribunal is prepared to gamble with other peoples’ businesses in an industry it knows nothing about.

As I said, Ms Noaha made an irrational decision to dress in a certain way. So why should other people - and this includes the employees of the business who also depend on its success - have to risk thier livelihoods in support of her madness?

Desrosiers, like most employers at Tribunals, cannot win. Supposing this hairdresser had ignored her instinct and taken on Mrs Noaha and then found that her concern about lost business was, indeed, correct. What then?

Then she would have had her evidence wouldn’t she (the whole present problem stemming from the fact that she didn’t have any evidence for the assertion that a woman in a headscarf would harm her business.)

if the employer argued that Bushra Noaha wasn’t the best person for the job simply because there was a better qualified hairdresser who had applied for the job I don’t think anyone could argue with that.

5 other candidates were interviewed, none of them got the job.

“Then she would have had her evidence wouldn’t she (the whole present problem stemming from the fact that she didn’t have any evidence for the assertion that a woman in a headscarf would harm her business.)”

Once again I ask: Why shoud Desrosier have had to gamble her business on account of Ms Noaha’s irrational choices? Why is it Desrosiers responsibility to ‘wait and see if any damage is caused’ because Ms Noaha has of her own free will ellected to dress in a certain way?

I once turned someone down who went for a job for me in my aid agency because they had a purple mohican, which would have totally freaked out the people from the Third World we had to deal with. Having said that, I didn’t tell them that was the reason why.

Once again I ask: Why shoud Desrosier have had to gamble her business on account of Ms Noaha’s irrational choices?

the court appears to have decided today that it wasn’t a gamble because she had NO evidence for the idea that a woman wearing a headscarf in a salon in Kings Cross would harm a hairdressing business.

the court appears to have decided today that it wasn’t a gamble because she had NO evidence for the idea that a woman wearing a headscarf in a salon in Kings Cross would harm a hairdressing business.

Its a hairdressers! What more evidence do they need?

Its a hairdressers! What more evidence do they need?

The kind of evidence she would have had had she taken the woman on and been able to prove she was affecting business (honeslty, round in circles we go…)

“the court appears to have decided today that it wasn’t a gamble because she had NO evidence for the idea that a woman wearing a headscarf in a salon in Kings Cross would harm a hairdressing business.”

I’m amazed I have to point this out to you Graham, but how could she prove it would damage her business unless she actually hired the woman, watched as her business suffered and then said “see, told you so”?

Can you answer my question: Why should Desrosier even have to *risk* losing business on account of Ms Noaha’s irrational choices?

These employment tribunals eh? Hotbeds of Islamism so they are.

Ms D shoulda kept her gob shut. The first rukle of management is not to give out info unless you have too. Well she has found out that basic thing the expensive way (about 40 haircuts worth anyway.)

how could she prove it would damage her business unless she actually hired the woman, watched as her business suffered and then said “see, told you so”?

Or alternatively (in the view of the tribunal) hired her and watched as nothing went wrong with her business at all.

I am amazed that I have to point out to Brett that this is what employment tribunals are for - to sit in judgement about the irrational fears of employers.

Is anybody listening to me? I expect my husband and children not to listen, but to not be listened to here is too much!!! I said before that my local salon has a hijabbed stylist and they have certainly lost my custom. Last time I had my hair done I went up to Muswell Hill where it was still cut by a Muslim but a man (Turkish) before anyone accuses me of discrimination. The other local salon has a really brilliant young Turkish man and is infact owned by a Kurd. Personally I think there is support for the view that it would be bad for trade. Anyway, surely the point is that a businessowner must knowd their market well enough to make that decision? Miss R made a decision based on her knowledge of the market and clientele.

I mean, what next, some BNP nut suing because they wouldn’t allow him to work in a Jamaican Cafe where he could shout out threats all the time at customers and staff?

Let us look at the reasons why Ms Noaha is wearing that cursed piece of clothing. Either a) she’s been forced to wear it or b) she’s been brainwashed into thinking that men will rape and pillage her if they get so much as a glance at her hair. In either case, a thoroughly irrational and mysognistic article of clothing like the hijab should be allowed nowhere near the public arena, never mind a business. And if she insists on wearing it, she can fuck off to Saudi Arabia where she can wear death shrouds to her heart’s content.

Can you answer my question: Why should Desrosier even have to *risk* losing business on account of Ms Noaha’s irrational choices?

I’ll spell this out slowly as it isn’t sinking in.

The court has DECIDED there was no risk.

“the court appears to have decided today that it wasn’t a gamble because she had NO evidence for the idea that a woman wearing a headscarf in a salon in Kings Cross would harm a hairdressing business.”

That is an illogical statement because the only way to prove that harm could be caused to the business is to give rise to the scenario which might allow the harm to be caused… which is by definiation, a gamble.

And once more you seem reluctant to address the issue about why it is Desrosier’s responsibility - for ill or good - to discover the consequences of Noaha’s choices?

They may have lost your custom Sue but I imagine a salon in Kings Cross with a Muslim hairdresser might well pick up the Irie as a customer instead.

He could have a perm in solidarity with Palestine.

As ever the wacky world of MPAC UK has something to make us smile http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/4717/102/#jreactions

According to them this was a case of Islamaphobia (not true as stated by the decision) and that she “Won” - not true she only won money to compensate he for the distress of the interview.

Unbelievably there are actually some comments that berate MPAC UK and the complainant.

This is a case where it has nothing to do with Islampahobia but the Islamists will drag us there.

Just want to add about the ‘black hairdresser in a white salon’ argument. Black people don’t work with European hair very often, they have a parallel system of hair salons. Afro-hair is different to European/Indian hair. In all my years of going to hair dressers, I have never seen a black hair stylist in a white salon. There is a Afro-hair dressers in Wood Green where black women go to get their hair done, but the techniques and styles are completely different. Having said that, if a black person wanted to train as a European hairdresser, then obviously it would be discriminatory not to allow that and I don’t think nowadays, that most people would have a problem with that.

“The court has DECIDED there was no risk.”

And I’ll repeat this because you’re obviously quite slow:

HOW CAN THEY KNOW IT IS “NO RISK”?

Earth calling Brett: Tribunals exist to solve such problems - this tribunal’s solution is the not very surprising one that you can’t go around gossiping with your failed job applicants that they would not fit in because of their clothing.

And I’ll repeat this because you are obviously fucking stupid:

They sit to judge what is a risk.

“Surely the point here is that covering your hair sends the message “hair is naughty and must be hidden” which is not what a salon’s customer wants to hear.”

Precisely!

Sorry, but whilst we might be obsessed by such things on this blog, most warm-blooded sentient beings out there are not. I’d wager your average non-Muslim Joe and Joanne doesn’t have a clue about the reasons for Muslim women wearing headscarves. Even if they did, this is not ever the first thing they think of when encountering a woman wearing a headscarf, so the message you claim is sent never lands anywhere in particular.

lets say a pop group like Busted hold auditions for a new guitarist, should the role be judged only on the applicant’s ability to play guitar, or should they be allowed to judge on a combination of musicality, looks, image and a shared vision? Could they say “Thanks Mr Gilmour, you played really well, but we were actually looking for someone much younger and with more hair”?

Yes, because as with the gym example, I’d say there is a convincing case for why Busted needs a guitarist who doesn’t look like Bobby Charlton in order to flourish commercially.

Desroisers made a similar claim on the basis that a woman wearing a headscarf was incompatible with a funky, eclectic salon. It might affect business, they said. This might be true, but it isn’t necessarily. You can look funky in a headscarf. Maybe there was other things about Noah’s appearance that made her unsuitable. If so, Desroisers should have focused on those. Instead, they made it about the headscarf. This is wholly unconvincing to me and I think the susbsequent judgment was therefore correct.

I’ve been in shops that sound like this hairdressers. There is a new Ted Baker in Cambridge and it has a sales assistant in a turban. All Saints next door has a girl in a headscarf. Both are very pleasing on the eye and pass the funky test.

I know what’s coming….you don’t need to have visible hair to work in a clothes shop. I happen to think the same applies in a hairdresser. It’s why hairdressers who go bald aren’t made redundant.

And here’s a supplementary question. Are people like Bushra Noah, and the few who have sued for ‘the right’ not to serve customers with alcohol in their shopping, or have complained about ice-cream logos being blasphemous, heroes for tolerance, or selfishly driving up intolerance?

Wow, that’s the most bullshittingly stupid I’ve read this month. In what way is this individual’s wish to wear a headscarve, even while at work, comparable to people who explicitly refuse to perform some of the duties of their job? Brett, you really are an idiot.

Is it likely that they would have come to the same conclusion in a purely secualr case, or where they intimidated and confused by religion, despite claiming it was not the issue?

Imagine, say, a woman with a shaved head (as a lifestyle choice or because of balding, or perhaps because she’s had chemotherapy) being denied employment in a hairdressers because of the “risk” that she’ll lose them business. You think the tribunal woud have found against her?

Seriously, is there anyone in their right mind who thinks that women who wear headscraves shouldn’t be allowed to work in hairdressers? How unutterably pathetic. What about women who wear headscarves because they’re bald rather than because they’re Muslims, are they OK? I suepect anybody who thinks this tribunal was wrong has allowed certain obsessions to obscure any sense or humanity they may once have had.

In all my years of going to hair dressers, I have never seen a black hair stylist in a white salon.

The woman who does Mrs Graham’s hair is black and works in a white salon.

HOW CAN THEY KNOW IT IS “NO RISK”?

They don’t have to “KNOW” jack-shit. They have to be unconvinced that there was a risk, as claimed by the hairdresser.

I’m not covimnced, personally, so I’m not that surprised the tribunal wasn’t either.

Its a hairdressers! What more evidence do they need?

A barchart showing how bald barbers do financially compared to barbers with hair, perhaps? I mean, since we’re all being so “rational” about this, it would be nice to see some evidence for this hypothesis, rather than relying on the hearsay of one person.

Next time I go to a restaurant, I’m going to ask to meet the chef personally. I will demand that it’s not a fucking vegetarian cooking for me.

And the bartender had better be a functioning alcoholic; not a Muslim who, like a guy my wife knows, won an All-Asia bartending competition. I will demand they employ some second-rate wanker who fits in with some nebulous “ethos”.

I note Ms. DesRosiers has a funky and hip MySpace page: so funky and hip as to be unreadable.

PS: My wife forwarded me this - I think found the ideal job for you and suitably gothy chick, Morgie:

http://jobs.ie/ApplyForJob.aspx?Id=758185

P.

“They sit to judge what is a risk.” - so because they “sit to judge” their judgement is automatically correct and reasonable?

Your argument goes in circles: ‘Their judgemnet is correct because they are judges’. They say she failed to provide ‘proof’ of something which is logically impossible to prove (other than by gambling) but you don’t require the judges to provide any proof that their judgement is correct because er, they’re judges and um, make judgements. Duh!

The court has DECIDED there was no risk.
By this logic the value of private pproperty may be diminished by government decree without the government having to share the burden imposed by employment of any person.
This would be defensible if the employment practice was racial discrimination, but since the tribunal’s judgment has the effect of shielding religiously based conduct from the reach of business decisions, the law is creating perverse incentives for demanding accommodation of on the job conduct based on religious superstition. This can’t be right, the law should not allow any group to kick around private business in the name of superstition demanding of a business the incurring of risks solely for the sake of irrational beliefs.

“Desroisers made a similar claim on the basis that a woman wearing a headscarf was incompatible with a funky, eclectic salon. It might affect business, they said. This might be true, but it isn’t necessarily. “

Ah, so it MIGHT be true, eh Brownie? So once again we’re back to the question why Desroisers should take the gamble to find out the hard way if it is in fact damaging. Some irrational woman has made a mad choice - which she is entitled to make, but she is NOT entitled to expect other people to but the possible consequences to the test at their own expense.

Christ on a bike! What’s so difficult? The tribunal were not convicned by the arguments of the hairdresser. They might have been, but they weren’t. Neither side had to *prove* anything. They had to be convincing.

Case of hairdresser: woman in headscarf will drive away business.

Tribunal: Pull the other.

Case closed.

The decision was a narrow interpretation of “equal rights” which were to combat discrimination due to inate features. She was not refused a position because she was Muslim, but an elective piece of apparel. Sorry, these “hurt feelings come from the same source as that psychiatric worker’s going on about religions of peace.

Within five minutes, I’ve one Cantonese language barber, one Turkish and two Polish. Should a monoglot Anglophone claim hurt feelings?

And the Frenchie at Haymarket has a sexy voice.

I think ultimately that it was a failure of ingenuity on the salon’s part to come up with a plausible enough reason for turning her down. I mean it’s clear that the people they want working there are young, in skinny jeans, and know Shoreditch like it’s the back of their hand. Nobody posting here, for example, would have got the job, for reasons unrelated to our respective abilities at cutting hair.

But if you’re going to have an employment policy that automatically favours Russell Brand over Russell Grant, you have to allow for the fact that employment legislation isn’t going to give you a free rein.

“So once again we’re back to the question why Desroisers should take the gamble to find out the hard way if it is in fact damaging.”

So, an employment tribunal is obliged to take the word of any employer who refused to employ someone, even someone most qualified for a job, if they have a belief that an unrelated attribute of said employee theirs will damage their business, even if there is absolutely no evidence for this?

Well, that legitimises blanket discrimination against Sikh males for a start, since quite a large percentage of the population think that turban=fundamentalist Muslim, therefore an employer could suggest that employing a Sikh might scare away customers. There’s no evidence for this, but in BrettWorld, you don’t need it.

You are Sir Digby Jones, and I claim my five quatloos.

P.

Guided by Hizb, eh?

It’s amazing that the person aggressed, the hair salon owner, has to pay out to the person who comitted the agression.

It also HASN’T been mentioned that when Ms Noah DID have a successful career as a hairdresser, she DIDN’T wear a hijab.

Now hijabs are volountary articles of clothing that MANY muslim women despise wearing ( see Iran) and which SOME muslim women equate with sentiments of hate and supremacism.

Now suppose a prospective employee sporting swastika tattoos were to apply for a job with the ADL. This prospective employee, though claiming to understand how swastikas COULD be considered offensive to Jews, nonetheless claims he wears them out of committment to his neo-pagan, wiccan religion.

“Religious freedom!”; he exclaims.

And then imagine if, later on, it was discovered that this prospective employee have been advised on his course of action, his lawsuit against the ADL, by a group of neo-nazis!

The poster ‘Red Deathy’ is an idiot to equate VOLUNTARY adhesion to intolerant suprmeacist ideologies with unalterable racial characteristics such as ‘black’ hair, dark skin, oval eyes, etc.

If you wish to condemn hate ideologies, then the SYMBOLS of those ideologies must not be tolerated because the more you tolerate hate symbols under the auspices of religious accommodation, the more you’ll see the growth of counter ideologies, just as extremist and just as hateful, such as the BNP.

The BNP’s growth is but a barometer, a mirror image of the growth and spread of foreign Far Right ideologies now operating within the UK.

If this hairdresser ( and ALL her clients are paying close attention, by the way ) does not get a fair hearing, then just who will she ( and her clients) turn to when similar “arranged” conflicts arise in the future?

Wake the fuck up! Stop these aggressions!

By handing this ‘victory’ to Ms Noah, the court is handing victory to intolerance, to hatred and to Far right outfits……of all stripes.

Red Deathy doesn’t understand the dynamics of this, and cannot see how his blind, lazy ‘broadmindedness’ now has very serious consequences, and that every time he selfishly indulges in that broadmindedness, it costs all of society quite dearly in the form of no-go zones, attacks on innocent individuals, creeping sectartian segregation and unwaranted, expensive lawsuits against innocent, hardworking hairdressers who then extract the cost of said lawsuits from their clients.

Ms Noah is but the first aggrieved in what looks set to become a whole fucking growth industry in hurt muslim ‘feelings’.

Some irrational woman has made a mad choice - which she is entitled to make, but she is NOT entitled to expect other people to but the possible consequences to the test at their own expense.

So, if we can assume that a woman wearing a headscarf because she’s bald would not be making a “mad choice”, would you think that a hairdressers would be wrong to deny employment to such a person for that reason? So, would I then be right in concluding that you think it was quite fair to deny Ms Noah employment, not so much because of the act of the wearing a headscarf in and of itself, but… because she’s a Muslim?

“They sit to judge what is a risk.” - so because they “sit to judge” their judgement is automatically correct and reasonable?

ffs!

I think ultimately that it was a failure of ingenuity on the salon’s part to come up with a plausible enough reason for turning her down.

Just not blurting out something along the lines of “I don’t think your headscarf fits our “alternative” ethos and you may frighten away all those Hoxton teenagers with spikey haircuts that we see on TV all the time saying how much they hate religious muslim” would have done the trick.

Gregg, if bald, it’d more likely be a bandana. Very chic.

Yes, J.P. is right; a woman in a headscarf wants a hairdressing job. It’s Vienna, 1529 all over again.

P.

Kudos to JP, his hilarious wingnuttery has trumped Brett’s original post in the idiotic bullshit stakes.

a bandana. Very chic.

You are, like, so 2006.

Brett it seems that it your argument that is circle not Graham’s. The Tribunal could only reach a judgement on the evidence presented to it. The fact is that Desrosiers could not provide a shred of evidence that employing Bushra Noaha would adversely affect her business – so she lost – tough. Moreover the more substantial issue is that by refusing to employ a woman in a Hajib is a form of indirectly discriminates against all Muslim women.

Indeed this case does remind me of a quite well known early racial discrimination case in UK in the eighties. In this case a green grosser was taken to a tribunal by a former black employee that had sacked because a customer had complained that they did not want their fruit “touched by black hands”. The green grosser lost the case because even thought that they did have clear evidence that employing black member of staff would adversely affect their business, pandering to the prejudices of customers is against the law – Good.

JP, David T mis-read the Daily Mail article re. Hizb - it says:

Although Bushra is believed to have been acting alone, in the past similar cases have been championed by Muslim traditionalist groups.

The extremist Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir later admitted that it had ‘advised her’.

This whole debate is absurd. Noaha chose to wear the headscarf and yet expected to both have her cake and eat it. Well, you can’t. The salon in question required a clear look and appearance. Every job does - I even failed a job interview because I turned up in a shirt and tie, as that was not the ‘look’ required by the company. So be it.

By choosing or applying to work at a given business or organisation, you choose ipso facto to waive some of your autonomy in exchange for the benefits the job would provide. To not do so would be unreasonable. And this is the reason why Noaha was wrong - she was expecting gain without the need to return the courtesy. This has nothing to do with her ethnicity, faith or whatever: she knew full both what her interpretation of Islam required of her as well as what the salon wanted and that the two would by default clash.

To put it simply, she was taking the piss.

(And before you leap in with fangs bared and claws extended, I know plenty of hijabbed women who wouldn’t have applied for the job in the first place because, y’know, they’re reasonable human beings. What’s so special about this one?)

And if you want any more proof of the rather dubious nature of the whole affair, please take note that the initial sum demanded by Noaha was £34,000. For not getting a job in a hairdresser’s. Don’t you lot know a shakedown when you see one? Well, since that’s the way it is to be, I failed my 11+ so can I have £100,000 and a nymphomaniac please?

And then the poor salon owner still got done for £4000 because of ‘hurt feelings’ and ‘indirect discrimination’. Oh goody - abstract concepts FTW. You get less for being beaten up and hospitalised, which is a perfect summary of this fiasco.

Just not blurting out something along the lines of “I don’t think your headscarf fits our “alternative” ethos and you may frighten away all those Hoxton teenagers with spikey haircuts that we see on TV all the time saying how much they hate religious muslim” would have done the trick.

Well it’s fairly obvious to me that the reason she didn’t get the job wasn’t because she was a Muslim but because she wasn’t young enough, thin enough or fashionable enough, and equally obvious that there are plenty of other establishments in London where not being young enough, thin enough or fashionable enough will preclude you from being able to work there.

Mostly this takes care of itself, because fat bald 50somethings tend not to apply for jobs in bars in Shoreditch on the unspoken understanding that they’d be turned down flat for being fat, bald and 50something. But the least the owner should do is come up with a plausible enough lie about the reason.

Truculent Sheep seems to want the return of serfdom.

“Moreover the more substantial issue is that by refusing to employ a woman in a Hajib is a form of indirectly discriminates against all Muslim women.”

Not it isn’t. By no stretch of the imaginiation do “all Muslim women” wear the hijab, and indeed, the Tribunal found that this was not a case of religious discrimination in any event.

“pandering to the prejudices of customers is against the law”

This case had, furthermore, nothing to do with pandering to prejudices. There was no suggestion that a Muslim coudln’t work there. The issue was the need to staff to project the image and ethos of the business, which was “funky”. Bushra Noaha wasn’t.

Presumanly you will now defend the right of women in miniskirts to work in Islamic bookshops.

How did it even come to pass that a reason for not employing Noah was either required or given? The way these things normally work is the employer says: “We’ll call you” and if you’re unsuccessful, you never hear from them again.

Did Desroisers pile round Noah’s house and scream the bit about a headscarf through the letterbox? Or did Noah ask: “Is it coz I have a headscarf?”

On a slightly related note, do airlines continue to turn away prospective applicants for steward duties because they’re too ugly?

And if so, how?

Did Desroisers pile round Noah’s house and scream the bit about a headscarf through the letterbox? Or did Noah ask: “Is it coz I have a headscarf?”

By all accounts, neither - she launched a preemptive attempt to sue out of the blue.

Richard Farnos, in what way does my argument support serfdom?

On a slightly related note, do airlines continue to turn away prospective applicants for steward duties because they’re too ugly?

My recent airline experiences would indicate that there is still a threshold of attractiveness that you have to be able to attain in order to work as an air steward/ess, but that the level isn’t as high as it used to be. Basically instead of thinking “wahey!”, the customer is now only required to decide that, on balance, all things considered, he/she probably would.

The way these things normally work is the employer says: “We’ll call you” and if you’re unsuccessful, you never hear from them again.

That’s what I find odd too. I once interviewed a candidate who on CV was qualified for an interview, but in a 10-minute interview was a complete oddball. I don’t mean eccentric or wacky; I mean “help get me out of this room”.

It didn’t occur to me to turn around and say “Well, mate, you were great on paper, but in real-life you’re a freak. But hey, thanks for taking the time to come.” I gave the usual stock answer - thanks for coming by, we’ll get in touch with you soon, etc.

P.

How did it even come to pass that a reason for not employing Noah was either required or given?

Apparently, during the interview, Derosiers said the heardscarf made her “uncomfortable“. Which seems very odd, because I thought Noah was the one wearing it.

preemptive attempt to sue

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

P.

“It didn’t occur to me to turn around and say “Well, mate, you were great on paper, but in real-life you’re a freak. But hey, thanks for taking the time to come.” I gave the usual stock answer - thanks for coming by, we’ll get in touch with you soon, etc.”

This is *fake* helpfulness. The poor guy now has learned nothing from the interview, and proably because all prospective employers act the same way, goes from interview to interview, always being turned down, and learning *nothing* from the experience. Gaining not one iota of insight that might actually help him land the next job he applies for. Nothing. And all in the name of faux-politeness. It is the TRUTH that sets us free, not platitudes, evasions and pleasant lies.

This is *fake* helpfulness.

Well, I wasn’t being fake or sincere. I thanked him for doing the interview, end or story.

If someone did an interview with me, and contacted me later asking for advice as to how to improve, I would consider it. However, the the whole area is fraught with legal repercussions for both you and your company. It’s one thing to say to someone “you’re lacking in experience in X/Y/Z”, another to tell them they need to reconstruct their personality and work on personal hygiene basics.

P.

Err Brett may you suggest that you re-read you own original posting in which you quote Adam Rutherford CIF article in which he clearly states that: “The tribunal decided that this practice does constitute indirect discrimination because it puts all Muslim women who cover their hair at a potential disadvantage.”

Indeed it seems to me that both the hair dresser and Brett simply assume that you can not be “funky” and wear hijab. Evidently he has not been watching Amani Zani’s “Women in Black” series on BBC 2.

Finally Brett asks me “Presumably you will now defend the right of women in miniskirts to work in Islamic bookshops.” Well, yes, of course, if she could demonstrate the skill to do the job and had a sympathetic attitude to Islam. So call me an old fashion lefty, but I really don’t think that preserve of men to determine what women do or do not wear – however “irrational.”

Truculent Sheep – you seem to be arguing that in apply or accepting a job all your rights are surrendered to the employer – that sound like serfdom to me.

“Finally Brett asks me “Presumably you will now defend the right of women in miniskirts to work in Islamic bookshops.” Well, yes, of course, if she could demonstrate the skill to do the job and had a sympathetic attitude to Islam.”

Um, so now you have to have “a sympathetic attitude to Islam” to sell books? What next, a sympathetic attitude to hair to be a hair-stylist?

Well, yes, of course, if she could demonstrate the skill to do the job and had a sympathetic attitude to Islam.

Do you really think that employers should be allowed to impose a “sympathetic attitude” test, to employees working at a business?

Do you think that workers at McDonalds should be hired only if they can demonstrate that they have a “sympathetic attitude” to global multinationals?

Do you think that Muslim women should not be hired to work in hair dressing salons, if they can’t demonstrate that they have a “sympathetic attitude” to Western secular culture?

It is the TRUTH that sets us free, not platitudes, evasions and pleasant lies.

And who is to be the judge of what is true?

Educational jobs these days mostly give feedback if you ring in the next day. Any employer would be mad to give an emotive evaluation in the heat of the moment (and that is what Ms Desrosiers is paying for and reflecting on.)

That’s a good idea, Brett. I think I’ll apply for a job in an Islamic bookshop wearing a mini-skirt, a halterneck and no bra. See what they say.

Do you think that workers at McDonalds should be hired only if they can demonstrate that they have a “sympathetic attitude” to global multinationals?

.

The employee’s attitude certainly shouldn’t matter as long as they leave it at home. Obviously, an Islamic bookstore should no more have to employ someone who tells customers Muhammed is rubbish than McDonald’s has to employ someone who feels they have to tell each customer “You know meat is murder, yeah?”.

P.

Richard Farnos: “Truculent Sheep – you seem to be arguing that in apply or accepting a job all your rights are surrendered to the employer – that sound like serfdom to me.”

No, I am arguing that getting a job is a transaction that requires the sacriface of some personal autonomy in exchange for material and, perhaps, personal gain. That is not serfdom, as well you should know.

I agree that employers should not have to bear the risk of being put at a commercial disadvantage by the personal choices of employees.

And I think that running a ladies hairdressing salon is essentially part of the fashion sector, especially when you are trying to appeal to the younger clientele. Image is very important for attracting the customers you are after, and some fussy blue rinsed matron with a twin set and pearls would not be an asset to Desrosiers, but would fit right in somewhere else.

There is an emerging thread of vexatious lawsuits from staff who suddenly decide they will no longer handle pork products, or alcohol, or permit blind folk with guide dogs to ride in their taxis. Demands for irregular prayer breaks are fundamentally incompatible with certain jobs and could put entire production lines at risk.

My attitude would be this: If you have non-standard religious obligations, you must be prepared to bear the price of that yourself. There should be no exemptions for personal choices, whether religious or cultural. Employers need to stand fast, and the law needs to get behind them. And the courts need to stop fining folk who have been found not to have broken any law. Men who routinely turn up for work wearing long blonde wigs and cloaks have no business criticising the uniform policies of other trades and professions.

Do you think that workers at McDonalds should be hired only if they can demonstrate that they have a “sympathetic attitude” to global multinationals?

Who could possibly imagine McDonalds objecting to employing staff who will lecture customers on the evils of fast food, deforestation and multi-nationals?

Do you think that Muslim women should not be hired to work in hair dressing salons, if they can’t demonstrate that they have a “sympathetic attitude” to Western secular culture?

Because hair-dressing salons… sell Western secularism, do they?

“I think I’ll apply for a job in an Islamic bookshop wearing a mini-skirt, a halterneck and no bra.”

You should suggest a guest article on this to David T.

P.

There is an emerging thread of vexatious lawsuits from staff who suddenly decide they will no longer handle pork products, or alcohol, or permit blind folk with guide dogs to ride in their taxis.

There is also an emerging thread of commenters who don’t read the b&*^&^y article or commentary, wade in at the end and set up a straw man. Noone here in this thread has argued that someone should be employed for a job whose related tasks they refuse to perform. There is no part of the task of hairdressing that Ms. Noaha refused to perform.

Unless, I don’t know, they’re making hair scissors out of pork these days - can you ring the Daily Mail and ask?

P.

Yes, J.P. is right; a woman in a headscarf wants a hairdressing job. It’s Vienna, 1529 all over again.

No, it’s England in 2008, and you haven’t a clue as to what you’re facing.

But hey! You like to play-act at being the calm, thoughful ‘voice’ of reason, the rational counterpoint to my ‘hysterical’ rants!

“The tribunal decided that this practice does constitute indirect discrimination because it puts all Muslim women who cover their hair at a potential disadvantage.”

No, it’s Muslim women who, by voluntarily subscribing to practices that may not even have any basis in Islam, put themselves at a disadvantage.

Indeed it seems to me that both the hair dresser and Brett simply assume that you can not be “funky” and wear hijab. Evidently he has not been watching Amani Zani’s “Women in Black” series on BBC 2.

Or the other BBC gem that has a Christian beheading a Muslim.

The BBC is firmly rooted in reality.

As are you and your ‘arguments’, Richard.

So call me an old fashion lefty, but I really don’t think that preserve of men to determine what women do or do not wear – however “irrational.”

Your not a lefty, but you sure as hell are old-fashioned.

You see, for the more than 36 million women in Iran, and millions of muslimas elsewhere, what they can or cannot wear is entirely the preserve of men, so in condoning this practice, you cannot claim to represent or champion freedom of choice for women.

You’ve morphed the very demons you once set to to battle and destroy.

You’ve become a self-righteous mullah-puppy.

I think the hairdresser was trying to be kind. Looking at the salon’s website, this lumpy frumpy puddin’ wouldn’t have fitted in, but rather than say ‘you look like a lumpy frumpy puddin’ and you won’t fit in’, she made the far graver mistake of suggesting it had something to do with Allah’s headsquare. She should have said something blando like ‘there were other candidates better qualified than you’, like I used to do in the NHS when turning down obvious psychopaths and dullards.

Brett and Dave T are clutching at straws. Of course justifiable occupational requirement for a member of staff in an Islamic bookshop to have a sympathetic knowledge of product their selling. Likewise it a reasonable occupational requirement for a hair stylist to be committed to delivering good “funky” hairs cuts or for Mac employee to be committed to making good burgers (whether they objectively are ‘good’ is a different mater). I don’t think it would be a justifiable occupational requirement for Mac staff to be committed to international capitalism, just as it would not be a justify occupational requirement for a Islamic Bookshop staff have to be Muslims.

Dave T as a corporate law should know all this.

You see, for the more than 36 million women in Iran, and millions of muslimas elsewhere, what they can or cannot wear is entirely the preserve of men,

And to combat this, we should tell women what they can cannot wear in Britain? Fight fascism with fascism - yeah, that’ll really show ‘em, you slack-brained rube.

“Noone here in this thread has argued that someone should be employed for a job whose related tasks they refuse to perform. There is no part of the task of hairdressing that Ms. Noaha refused to perform. “

So why shouldn’t Keith Richards get that job playing guitar for Busted? There’s no related task he refuses to do. Isn’t it the case that he simply doesn’t fit the image?

Paul Maloney shows where he’s coming from, my suggestion of wearing a mini-skirt, halterneck and no bra has obviously got him going. I think I ought to add that I am dumpy, frumpy, greying fifty-something as well, not a lissome, longlegged, big-eyed beauty.

“Of course justifiable occupational requirement for a member of staff in an Islamic bookshop to have a sympathetic knowledge of product their selling. “

Se how Richard dishonestly moves the goal posts.

Earlier he said they must have “a sympathetic attitude to Islam”, but now it is “a sympathetic knowledge of product their selling”.

Seriously, Brett, do you think trying to make something significant out of that is really going to distract anyone from the fact that you’ve lost the argument?

Oh right, Brett’s lost the argument, has he. I didn’t realised it was settled and a clear victor had been announced. I mean, I don’t really agree with Brett on this, but I was quite happy to continue not really agreeing. I didn’t realise that there was a definite right and wrong answer and I’d officially won.

I haven’t “lost the argument” simply because you say so. There is no reason why a business owner shouldn’t have some control over the image he or she wants to project and it stands to reason that a person who believes that public displays of women’s hair is sinful and immoral is projecting the wrong image for a business that relies on um, ‘preparing women’s hair for public display’.

I would have thought that somebody like field would be extremely well qualified to work in an Islamic bookshop. As long as he undertook not to slag off the “product”.

I think that employers shouldn’t be able to get out of employing people because of some immutable characteristic (i.e. sexual orientation, ethnicity).

I also tend to think that people with manifestations of reasonably standard religious practices (hijabs, turbans and so on) shouldn’t be discrminated against.

If bigots don’t come into a hairdressing salon because they have a problem with black people or kippah wearers or whatever, then that’s a price that an employer has to pay, I’m afraid.

However, that doesn’t apply to extreme and unusual religious garb.

I do think that you need to be a little bit alert, however, to identify the possibility that somebody is a part of an extremist political organisation, and is using anti-discrimination law to further that agenda. So, I’d defend the right of a person who chose to shave their hair from being sacked. However, if they turned out to be doing it to signify their membership of Combat 18, I’d not waste my time on defending them.

Ditto this woman, and her apparent association with Hizb ut Tahrir. If that’s true, screw her.

Paul Maloney shows where he’s coming from, my suggestion of wearing a mini-skirt, halterneck and no bra has obviously got him going.

Cor, yeah, nothing gets me randier than anonymous women on the internet who can’t spell my surname talking about entering religious bookstores not wearing much. I just there was a whole website devoted to it.

Er, hubba hubba, and all that.

P.

Ditto this woman, and her apparent association with Hizb ut Tahrir.

What association?

P.

. So, I’d defend the right of a person who chose to shave their hair from being sacked. However, if they turned out to be doing it to signify their membership of Combat 18, I’d not waste my time on defending them.

Hmm. Surely the law should be blind - regardless of whether it’s a neo-Nazi or a Franciscan monk who it is subject to. The taxi-rank approach doesn’t legitimise taxi-driver attitudes.

(this brings to mind being in a service in an orthodox church in Kyiv, notable for its young women who had taken great care to cover every last inch of their long hair, but who were wearing quite the shortest skirts I have seen anywhere, and also exposing their navels)

Kudos to Brett for the best title of any thread at HP so far.

I haven’t “lost the argument” simply because you say so.

Oh, it’s not because I say so. It’s because you’ve flatly ignored various questions, and in so doing underlined that your original post was bullshit and you have no idea what you actually believe. Then you’ve latched on to something someone said above and tried to make it say more than he said, in the hope of distracting us all, at least until you can come up with some basis for what was - be honest - a reflexive and reactionary bit of mock outrage.

There is no reason why a business owner shouldn’t have some control over the image he or she wants to project

Some control, of course. But as a society, we have decided that that control should not be absolute. Again, you’ve ignored various points on this - in my case, I’m left wondering whether you believe hair-dressers should be allowed to refuse to employ bald women because they’re bald, or just bald women who wear head-scarves because they’re wearing a head-scarf.

and it stands to reason that a person who believes that public displays of women’s hair is sinful and immoral is projecting the wrong image for a business that relies on um, ‘preparing women’s hair for public display’.

So, in your view, Noah has committed a thought crime. You don’t (do you - you still won’t say?) think that people should be refused employment just because they’re wearing head-scarves, nor just because they’re Muslim. But if they’re a Muslim wearing a head-scarf, even though that’s a personal choice on their part, you believe it indicates thinking that is unacceptable.

Mrs Noah was an experienced hairdresser?

Guess she was 19 year 2007, before she left to Syria 2006 she had a job in a salon in London, where she claim her tasks included cutting hair, highlighting, tinting and perming. She could at most have been 17/18 years old when she went of to Syria. There is not a chance that she could have achieved to be a experienced hairdresser at that age.

And it was not a position as hairdresser/stylist at Sarah’s salon it was a position as junior assistant.

‘I am a one-woman band, and am already in debt due to the set-up costs of opening my own salon, … This has, without doubt, been the worst year of my life’ says Sarah.

By March 2007, the business was doing so well that Sarah needed to take on another stylist. … to do this would be by renting out a chair in her salon to an experienced stylist - who would take a share of her profits - and employ a junior to work for both of them.
…
‘Her CV didn’t stand out because I was looking for someone who lived locally - something I’d specified in the advert so that I could call them in as and when required - and she lived several miles away in Acton,’ says Sarah.

‘One day she rang up to see if I’d got her CV and begged me for an interview. I told her I had concerns about where she lived, but she sounded so desperate that I agreed she could come in for a chat.’
…
’how can it be possible that someone can come into my shop, talk to me for ten minutes and then sue me for £34,000? ‘

Is there any law in UK that require employers to hire every time that they interview people for a potential position?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1027300/How-I-driven-brink-ruin-refusing-hire-Muslim-hair-stylist-wouldnt-hair.html

Is there any law in UK that require employers to hire every time that they interview people for a potential position?

No

Paul Maloney - What association?

Hizb ut Tahrir have admitted that they advised her to sue.

“I’m left wondering whether you believe hair-dressers should be allowed to refuse to employ bald women because they’re bald, or just bald women who wear head-scarves because they’re wearing a head-scarf.”

Well, wonder no more. The answer is yes. If a busness is seeking to create a certain vibe, and you don’t fit in, well tough. No one owes you a job.

I am certainly in favour of protecting people from arbitrary dismissal and cruel, bullying or unreasonable labour practices. I think employers have a duty to provide a safe working environment. I believe that non-discrimination legislation protecting people from discrimination based on immutable characteristics is in persuit of a legitimate social good. BUT - people who make *choices* to do things in a certain way because of their personal convictions need to understand that this sometimes involves making sacrfices and it is unfair to expect other people to have to accomodate them if they don’t want to.

Explain why a young pop group should have to hire Keith Richards. Explain why a gym should be allowed to hire people who look fit and healthy.

I reckon to most people it is a no brainer. A hairdresser shouldn’t have to hire someone who thinks that displaying your hair is sinful and immoral. I don’t think and Islamic bookshop should have to hire someone who thinks Islam is absurd. It really is that simple.

Hizb ut Tahrir have admitted that they advised her to sue.

Where are you getting that from?

Venichka: No

I did suspect that, so it’s completely legal to chat with someone about a potential position and say ‘don’t call us we call you if there is an opening for you’. :-)

Gregg - Where are you getting that from?

Sorry, should have added ‘according to the Daily Mail’.

From the article in the DM referenced above:

The extremist Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir later admitted that it had ‘advised her’.

Btw, a belief in modesty is not the same thing as believing that showing hair is sinful and immoral.

(herewith the first link from HP to the Latin Mass Society website)
http://www.latin-mass-society.org/wearmantilla.htm

The answer is yes. If a busness is seeking to create a certain vibe, and you don’t fit in, well tough. No one owes you a job.

it’s Tolpuddle all over again.

She was an aspiring small business owner. Middle class scum.

The tribunal judgement said:

“We concluded that, on a critical and balanced assessment, the degree of risk, while real, should not be assumed to be as great at the respondent believed.”

The tribunal admit that a risk existed, but the disagreement was about how big the risk was. So again I ask, WHY, if you *chose* to impise certain limits on yourself for your own conscientious reasons, should other people be required to take *any* risks on your behalf?

How come Noah decided to target this salon, a salon bent to be trendy and “cool”? A guess could also be that it’s the one with staff and customer bent that was the most opposite to her own approach and religious modest preferences.

So why would the modest Noah want to work on this salon where probably staff and clients dress like “whore’s” and “slut’s” and expose all kinds of awrah and are anything but “modest”? She would maybe have had to style, punks, gays, bisexuals and even maybe a transsexual and so on.

http://www.wedgehair.co.uk/Pages/Gallery.html

My recent airline experiences would indicate that there is still a threshold of attractiveness that you have to be able to attain in order to work as an air steward/ess, but that the level isn’t as high as it used to be. Basically instead of thinking “wahey!”, the customer is now only required to decide that, on balance, all things considered, he/she probably would.

Will someone with contacts at BBC Light Entertainment please get Wardy the job he deserves?

At the very least, let him guest-write a couple of episodes of the ‘flagship’ series My Family. I fear I may hunt down Robbert Lindsay and slay him if it proceeds in its current form.

“She was an aspiring small business owner. Middle class scum.”

Yes, she put all her own modest savings into the business, worked 12 hour days, built up the business through her own sweat, and when she gets to the point where she can finally start offering employment to someone else, get’s dragged down by a smug teenager with a sense of entitlement who expects others to risk their business and money to accomodate their bizarre superstitions.

It seems to me that nothing promotes feudalism more than disincentivising entrepreneurialship. Without it, we can all remain neatly in our class comfort zones as workers and bosses.

Well, wonder no more. The answer is yes. If a busness is seeking to create a certain vibe, and you don’t fit in, well tough. No one owes you a job.

So, the grocer mentioned above, who wants to create an “all-white” vibe, shouldn’t have to give equal consideration to a black man?

BUT - people who make *choices* to do things in a certain way because of their personal convictions need to understand that this sometimes involves making sacrfices and it is unfair to expect other people to have to accomodate them if they don’t want to.

But employing someone with a head-scarf is not “accomdating” them. No special provisions have to be made and wearing it in no way affected her ability to do her job. The only grounds for denying someone employment on that issue is that potential customers might not like it. How is that different from a grocer refusing to employ a black man in case customers want food that’s only been handled by whites?

Explain why a young pop group should have to hire Keith Richards.
Explain why a gym should be allowed to hire people who look fit and healthy.

Neither of those questions make sense. A young pop group couldn’t afford to hire Keith Richards, and any up-and-coming guitar band would almost certainly agree to ritually sacrifice one of its members for the chance to work with someone like Richards. And why on Earth would a gym not be allowed to hire people who look fit and healthy?

There are legitimate reasons for a young band not to hire a geriatric as a member (which, incidentally, undermines your earlier claim - do old people CHOOSE to get old?) - the likelihood that they couldn’t cope with the physical strain. (The Stones can get away with a 15-minute set, an up-and-coming band could not.) Similarly, a gym needs people employed as trainers to be physically fit and healthy, for clear, job-related reasons - but there’s no reason a gym should get away with denying employment as a cleaner or clerk to someone on the grounds that they aren’t fit and healthy.

I reckon to most people it is a no brainer. A hairdresser shouldn’t have to hire someone who thinks that displaying your hair is sinful and immoral.

But how do you know that what’s she thinks? It could be. I neither to know nor care what her view is, as long as she keeps it to herself. If she would say to every or any customer, “you shouldn’t get you’re hair done, it’s sinful to display pride in your hair” or something, then she she certainly shouldn’t expect to work in a hair-dressers. Given that she apparently worked in a hair-dressers for two years (all the time wearing a head-scarf) I think it unlikely that she’d do that. Indeed, the very fact that she so wanted to be a hair-dresser suggests to me that, however much she may not want to display her own hair in public (and for whatever reason), she doesn’t actually have a problem with other people doing so.

On the same basis, a McDonalds employee who would tell customers they shouldn’t eat at McDonalds, or an employee of a Muslim bookshop who would tell customers that Islam is bad, should not expect to work in those respective places.

I don’t think and Islamic bookshop should have to hire someone who thinks Islam is absurd.

And yet, you seemed to suggest that you did, when you expressed more mock outrage about Richard Farnos’ post.

You also believe that an Islamic booskhop shouldn’t have to hire a woman who wears a mini-skirt. I assume you also think it shouldn’t have to hire a woman - regardless of whether she’s qualified, sympathetic to Islam, even a Muslim herself - if she doesn’t wear a head-scarf.

It really is that simple.

Sorry. Try again.

Walter - If you read the Mail article again, you’ll find that’s actually referring to the Shabina Begum case, not to this one.

So again I ask, WHY, if you *chose* to impise certain limits on yourself for your own conscientious reasons, should other people be required to take *any* risks on your behalf?

Simple. When you take on any new employee, there is a risk they’ll fuck up and/or be bad for business generally. There are no guarantees in life. The tribunal is effectively saying that the marginal risk attached to employing Noah was insufficient grounds for denying employment.

You can disagree with that conclusion, but the logic is sound.

Gregg - If you read the Mail article again, you’ll find that’s actually referring to the Shabina Begum case, not to this one.

Right you are.

I wonder if in the long run all this “free” publicity helps fill the salon’s till.

I was being circumspect before and being charitable, if firm towards BN (as I, with eczema, would not expect to work in food handling) despite the initial 34K. Now, realizing her age and if the statement by the kulak scum is accurate (and even if there were the loosest of connexions to Hizb), I’m edging towards an emotion I rarely experience on the Internet.

Contempt.

How come Noah decided to target this salon, a salon bent to be trendy and “cool”? A guess could also be that it’s the one with staff and customer bent that was the most opposite to her own approach and religious modest preferences.

My guess, from both the BBC and Mail reports (which both appear to suggest that Desrossier didn’t write to Noah to tell her she hadn’t got the job), is that of the 25 that didn’t employ her, it’s the only one that didn’t provide an adequate job-related reason for not doing so, and so left itself open to legal sanctions.

So why would the modest Noah want to work on this salon where probably staff and clients dress like “whore’s” and “slut’s” and expose all kinds of awrah and are anything but “modest”? She would maybe have had to style, punks, gays, bisexuals and even maybe a transsexual and so on.

Could it possibly be because not all Muslims, not even those who wear head-scarves, are hate-filled bigots? Could it possibly be that, while she chooses to wear a head-scarf herself, she doesn’t believe others should have to? Could it be because, whatever irrational superstitions she may subscribe to, she’s tolerant in a way that those who think wearing a head-scarf is grounds for non-employment, clearly aren’t?

(It might very well not be. Maybe she was desperate. Maybe it was part of some elaborate Islamofascist scheme to subvert the West through our salons. But I really am struggling to understand why people think that someone who wears a head-scarf must have such a definite and extreme world view, and that that world view somehow renders them incapable of functioning in polite society. I mean, I don’t go through life assuming that all Christians want to stone me to death for being queer, not even the ones who wear crosses; and I tend to think that even those who might believe I am sinful and despised by God, would be capable of bringing themselves to subsume such a belief while at work. I’m honestly having trouble seeing any basis for thinking that wearing a head-scarf is grounds for non-employment other than Islamophobia.)

“Simple. When you take on any new employee, there is a risk they’ll fuck up and/or be bad for business generally. “

If you hire someone based on your judgement and they fuck up, then you have made a mistake. But being forced to hire someone against your own better judgement about what is good for your business is an entirely different matter.

Gregg, once again, do you have any evidence that Ms Kulak would refuse a non white? The headscarf is elective.

“having one’s hair cut is a part of their identity and chosing who to trust with the task is important.”

I think this is absolutely right. I have some sympathy with the view that unnecessary pushing of staff around re their appearance is not on, but I don’t think I would have my hair cut by someone wearing a hijab. I just don’t feel I would necessarily get what I was looking for. A salient question is whether this is a prevalent view? God, I’m so judgmental and intolerant. Nasty me.

Having said that,

“The woman who owns the salon is a Canadian with tattoes and facial piercings”

suggests that I wouldn’t be terribly keen on attending the salon or getting my hair cut by the owner either! Can’t stand those Canadians, you see.

Models don’t get to stay models if they get fat. Simple as. I agree with Desrosiers in this instance. (Of course, in most cases not employing someone with hijab-wearing being a causal influence to that decision would be entirely unacceptable.)

£4,000 for “hurt feelings”? Cry me a fucking river.

I wonder if in the long run all this “free” publicity helps fill the salon’s till.

On some level, I hope so. I think Desrosier has been stupid and small-minded, but if her situation is as dire as she paints it in the Mail, I do feel sorry for her.

Gregg, once again, do you have any evidence that Ms Kulak would refuse a non white?

What do you mean, “once again”? When did you ask that before and who is Ms Kulak?

The headscarf is elective.

That doesn’t make it grounds for not employing someone, as has been shown at tear-inducing length. Are you being purposefully fatuous?

Models don’t get to stay models if they get fat. Simple as. I agree with Desrosiers in this instance.

She didn’t apply to be a model. If she’d applied to be a model, it would be quite fair to reject her on the grounds of wearing a head-scarf. She applied to be a hair-dresser - wearing a head-scarf does not affect a person’s ability to cut and style someone else’s hair.

Gregg, so is it or is it not legitimate or not for a business to seek to hire staff that fit with the image the business is trying to project?

Can you explain to me why a nightclub seeking to project and urban sophisticated image should have to hire someone who looks and dresses like Ricky Tomlinson in ‘The Royle Family’ as a barman when they’re after a Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktails’ image?

Can a firm of accountants expect their male staff to wear a suit and tie? Does taking a first class degree in accountancy mean that you should be allowed to see clients dressed in flipflops and baggy shorts because you don’t need a tie (or shoes) to add and subtract?

Surely to be Mrs Kulak she would have had to have suffered collectivisation? Isn’t she more Mrs Poujadist?

Gregg, so is it or is it not legitimate or not for a business to seek to hire staff that fit with the image the business is trying to project?

There goes anti-disability discrimination law out of the window as well it seems…

The tribunal is effectively saying that the marginal risk attached to employing Noah was insufficient grounds for denying employment.

She wasn’t denied employment, she wasn’t even contemplated or offered any employment.

Sarah’s problem is that she was honest and said what she expected from the junior that might be employed to assist her and another stylist renting a chair. The story don’t tell if she even had someone that wanted to rent a chair.

Well what’s the moral message? If in an employment interview situation and the person obviously is bent on some religion avoid any talk about religious customs and how it can relate to the job, keep as neutral as possible and avoid at any means to employ them, God knows what problems can arise that you can be sued for.

“But I really am struggling to understand why people think that someone who wears a head-scarf must have such a definite and extreme world view, and that that world view somehow renders them incapable of functioning in polite society.”

Of course people who are ostentatiously religious can fit into “polite society”. The question is whether one would wish to associate with them. I have few religious friends. The small number who are, are not ostentatious about it. Most people in their 20s are simply not religious at all.

It is, for better or worse, a simple fact that someone who wears a hijab or someone who has a great big silver crucifix around their neck is unlikely to be someone I would get on with in anything other than the most shallow and cursory of social circumstances. I know lots of people who simply feel the same way. God- or Allah- botherers are not people I wish to interact with on a friendship basis.

Perhaps this makes me sound intolerant. (Islamophobic? To use the phrase du jour.) I’m sorry if so (really), but you can’t make people be friends with others out of duty.

“She didn’t apply to be a model.”

But the principle, it seems to me, is whether a particular job has “image” as a fundamental part of the role. Modelling is an example where this is clearly so. I am (without great passion, it must be said) advancing the suggestion that this is true of hairdressing *insofar as it specifically relates to hair*.

One needs to be very careful with this in terms of employee rights, of course. But I cannot help but feel that a grave disservice to common sense has been done here.

(which both appear to suggest that Desrossier didn’t write to Noah to tell her she hadn’t got the job), is that of the 25 that didn’t employ her, it’s the only one that didn’t provide an adequate job-related reason for not doing so, and so left itself open to legal sanctions.

Are employers in UK required to provide an adequate job-related reason why anyone don’t get the job, and that to everybody that they have a 10 minutes chat about an potential position they shall create?

And as I get it Sarah made it clear that Noah wasn’t what she expected.

Could it possibly be because not all Muslims, not even those who wear head-scarves, are hate-filled bigots?

Well Sarah otherwise don’t seems to have problems to deal with Muslims.

‘I’d even had to ask my accountant, who is a Muslim, and another Muslim friend to write letters confirming that I am not racist. ….

And still no one condemning Desrosier can explain why a firm of accountants should be allowed to impose a dress code when clothes surely don’t have anything to do with a person’s ability to balance the books.

Gregg, so is it or is it not legitimate or not for a business to seek to hire staff that fit with the image the business is trying to project?

Within reason, and if they follow proper procedures. And this case was unreasonable, and I suspect Desrosier didn’t follow proper procedures (I’d bet, for instance, that she didn’t have an established dress code).

Can you explain to me why a nightclub seeking to project and urban sophisticated image should have to hire someone who looks and dresses like Ricky Tomlinson in ‘The Royle Family’ as a barman when they’re after a Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktails’ image?

There’s no reason they would have to hire someone who looks like Ricky Tomlinson, but that someone looks and dresses more like Tomlinson than Tom Cruise would not (and should not) be sufficient grounds for refusing someone employment, even in a bar trying to project an urban and sophisticated image.

Can a firm of accountants expect their male staff to wear a suit and tie?

It would depend on the circumstances. Dress codes requiring suits and ties have been successfully challenged at tribunals.

Does taking a first class degree in accountancy mean that you should be allowed to see clients dressed in flipflops and baggy shorts because you don’t need a tie (or shoes) to add and subtract?

In my opinion, yes, of course, you’re a fool for asking. Legally, again, it would depend on the individual circumstances.

“In my opinion, yes, of course, you’re a fool for asking.”

Fine. In which case it is pointless debating this any further because I fundamentally disagree. If I hired someone to represent my company, I have a right to be interested in what image they project, and this extends to how well they’re groomed, how they dress and how articulately the speak. If we don’t agree on that, then we are unlikely to agree on anything that extrapolates from this.

I did see some representative from some Muslim organization working with discrimination cases that said that this case was way out of hand. He said that one cant impose these things on these kind of small businesses it’s inappropriate and wrong and these small “mom and pop” businesses are balancing on a thin edge to make ends meet. As he said there is real cases to work with in larger firms, NHS and so on.

I’d bet, for instance, that she didn’t have an established dress code

her dress code (as alluded to above) was “alternative.” She seems to have thought that a hijab wearer was too “normal” for her establishment.

The question is whether one would wish to associate with them. I have few religious friends.

With the greatest respect Ben while not particularly courting religious friends myself it is not uncommon for FE colleges for instance to be full of hijab-wearing women at the present time. In working-class areas around the country people “associate” (yes the word is deliberately loose) with religious muslims of varying degrees of religiosity all the time.

I don’t think a hijab would be at all an uncommon sight in Kings Cross for instance.

Lasse -
If in an employment interview situation and the person obviously is bent on some religion avoid any talk about religious customs and how it can relate to the job, keep as neutral as possible

Yes, that’s the advice anyone working in HR would give you. When interviewing someone, you should really avoid any discussion of personal circumstances.

Are employers in UK required to provide an adequate job-related reason why anyone don’t get the job,

Yes, they need to be able to show, if required to, that employment decisions are made on job-related grounds only. There’s no legal requirement to inform people that you have rejected them or why, but it’s certainly best practice to at least do that with interview candidates, and I think this case illustrates why.

Ben -
But the principle, it seems to me, is whether a particular job has “image” as a fundamental part of the role. Modelling is an example where this is clearly so. I am (without great passion, it must be said) advancing the suggestion that this is true of hairdressing *insofar as it specifically relates to hair*.

And as I said way up above somewhere, on which basis a woman who is openly bald or covers her head because of alopecia or chemotherpay, could similarly be denied employment. I can’t see a basis for claiming that image is a fundamental part of hair-dressing. If it were, I can’t imagine any of the people who’ve ever cut my hair being qualified for their job, as they were a mix of bald men and coiffured women, none of whom displayed an image related to the service they were required to perform for me.

If you hire someone based on your judgement and they fuck up, then you have made a mistake. But being forced to hire someone against your own better judgement about what is good for your business is an entirely different matter.

No-one is forcing anyone to do anything. The tribunal didn’t find that Desroisers should have employed Noah. They found their grounds for not doing so were unfair/discriminatory (whatever the verdict was). It’s not the same thing at all.

her dress code (as alluded to above) was “alternative.”

Yeah, when I say “established”, I mean “written”. Ideally with examples of what is desired. Like having the courtesey to write to people to inform them they’ve been rejected and why, it’s best practice and the sort of thing that (if done properly) can swing tribunals in your direction.

As Brett syas, it is about representing a company. The mischievous Mrs Noah could not present the image that Ms Desrosier wanted. As I’ve said before, going to the hairdressers is about much more than just getting your hair cut. I personally would not book an appointment at this salon, because I wouldn’t feel comfortable in that enviroment, it is so alien to me as I am now. How could Mrs Noah have felt comfortable in that setting? Why is Alec McPherson being so hateful towards a woman who is trying to earn a crust as a hairdresser? Or is he being ironic? This kind of publicity just doesn’t do Muslims any favours, they come across as selfish, self absorbed, unreasonable, hypocritical people. But I don’t suppose they care, at the end of the day.

How is that different from a grocer refusing to employ a black man in case customers want food that’s only been handled by whites?

Race is immutable, islamic head gear can be removed.

And to combat this, we should tell women what they can cannot wear in Britain?

That is already the case in some Muslim quarters in Britian, so what do you plan to do about it, being a defender of freedom and democrary?

Are you in favour of free choice?

If so, what have you been doing about its erosion as pertains to muslim women?

All of your arguments are conceived to nothing else but to avoid unpleasant facts, which is why you keep attempting to conflate arbitrary clothing choices with immutable ‘racial’ characeristics.

You dissimulate your cowardice behind appeals to tolerance and understanding.

And the abuse heaped upon english working people by these tribunals, and cowardly response of Biritian’s elites to this poor shop-owners probleme, will just add fuel to the Far Right’s growing influence.

The French, as cowardly as they are, learned that lesson the hard way, and so when LePen scored big a few years ago, France’s elites had no choice but to cribb whole sections of the F.N.’s platform.

That’s where this leads to.

One type of extremism, if allowed free reign, simply creates an equally extremist opposite, which will become more and more attractive as the crisis deepens.

People were speaking of models and the fashion industry’s need for suitable candidates.

Here’s the story of one:http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-7856.html

The model was obviously intolerant.

Why is Alec McPherson being so hateful towards a woman who is trying to earn a crust as a hairdresser?

I thought Alec was arguing FOR the hairdresser?

I ain’t being hateful, Sue. Or ironic.

John Pabluski is quite right about the rise in religious fervour. I am beginning to be unable to recognise Britain these days. London buses carry enormous posters with quotes from the New Testament, the streets are full of people wearing non-Western clothing, women walking four paces behind men, religion being used as a blunt instrument again and again. The Government wants religious organisations to set up schools and provide social welfare. It is all so deeply insuting to the past generations who fought to have some rational provision and to keep priests out of their lives. Gregg, can you please tell me, why are these people so divisive? What do they want?

Race is immutable, islamic head gear can be removed.

Yes. And? How does a potential customer’s irrational desire not be served by someone who is immutably different from them, differ from their irrational desire not to be served by someone who is different in a non-immutable way?

That is already the case in some Muslim quarters in Britian,

What Muslim quarters?

Are you in favour of free choice?

Yes, I am, and I know nothing I can say will persuade you to be as well.

If so, what have you been doing about its erosion as pertains to muslim women?

As you can see, I’m arguing against it here in this comments box. I know, it’s not much.

All of your arguments are conceived to nothing else but to avoid unpleasant facts, which is why you keep attempting to conflate arbitrary clothing choices with immutable ‘racial’ characeristics.

Irrational fear and hatred is irrational fear and hatred, whatever it’s directed against.

You dissimulate your cowardice behind appeals to tolerance and understanding.

Yes and know full well I’m wasting my time in making such appeals to you, John.

And the abuse heaped upon english working people by these tribunals, and cowardly response of Biritian’s elites to this poor shop-owners probleme, will just add fuel to the Far Right’s growing influence.

And failing to challenge irrational prejudice against people in head-scarves won’t?

The French, as cowardly as they are,

Have I been gulled by some elaborate satire?

learned that lesson the hard way, and so when LePen scored big a few years ago, France’s elites had no choice but to cribb whole sections of the F.N.’s platform.

Yes, I imagine France’s elites were really desperate to avoid doing that. And where did following your advice and turning to fascism get them?

One type of extremism, if allowed free reign, simply creates an equally extremist opposite, which will become more and more attractive as the crisis deepens.

And where is the extremism here? Are you seriously arguing that wearing a head-scarf is extreme? Is my mother, who wore one after losing her hair during chemotherapy, some sort of extremist? There was a family from some Christian group (Quakers or something) at my school, the female members of which wore head-scarves - were they extremists too?

Wearing a head-scarf, a veil, even the full head-to-toe job, is not an act of extremism. Nor is it, as you suggested above, an act of aggression. Characterising it as such can only fuel oppression, bigotry and conflict - and can surely only be motivated by the desire to fuel those things.

Gregg: You must be American. Quaker women don’t cover their heads, they find other ways to be modest. Perhaps you are referring to that polygamous sect that was in the news recently, which the Government raided and took the children away? They were some sort of Mormon. You are obviously a person who just likes to argue. Anyone who cannot see the difference between a woman who has lost her hair due to medical treatment and a woman who believes she will be raped if she shows her hair and then legitimately murdered by her menfold, quite honestly is not worth wasting time on. Come back when you’ve grown up a bit.

John Pabluski is quite right about the rise in religious fervour.

Yes, yesterday, for the first time in ten years, I had visit from a Jehovah’s Witness. Bloody Gordon Brown.

I am beginning to be unable to recognise Britain these days. London buses carry enormous posters with quotes from the New Testament,

And I thought no longer using the tube would let me escape them.

the streets are full of people wearing non-Western clothing,

Hang on… the rise in religious fervour [...] the streets are full of people wearing non-Western clothing. Do you see what you’ve done there?

women walking four paces behind men,

Could it possibly be that they aren’t actually together?

religion being used as a blunt instrument again and again. The Government wants religious organisations to set up schools and provide social welfare.

I’m sorry, but what’s new? Where were you during the 80s and early 90s, when the government repeatedly wielded religion as a blunt instrument, and fervently tried to farm public services out to (mostly) religious charities. Where was your voice when public provision for the homeless was rolled-back so that church soup-kitchens could take care of them? Where were you when I had to sing a fucking hymn every fucking morning every fucking day I went to school?

It is all so deeply insuting to the past generations who fought to have some rational provision and to keep priests out of their lives.

Yes, it is.

Gregg, can you please tell me, why are these people so divisive? What do they want?

Well, you said that you find a woman wearing a hijab a “massive disincentive” to go to a salon, which seems pretty divisive to me. So, you tell me - what do you want?

I’ve just visited one of my other favourite sites, ‘Heresy Corner’, and there is a detailed posting on this. Apparently, the law puts the onus of proof on the respondent ie Ms Desrosier. All Mrs Noah had to do is show that prima facie she was discriminated against because she was a Muslim and it then has to be disproved. Very difficult to do. This idea has entered our law via EC anti-discrimination law. The tribunal also assessed that any damage to Ms Desrosier’s business would not be as bad as she thought, but how the hell would they know? Are they in the beauty business themselves?

It’s political correctness gone mad.

Oh, stop being fucking stupid, Gregg. This is a hijab, not chemotheray. She ain’t even an Orthodox Jewess. She has hair underneath.

Gregg, can you please tell me, why are these people so divisive? What do they want?

never mind what muslim hairdressers want - its what these folks want that worries me:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4160477.ece

Gregg: You must be American.

No.

Quaker women don’t cover their heads, they find other ways to be modest.

As I said, it was some Christian sect, I’m not sure which.

Perhaps you are referring to that polygamous sect that was in the news recently, which the Government raided and took the children away? They were some sort of Mormon.

They weren’t polygamous that I know of.

You are obviously a person who just likes to argue. Anyone who cannot see the difference between a woman who has lost her hair due to medical treatment and a woman who believes she will be raped if she shows her hair and then legitimately murdered by her menfold, quite honestly is not worth wasting time on.

Nor is someone who believes that any woman who wears a head-scarf out of religious observance is crippled by fear, self-loathing and stupidity, and that choosing to wear one means you must hate anyone who doesn’t.

Come back when you’ve grown up a bit.

Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve pricked your little balloon and made you cry. Should I leave you to your fevered dreams of wiping out all diversity?

Oh, stop being fucking stupid, Gregg. This is a hijab, not chemotheray. She ain’t even an Orthodox Jewess. She has hair underneath.

If you aren’t being sarcastic, Alec, you must be incredibly pissed.

Don’t worry mate, you ain’t made me cry. You want everyone to be forced to be the same, don’t you? Or, are you high on something? Like your own cleverness. Mrs Noah is not crippled by self-loathing, fear and stupidity, far from it I’s say. More like bloated with self-love, self-importance and a sense of mission. Incidentally, it is such an obscure point of law that she must have had advice from someone itching to bring a case like this. Either that, or the woman has one of the best, untrained legal brains of the century and is wasted in hairdressing or travel agency (her new occupation.).

I am puzzled as to why a woman who had become devoutly religious enough by Moslem standards to adopt wearing a headscarf (when she never wore one before apparently,) should want to work in a “funky” hairdressers? Where presumably they have pink hair and gelled hair and the like.

Why should she want to work there at all? I smell a rat. The tribunal obviously know very little about women’s hairdressing at the funky end of the market and were in no position to pronounce on how a devout moslem in a headscarf would affect business. But the law has to have an answer so they adopted a daft one. The law is an ass.

This does sound like another put up HuT job. Don’t they see how much this discredits their cause? No I suppose not or they would not do it.

Don’t worry mate, you ain’t made me cry. You want everyone to be forced to be the same, don’t you?

Seriously, that’s what you’re going with? Here am I saying women should be able to wear head-scarves, there are you saying they shouldn’t and moaning about all these people in non-Western clothes whose mere presence upsets and offends you, and you reckon I’m the one who wants to sweep away diversity? You really have no self-awareness, do you?

Or, are you high on something? Like your own cleverness.

Oh, constantly.

Mrs Noah is not crippled by self-loathing, fear and stupidity, far from it I’s say. More like bloated with self-love, self-importance and a sense of mission.

So, one moment you’re telling me all Muslim women who wear head-scarves are doing so because they think it’s the only thing keeping them from getting and deserving to get raped, and the next you reckon they’re really egotistical and evangelical? You’re nuts.

Incidentally, it is such an obscure point of law that she must have had advice from someone itching to bring a case like this. Either that, or the woman has one of the best, untrained legal brains of the century and is wasted in hairdressing or travel agency (her new occupation.).

It isn’t a remotely obscure point of law. Pop on a head-scarf, go down the Citizens Advice Bureau and tell them that three months ago you went for a job interview, the person you spoke to kept going on about your head-scarf, and you haven’t heard anything since, and see what they advise you to do.

I am puzzled as to why a woman who had become devoutly religious enough by Moslem standards to adopt wearing a headscarf (when she never wore one before apparently,) should want to work in a “funky” hairdressers? Where presumably they have pink hair and gelled hair and the like.

My guess is that she needs money to eat and stuff.

Is it me or is Sue sounding increasingly like Baffling Contrarian?

On the other hand, I am worried I am channelling Will from DST. Greg, stop being fucking stupid. Just as a hijab ain’t a medical prosthetic, BN was not born with one welded to her scalp. That separates reluctance to employ her, be it justified or not, from prejudice towards blacks.

Nor is this a class-conflict, as our resident wannabe Watt Tyler, Graham wants to turn it into with his throwaway remark that it’s only 30 haircuts. This is the first step in creating a kulak class in which anyone with more than one chest of grain cannot decline to employ under-qualified chits of girls because they don’t fit in with her private business.

So her feelings were hurt? Boo-hoo. If a be-spectacled geek with knee-length white socks and sand-shoes and tweed skirt had been refused for that reason, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

That doesn’t make it grounds for not employing someone, as has been shown at tear-inducing length.

Really, by whom? You? And don’t give me the one about the tribunal. Legal decisions can be appealed, and even discussed by laymen such as ourselves.

Are you being purposefully fatuous?

What, like the chemotherapy and manufacturing a race issue? You accuse Brett of dodging direct questions. You should know.

This is the first step in creating a kulak class in which anyone with more than one chest of grain cannot decline to employ under-qualified chits of girls because they don’t fit in with her private business

Er no it isn’t. Kulak’s had to give up their land and become part of a collective. During the great purge anyone identifed as a Kulak had two options - a labour camp or the death sentence.

Ms Desrosier by contrast has been fined the price of a few haircuts because she couldn’t keep her gob shut and act professionally at a job interview.

I can assure you that I am not a baffling contradarian. Can anyone explain to me why a girl chooses to cover her head? Her husband or father is not standing over her with a big stick, or a sharpened knife, she just chooses. Why. Because it’s her religion. It says so in her holy book. And why does it say so? Because to display her hair in public will inflame men and cause then to act upon their bestial desire. So she chooses to not display her hair. And, her husband and her father never raised his hand against her, she did it all herself. So, Allah sees this adn is pleased, adn she is pleased that Allah is pleased, and she knows that he is setting up a tent for her in Paradise, because she is a good little Muslim. Unlike all those immodest women, be they Quakers, punks or vegetarians. They shall burn in hell. Just imagine though, one day, she wakes up and thinks, ‘let’s not wear this dust-cover.’? What would happen then? Would her husband tell her off or would he say, ‘You look so much nicer without it, my dear, I’m glad you’ve decided not to wear it anymore.’. What do you think? By the way, you are a wanker. Do you think I can’t tell the difference between unrelated men and women who happen to be walking along the same stretch of road and a husband and his wife who are not allowed to walk together because it is written that the man who lets his wife walk alongside or in front of him will burn in hell.

Greg, stop being fucking stupid. Just as a hijab ain’t a medical prosthetic, BN was not born with one welded to her scalp. That separates reluctance to employ her, be it justified or not, from prejudice towards blacks.

Being discriminated against because of something you can hide is a very different experience from being discriminated against because of something you can’t. But there’s no difference between these two examples of irrational discrimination on the part of the one doing the discriminating.

Nor is this a class-conflict, as our resident wannabe Watt Tyler, Graham wants to turn it into with his throwaway remark that it’s only 30 haircuts. This is the first step in creating a kulak class in which anyone with more than one chest of grain cannot decline to employ under-qualified chits of girls because they don’t fit in with her private business.

So, that’s what you meant by “Miss Kulak”? How is this first step in creating a kulak class. We rightly took the decision long ago that employers were not completely free to hire and fire, or not, whomever they liked. If we’re on the path to creating kulaks, wasn’t that the first step?

So her feelings were hurt? Boo-hoo. If a be-spectacled geek with knee-length white socks and sand-shoes and tweed skirt had been refused for that reason, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Probably not, but only because nobody at HP would have cared enough to post about it.

What, like the chemotherapy and manufacturing a race issue? You accuse Brett of dodging direct questions. You should know.

Where have I dodged any questions? They’re pertinent points: If the grounds for not employing this woman are that she was wearing a head-scarf and this somehow prevents you from doing your job properly in a hair-dressing salon, are any and all women wearing head-scarves, for whatever reason, be similarly unsuitable for this kind of job? And if showing off the hair styles is such an important part of this job, does that mean women and men who are bald (through choice or not) should also be barred from such employment? And if employers should be allowed to reject people who wear head-scarves because that doesn’t fit with the image they want to project, why shouldn’t they be allowed to reject people who are black if that doesn’t fit with said image?

Do you really believe Desroosier is being turned into a kulak? Isn’t this really about trying to score another blow in the culture wars?

“Why should a hairdressing salon carry even the risk of losing business because an irrational third party who as [sic] decided that showing hair is sinful and thus must be covered up at all times wants to work in the trade? Surely the the person making bizarre lifestyle choices based on their irrational fears and superstitions should carry the consequent risks and inconveniences – and and not expect someone else to?”

Thats a reason not for employing homosexuals isnt it?

Ama Samani, Bushra Noaha… is there no end to my depravity?

My guess is that she needs money to eat and stuff.

This is hardly the Ragged Trousered Philanthropist in which the only available work is writing Tory speeches. She could easily find other stuff.

I am puzzled as to why a woman who had become devoutly religious enough by Moslem standards to adopt wearing a headscarf (when she never wore one before apparently,) should want to work in a “funky” hairdressers?

If “funky” haram?

Why did HP print this story and ignore this one?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/education/2146153/Sikh-schoolgirl-Bracelet-a-matter-of-faith-not-fashion.html

Is it because Israelis/neo cons dont covet Sikh land/oil

She could easily find other stuff.

But she went for this job. Is there some reason why she should not go for this job to put food on her table? Why should she go looking for another job just because you and Brett and the latterday poujadist tendency want to find every excuse for a salon-owner who was so stupid that she could not even keep her mouth shut and blurted out a discriminatory reason for not hiring this woman (note, nobody was forcing her to hire anyone- just to not insult the intelligence of candidates for her job.)

Of course I ain’t seriously comparing her to the kulaks. I managed for most of this thread without starting.

GRAHAM

Ms Desrosier by contrast has been fined the price of a few haircuts because she couldn’t keep her gob shut and act professionally at a job interview.

She was running a hairdressing business single-handed to such a high degree that she felt able to hire an employee. Since when has been being a blabbermouth cause for financial ruination? At 1756 hrs Lasse posted a quote which suggests BN has pestered SD for an interview, despite being like those many thousands of people each month who hand in CVs and ain’t contacted again.

There’s been nothing to say that SD called her a fecking towel-head or black ghost, or went all Old Peculier. A highly motivated woman, no doubt a bit wabbit after a 70 hour week, tried to give a highly strung girl a piece of helpful advice. And has been required to pay £4,000 whilst you titter about 30 haircuts. A portion of the renumeration from each haircut will go on tax and rent and other overheads, so it will be many more.

Remember, than BN initially claimed £34,000. Would you have dismissed this as 2,500 haircuts?

GREGG

Probably not, but only because nobody at HP would have cared enough to post about it.

No, because it would have been laughed out of the Tribunal.

Where have I dodged questions?

Why the elective choice to hear a headscarf can be compared to a medical prosthetic or unalterable skin-colour. Why a private business owner should be obliged to employee anyone regardless of how they’d fit in. Note, you ain’t referring to the “hurt feelings”, you are referring specifically to the hijab.

Ah now it was a funky hairdressers - kinda Bootsy Collins cuts?

Bit like this:

http://www.funky-stuff.com/bootsy/images/bootsyrs1.jpg

She was running a hairdressing business single-handed to such a high degree that she felt able to hire an employee. Since when has been being a blabbermouth cause for financial ruination?

if her business is going to go under for want of four grand then she is as bad a businesswoman as the court found her to be a manager.

Remember, than BN initially claimed £34,000. Would you have dismissed this as 2,500 haircuts?

Quite probably. If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime (bring on the next whinging bad boss who has been caught out using the Labour practices of the 1930’s if you please.)

Why a private business owner should be obliged to employee anyone regardless of how they’d fit in.

Who was requiring anyone to employ anyone?

Were there any of you, by chance, up in arms at British Airways attempt to stop that woman employee wearing a cross?

But she went for this job. Is there some reason why she should not go for this job to put food on her table?

No. And she was found wanting just as Ugly Betty. I work for a (Punjabi) family business in which the female members wear kermisses and sometimes even loose headscarves, and would not refuse to have my hair cut by someone in a hijab as Brett shallowly said or associate with individuals wearing ostentatious religious symbols as Ben did, so don’t anyone claim I’m forcing Western modes on BN.

(note, nobody was forcing her to hire anyone- just to not insult the intelligence of candidates for her job.)

I thought it was because she disliked her choice of apparel. All we know is that SD was “shocked” and “uncomfortably”, and absolutely no evidence has been offered this was due to BN’s Muslim-ness.

No. And she was found wanting just as Ugly Betty.

Which wouldn’t have been a problem had the hairdresser kept her mouth closed. (Mrs Ben’s original point to which I replied about putting food on the table was a vague insinuation -based on nothing- that this woman was always after the compo.)

Nobody said anything about “muslimness” as far as I can see. It was an employment tribunal where the employer’s claim that it would be a “risk” to employ someone in a headscarf in Kings Cross was dismissed as the nonsense it so obviously is.

Were there any of you, by chance, up in arms at British Airways attempt to stop that woman employee wearing a cross?

I thought that was outrageous, for sure. (The sort of pettiness one would have expected of a public sector organization, all of these years after it was privatized, too)

Brownie, I ain’t sure if that’s directed at me. The two would only be comparable if SD’s business had no conceivable link to hair, or was a greengrocer who didn’t want veg touched by black hands.

If you it wasn’t directed at me, apologies!

Who was requiring anyone to employ anyone?

The run-down of the Tribunal’s decision atop for a start, which said there was insufficient evidence of there being a tangible risk to business.

if her business is going to go under for want of four grand then she is as bad a businesswoman as the court found her to be a manager.

Please tell me that’s a joke. What if you put-down an unctuous student, which would be no more abrasive as SD, and were suspended for a fortnight or fined a few hundred quid. Would you accept dismissals of your chagrin that this represented only a few weeks work?

Quite probably.

Says the man in the state-funded sector. You’re doing to Tories’ work for them if apolitical aspiring small business owners are to be sneered at and hammered because they don’t treat every voluntary act and choice to wear non-essential clothing as a integral part of identityt.

If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime (bring on the next whinging bad boss who has been caught out using the Labour practices of the 1930’s if you please.)

She wasn’t a snarling Anne Robinson, for goodness sake. Nor was she wasn’t BN’s boss and you have yet to present a shard of evidence that she harbours either anti-Muslim sentiments or would treat employees like lackies.

The run-down of the Tribunal’s decision atop for a start, which said there was insufficient evidence of there being a tangible risk to business.

And where do they say that the hairdresser has to employ anyone?

Please tell me that’s a joke.

No joke at all (and I am afraid I am far too canny with the required doublespeak to ever be caught telling a student they didn’t get their GCSE because I didn’t like what they were wearing. (If I did I would deserve to be fined.)

Says the man in the state-funded sector.

Not this year old boy!

you have yet to present a shard of evidence that she harbours either anti-Muslim sentiments or would treat employees like lackies.

The case was about neither of these things - it was about what it is acceptable to say to failed job applicants (try and keep up.)

Which wouldn’t have been a problem had the hairdresser kept her mouth closed.

Sorry to belabour the point, but the Tribunal concluded the “hurt feelings” were only valid because SD’s claims of risk did not, it said, stand-up. And, once more, it has yet to be shown the SD was aggressive or abrasive towards BN; merely said the hijab was unsuitable. BN took offence - which, itself, is a potential form of passive aggression - at the simple fact of this remark.

Sorry to belabour the point, but the Tribunal concluded the “hurt feelings” were only valid because SD’s claims of risk did not, it said, stand-up.

yes. This is what some of us have been saying from the very start of the thread.

There was no specific evidence before us as to what would (for sure) have been the actual impact of the claimant working in her salon with her head covered at all times.

So not only was the hairdresser stupid enough to gas off about why she didn’t employ the woman but she couldn’t even find a single witness to back up her garbled and hurried nonsense about risk.

This idea has entered our law via EC anti-discrimination law.

What a fucking surprise…

And where do they say that the hairdresser has to employ anyone?

Blimey, this is John Palubiski type disingenuity or Brazil-like bureaucracy! She ain’t being forced to employ anyone, but nor is she allowed to tell a prospective employee that they’re unsuitable because they demonstrate a reluctance to advertise the principle source of income! What practical difference is there?

She ain’t being forced to employ anyone, but nor is she allowed to tell a prospective employee that they’re unsuitable because they demonstrate a reluctance to advertise the principle source of income! What practical difference is there?

This is like arguing with Sonic!

Er, the practical difference that she wasn’t being told to employ anyone just to develop a policy where she did not make discriminatory remarks to failed candidates (or all the difference in the world in other words.)

Seriously where in this judgement is anybody being told the must employ anybody?

This is a Daily mail level of misrepresentation of the facts.

Are the Bottom Inspectors from Viz comic going to turn up at Ms Desrosiers salon on Monday with the hijab hairdresser and watch as she cuts the hair of scared Hoxtonites?

Or is a failed candidate being compensated for being told something that a court has found to be bullshit, complete bullshit and nothing but bullshit?

I think we need to get this sorted out as we are over a hundred comments in….

The argument of those on this thread supporting the hairdresser seems now to have been reduced to “if only I hadn’t told that copper I had commited a murder I wouldn’t be in jail.”