Harry’s Place

(Random Thought generator engaged…)Get’s me. These people nearly always pick on large public sector firms where they know they will receive a sympathetic hearing and there is lots of cash. What about trying his luck in the private sector? Optimistically though, my local MacDonalds is staffed exclusively by Muslims and I went into a BurgerKing down in the East End on the Sunday of the Walk, staffed by Bangladeshis, so someMuslims are happy to handle pork/ But, there will be more of these types of incidents so we might as well get used to it. (Did the poor hairdresser who was sued by the hijabbed girl pay her? Does anyone know?). (End of drivel.).

Brett, your piece rather assumes that Mr Khoja has the law on his side. The nearest precedent I can think of is of a Jewish taster for M&S who sued the company for racial and religious discrimination because she was required to taste prawn sandwiches. She lost. I think it highly likely that Mr Khoja will lose as well.

I am prety sure I have seen muslim staff at the deli counrters of supermarkets cut the pork salaimis that this not very observant Jew buys there. They, like all other counter staff, wear (appropriately) plastic gloves for health reasons which presumably avoid the danger that they might accidentally consume such products.

But as Sue R implies, these are private concerns.

The formula as exrpesssed by Brett in the bold headed passages is clear and right - not least the bit about appreciating concessions made.

Is this new Jewish Muslim initiative a Good Thing? It seems to aim to overcome Muslim hostility to Jews on campus by concentrating on what unites them- like jointly lobbying for Kosher and Halal food on campus and exams on religious holidays. I don’t know if their programme of avoiding international issues and concentrating on “domestic issues” will be enough for us All to Get Along.
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5ifu0p_lrD91VONN0s5OyFwrbhK9w

What about the participants? They seem good eggs. I looked up Khalid Mahmood and MPACUK hate him, so that’s good.

Any university-orientated political initiative is limited by the very fact that it attempts to organise itself around the priveliged cloud-nine of university politics. The paticipants interviewed on News 24: Baroness Marsi (I think) and a cutesy Jewish student with a line in anecdotes about how beastly she was being treated only re-inforced the fact that in the real world outside universities (where such hostility is organised) initiatives like this are like putting a plaster over a bazooka wound.

The basis of the complaint seems to be that he was previously excused pork handling at a different kitchen in the same organisation where I guess the higher staffing levels meant it didn’t present a problem.

Oh dear, at the risk of being ranted at by Brett again, doesn’t this really come down to the massive difference between getting a job and losing a job? Mr Khoja has been happily working for the Met at Hendon for several years and they have been able to accommodate his reluctance to handle pork products. Now he is being transferred to Earls Court where the same accommodation is not available. Whether he has a legitimate grievance depends, it seems to me, on whether he is being forcibly transferred or whether he asked for the move. If he wants to transfer to a location where owing to limited staff numbers or whatever his pork aversion can’t be accommodated then I have no sympathy; but if the move is being imposed on him it seems harsh that he should be faced with the choice of losing his job or compromising on his religious values.

To develop Brett’s vegetarian restaurant analogy, if a vegetarian chef who refused to handle meat on moral rounds found, after working at a vegetarian restaurant for several years, that it had been sold to a new owner who intended to put meat on the menu (which he would be expected to cook), would we not feel some sympathy if he was just told either to put up with the change or lose his job?

Shows how informal agreements made in the interests of the reasonable accommodation of religion can land you right in the frying pan.

Its not as if he is being asked to taste or eat the pork just cook it. Now I don’t eat pork (or shellfish) and I woudn’t cook it in my own kitchen for those who do but if I was faced with a choice between refuse to handle pork in a job or no job I’d quite happily handle pork. In my view its not the handling or the profiting from pork that is the problem but eating it.

This case does seem to turn on whether or not the worker has asked to transfer or been forced to transfer and also whether or not he has been singled out for discriminatory treatment. There is also the (being cynical for a moment) possiblity that he is being sponsored in this action by one or more of the more dubious Islamist groups seeking to cause trouble.

The Muslim prohibition on pork doesn’t seem to affect the multitude of UK greasy spoon owners who are muslim. They may not eat the bacon sandwich but are quite happy to sell them.

“To develop Brett’s vegetarian restaurant analogy, if a vegetarian chef who refused to handle meat on moral rounds found, after working at a vegetarian restaurant for several years, that it had been sold to a new owner who intended to put meat on the menu (which he would be expected to cook), would we not feel some sympathy if he was just told either to put up with the change or lose his job?”

No, it would be ‘tough luck Vegetarian Chef’. There are no guarentees in life. It would be no different if you were a specialist in nouvelle cuisine and the new owners decided a gastro pub was what the market now needed. Either develop new skills or move on. The choice is yours.

Similarly, if you choose to work for a large organisation, then transfers are not an unreasonable expectation.

“The nearest precedent I can think of is of a Jewish taster for M&S who sued the company for racial and religious discrimination because she was required to taste prawn sandwiches.”

Is taster a job?! I would like to be one!

As far as I am aware it is forbidden only to consume not touch pork.

I don’t understand what is so terrible about making allowences for different preferences in employment. Presumably the hysteria here has something to do with the profoundly stupid idea that terrorism is caused by ‘multi-culturalism’. Right wing rubbish.

The relavent hadith being:

“Say (O Muhammad SAW): “I find not in that which has been inspired to me anything forbidden to be eaten by one who wishes to eat it, unless it be Maytatah (a dead animal) or blood poured forth (by slaughtering or the like), or the flesh of swine (pork, etc.) for that surely is impure, or impious (unlawful) meat (of an animal) which is slaughtered as a sacrifice for others than Allâh (or has been slaughtered for idols, etc., or on which Allâh’s Name has not been mentioned while slaughtering). But whosoever is forced by necessity without willful disobedience, nor transgressing due limits, (for him) certainly, your Lord is Oft­Forgiving, Most Merciful.”(6:145)”

At least the pigs are on his side even though he deigns to handle their remains, let alone consume them for fear of an avenging deity. What this limited menu ‘chef’ also despises of course is us, marginally superior but only just. He is commanded to abjure us, deny friendship to us, lie to us and generally upset us until such time as proper order is restored and we bow in grateful obeisance before the god of his deluded imagination.

Is taster a job?! I would like to be one!

I’m sure there’s an obvious blowjob joke in this somewhere…

I don’t understand what is so terrible about making allowences for different preferences in employment.

me neiver JohnG. I work in Asda on the checkouts right and I don’t like serving ugly old people. Every time I see one I go yeahbutnobutyeahbutnobut.

You are my hero JohnG

If this guy doesn’t want to touch pork he shouldn’t be a hooker … sorry I mean he should get a job in a kosher restaurant.

hiya Vicky, I’ll be in for my four ounces of cheese and bottle of stout on Saturday as usual. see you then.

“I don’t understand what is so terrible about making allowences for different preferences in employment. “

Well, I’m interested in the real world where social cohesion can’t simply be wished into existence or mandated from up high. It seems to be the best hope for successful multi-culturalism is secularising public sphere and protecting the private.

It is obvious that no workplace or organisation can provide an on-site halaal, kosher, vegetarian, budhist, hindu, sikh, african-christian, european-christian, anamist, jehovah’s witness, wholistic, pagan, and vegan chefs; or provide separate seating areas for diners. It is not unreasonable for them to offer a range of food that attempts to cater to and please according to demand.

So, while providing separate meat and milk plates in a kosher dining room might be a stretch too far, providing cheese and onion sandwhiches in addition to ham and cheese ones is a practical compromise which would satisfy most Jewish, Muslim, Budhist, Hindu and Vegetarian staff. If you’re so resolutely kosher that you cannot eat the cheese and onion sandwhich because it might be served on a plate that was once used for meat, well then you’d better go work or eat somewhere else or bring a packed lunch.

For multiculturalism to have a fighting chance, the resentments that derive from one group believeing another id privelaged over their group and one-up-manship in the victimhood stakes is surely not going to create an environment conducive to multiculturalism.

That recipe again: Guarantee religious freedom in the private sphere. Secularise the public sphere.

And the Black Police Association seem to be supporting him, another clue that the claim is without merit

I believe it’s the Muslim Police Group, not the Black Police Officers. I saw one of their spokesmen on tv the other day, talking about the Black Police Officers’ promise to boycott the Met’s community liaison programme. ‘We don’t boycott, we believe in taking over,’ he said. So, as I said, stand by for a lot more of this.

Oh what a suprise to see Sue R in this thread…

Harrys place attracts such a nice crowd…

I am absolutely shocked at the insensitivity of the decision to recommision Pinky and Perky. I am sure all Islamic catering managers, mad feminists shocked by the rather close to the bone names of these porcine puppets and Daily Mail readers still alvering wildly over Sachsgate will join me in demanding death to these helium-voiced porky bastards!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/03/dl0303.xml

johng wrote:

Presumably the hysteria here has something to do with the profoundly stupid idea that terrorism is caused by ‘multi-culturalism’.

Not really; Islamic terrorism - which globally seems to constitute the bulk of all terrorism - is caused by Islamic ideology, in the best tradition of its megalomaniacal, murderous prophet.

Multi-culturealism, or rather treating people not just as people equal under the law, but defining them by their ethnic or religious identity, seems to result in displays the overweening bend-over backwards capitulation that only serves to encourage a grievance culture, or in the Islamic case - the religion of perpetual outrage.

It’s simple really, if you reward errant behavior, even by tacitly letting it pass uncorrected, you’re encouraging it. Anyone with dogs or kids should know this.

Hiya, Saeed. Care to join me for my four ounces of cheese and bottle of stout?

No, it would be ‘tough luck Vegetarian Chef’. There are no guarentees in life

No it wouldn’t. In the case of the hypothetical vegetarian chef described above, such an arrangement to handle only vegetarian food would be a de facto condition of service, if it had persisted for a number of years. The new restaurant owner would need to make accommodation for the chef or offer him redundancy. In fact, probably TUPE would apply (?) so he would need to make accommodation. I guess that would be part of the due diligence the new owner should have conducted before acquiring the business!

I don’t understand what is so terrible about making allowences for different preferences in employment. Presumably the hysteria here has something to do with the profoundly stupid idea that terrorism is caused by ‘multi-culturalism’. Right wing rubbish.

Do take your pills, little boy.
Nobody has said that it causes terrorism. Can you really not read a simple paragraph and actually comprehend it?
I am told that you are a PhD student. Amazing. I wouldn’t have thought you could pass a GCSE in knitting with your non-existent reading comprehension skills.

Nick,
I wouldn’t allow JohnG to keep dogs - or kids. He doesn’t have the mental wherewhithal. Note his instinctive reference to ‘right wing’. The man is an idiot.

He may sue but would he win?

I honestly cannot see the Met forcing this nutter to handle pork. If he is a manager then surely others would handle the food - he would merely have to oversee them.

Would he complain if he were put to chopping vegetables? He could weep buckets when he chopped onions and blame it on Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.

And as for the Muslim Police Group - “..‘We don’t boycott, we believe in taking over…” well, what a surprise!

The wind must’ve changed direction and have been coming from the “It’s time to take offence at thin air” point on the compass.

Brett, this isn’t about the religious person having to make sacrifices, it’s about Muslims forcing kufr to make sacrifices and bend themselves to the will of Muslims.

I hope that this case gets kicked to where it belongs.

“That recipe again: Guarantee religious freedom in the private sphere. Secularise the public sphere…”

All very well and I agree but the success of that rather depends upon the religious of any persuasion being content not to force their beliefs on others.

This is definitely not the case as regards Islam, is it, so I doubt that your recipe, sensible though it is, would work.

It would work if we didn’t have spineless politicians.

This particular offended virgin is from Saudi Arabia, headquaters for Islam, human rights shithole and a place where all religions other than Islam are forbidden.

Perhaps the judges could draw inspiration from Saudi Arabian methods of relgious accomodation and then apply them to this little koranic porkchop.

I’ve a question; what kind of idiot organisation would hire a chef from Saudi Arabia.

Executioners with swords, perhaps, and even skilled, effective and sadistic torturers, provided they bring their own instruments, but chefs??

No Sue, i don’t dine with bigots

“That recipe again: Guarantee religious freedom in the private sphere. Secularise the public sphere.”

But religion is not just any philosophical point of view or ideological opinion that can be disputed, if people are serious about their religion they is convinced that that God is omnipotent and created the world and have handed down absolute rules how people shall live. That’s noting merely for private consumption it must of course embrace everything, after all it is the creator ióf the universe that have decided the rules. To demand of the true believer that his religion is merely for private consumption is to say that he shouldn’t take his conviction 100% seriously.

I’m sure you do Saeed, but their form of bigotry is more appealing to you. Anyway, I didn’t say ‘dine’, I merely offered you light refreshments.

Nah sue you are the the bigot…its quite hard to slap that label on me cos i have a history of work with local islamic womens groups (advising women on womens rights etc) and youth groups (which bring together white kids and asian kids)…you on the other hate muslims but like all bigots are too cowardly to admit your prejudice

It’s easy isn’t it, just insult me. Don’t address yourself to the issue under discussion. What do you think about a man who works in a kitchen and then decides he can not handle some of the foodstuffs prepared there. What would you do about it? We need solutions and forward thinking, not trading insults. So, I challenge you, Saeed, to tell us what you think the solution should be:

a) Give the man a handsome payout,

b)

I’m sure you do Saeed, but their form of bigotry is more appealing to you.

Whose form of bigotry you crazed simpleton?

b) build a separate kitchen just for halal foods (as to very pious Muslims food prepared in a non-halal kitchen will not be acceptable, and there are growing numbers of Muslims in the Police)

c) refuse to employ Muslims unless they sign an undertaking to handle non-halal products

d) offer then retraining for something else, although at the age of 60 this is not very easy.

So, tell us, from a Muslim perspective, what you think should be done.

So, I challenge you, Saeed, to tell us what you think the solution should be:

Basically if the role invloves a muslim touching ham then he has to touch it otherwise look for a job in a kosher/veg restaurant. We should accept peoples religious duties only in so much a they don’t impact on the smooth operation of the business they work for.If they do impact then we have to put our foot down and say no. the vast majorty of muslims in the UK understand this.

The question we have to ask ourselves, is where is all this going to end? Regardless of the circumstances of this particular case, I have no doubt that vexatious complaints are rising, and many are brought purely from hostile, or self-serving motives. Employers, and Jobcentre staff, can be placed in an impossible position by those who render themselves unemployable, but demand jobs and/or Jobseekers Allowance.

And it is just too easy for muslim women to accept a job, then disrupt the entire office by insisting on wearing a burka, or refusing to have any communication with menfolk. Also, it is rather too lucrative if a case comes to court.

There are many occupations which do not require the handling of pork or alcohol. But there are very few which do not demand clear and uninhibited communication with customers, colleagues, and management.

My daughter recently went through the selection process to join the Met. In one role play session, she had to play the part of a leisure centre manager who was handling complaints from workers about time-off given to a Muslim co-employee for daily prayers.

If I say any more, she could get into trouble and any future application would be out of the question (you have to sign to say you won’t talk about the selection process). Suffice it to say, this session was the only one that my daughter failed, which means she has to re-apply given a failure in one session fails your application in its entirety.

What I will say is that you are given a report compiled by the session adjudicators and if the Daily Mail ever got hold of the version I saw, they would have a field day.

All the wine grown in Lebanon in the Beq-aa valley, is cultivated by devout Muslims. Don’t hear of them demanding special dispensation not to handle alcohol.

Although on a coach trip around Jordan a few years ago (in itself a relatively liberal country for westerners), the tour guide found one of the group’s duty free in the luggage rack and smashed it on the ground for polluting his coach. But they we were in a Muslim country after all….

I always assume there are avaricious lawyers behind these people. he could presumably cook the meat wearing plastic gloves if he didn’t want to touch it.

I used to work with some Hindus who were vegetarians, they always came with us to the Office Christmas lunch and just ate whatever vegetarian option was going without making any fuss. But then they were Hindus, who don’t seem to go in for the sort of shrill justification we keep hearing from Muslims, trying to force us to modify our customs to accommodate their religion. You do wonder why they came to the UK in many cases.

i reckon this “Muslim” chef is a BNP plant - he’s certainly doing their job for them, but then maybe he’s… ahem, kosher: it’s all about generating hate against Muslims, isn’t it, and his kind of extremist thrives on separatism. The obsequies of the state simply do their job for them. God help us all - and particularly the Muslims - if the BNP actually DO get their act together.

“he could presumably cook the meat wearing plastic gloves if he didn’t want to touch it.”

He isn’t a cook Mrs Ben. He is the Catering Manager.

If he has to roll up his sleeves and do the cooking, waitering, scrubbing the kitchen floor, or washing up, then he can’t have been very good at the management job he is supposedly doing and being paid for.

The nearest precedent I can think of is of a Jewish taster for M&S who sued the company for racial and religious discrimination because she was required to taste prawn sandwiches

REALLY?!!! I would call that a giant porky pie because any Jewish food tataer would know that they would be required to taste bacon and ham and so wouldn’t have taken the job. Most Jews are smart enough NOT to take a job where their religion is compromised, if they are in any way orthodox..

I remember the Muslim policeman who refused diplomatic protection of the Israeli embassy.

“REALLY?!!! I would call that a giant porky pie because any Jewish food tataer would know that they would be required to taste bacon and ham and so wouldn’t have taken the job. Most Jews are smart enough NOT to take a job where their religion is compromised, if they are in any way orthodox..”

Maven, I am inclined to agree with you. Marks & Spencer is hardly your local Kosher supermarket, and isn’t exactly well known for its wonderful range of gourmet Kosher food. Any Jew accepting a Job as a taster, would therefore completely understand that they would be ingesting treif food. G-d forbid.

Unless this person decided to become frum while working there, or just arbitrarily drew the line at prawns, I can’t see how this account actually occurred.

“I don’t understand what is so terrible about making allowences for different preferences in employment.”

I’m sure you’d be quite happy to provide a “no niggers” checkout so that BNP members can square their deeply held personal preferences with their rights as supermarket employees.

Afaict from observing a few company canteens the manager does most of the cooking and a lot of (mostly) women turn up for a couple of hours while it’s open to serve the food to the punters.

Quite possibly there’s a TUPE angle here as employee canteens public and private have been getting outsourced pretty vigorously over the past 15 or so years.

“Maven, I am inclined to agree with you. Marks & Spencer is hardly your local Kosher supermarket, and isn’t exactly well known for its wonderful range of gourmet Kosher food. Any Jew accepting a Job as a taster, would therefore completely understand that they would be ingesting treif food. G-d forbid.”

Hoffman v Marks and Spencer plc, Employment Tribunal. There’s a summary midway through http://www.consortiumpublishing.co.uk/EmploymentLaw62.html

The case was brought by someone who was refused employment on the grounds that M&S — hardly a company seething with anti-semitism, one would have thought — weren’t prepared to accept a food taster who couldn’t taste a full range of products. The claimant lost.

This is a consequence of multiculturalism and yet another of its failures. Always the ambition of white, middle class atheists, the theory contained within it no place for minority reactionary bigotry, since its promoters placed this failing solely within the majority sphere. Thus we are all one, but one what? Apparently we could all live side by side holding diametrically different opinions but those did not matter since we could ‘respect’ each other; effectively censorship. This is possible in a ‘workshop situation’ where people play roles, ones in which all the variables have been reduced to a trivial assemblage of soap opera caricature. Life is far more challenging and day by day we are reminded that people are not actors in a theme park.

But what a growth industry these ‘vexatious’ claims are creating for solicitors! I am reminded of the great joke about litigation advertising made by the late Linda Smith: “Have you had an accident? I slipped over on a banana skin and successfully sued the Dominican Republic!”

MrsBen:
“……for the sort of shrill justification we keep hearing from Muslims, trying to force us to modify our customs to accommodate their religion.”

The key to understanding is the realisation that Muslim pieties do not reflect your own. Much question begging is then avoided. We are obliged to accomodate their religion and they are incapable of the tolerance you would extend to them is similar circumstances because they have the authority of the one beyond which there is no authority. Islam is inevitable, for so it is written and if it is written then it is so.QED( sorry Bournemouth)

“You do wonder why they came to the UK in many cases.”

Keep wondering and watch your back.

“The case was brought by someone who was refused employment on the grounds that M&S — hardly a company seething with anti-semitism, one would have thought — weren’t prepared to accept a food taster who couldn’t taste a full range of products. The claimant lost.”

All I can say is that the applicant was most defiantly foolish, and the verdict was exactly as it should have been.

‘I don’t understand what is so terrible about making allowences for different preferences in employment.’

Says a man who’s posing as a PhD student and delaying his studies, as opposed to going out and getting himself a proper job.

Nice way of topping up your pension fund though, isn’t it?. My husband is the Vice Principal of a London FE College and they had one particular member of staff (not a Muslim) who was forever having accidents and suing the college for compensation. It was a sad day for him when ‘Accidents are us’ went out of business.

The other issue is that people seem to be able to decide for themselves how observant they are going to be, which plays havoc with public policy. For example, some people will eat non-kosher or non-halal food but not pork, some will only eat religiously approved foods, some Hindus will eat everything except for beef, but some are strictly vegetarian. How on earth can sense and order be made out of it all? Persumably, each culd have a cause in law, if they so chose.

No Sue, i don’t dine with bigots

So you no doubt make up for it by dining with jihadist murderers.

Saeed: Thank you for accepting the challenge.

Using internet is simple as hell. But I can tell y ou right now, it can be very hard, if you are the first time user.
So, first thing I suggest - open the Explorer, and type in the address you like.
You’ll get there really fast, it depends on your connection speed.
Good luck.