EDIT: a little more research may have been advisable on my part. Sorry all.

All these idiots can be described with one word that will earn me a lifetime ban

Derek, may I suggest that you do not have the full story of what happened and how M&S responded.

If you read the article fully, M&S are apologising as the Muslim staff member should not have been working/put in that position. And the member of staff in question simply asked the customer to go to another till.

Bit of a non story really. Small part of big business makes mistake. So what?

Yup, should be one rule for all.

Got a link?
Sounds like there could be more to it.

In other news, duck stuck inside CD

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-25491389

THM sounds like they did do what derek said but then they kinda changed their minds

Previously the supermarket said Muslim staff can refuse to serve customers who are trying to buy pork or alcohol.

But a spokesperson for M&S last night said: “Where we have an employee whose religious beliefs restrict food or drink they can handle, we work closely with our member of staff to place them in suitable role, such as in our clothing department or bakery in foods.

“As a secular business we have an inclusive policy that welcomes all religious beliefs, whether across our customer or employee base… We apologise that this policy was not followed in the case reported.”
linky

So can the Roman Catholics refuse to put meat through on Fridays?

No idea, I’ve been led to believe that they don’t have to handle aborted foetuses, though I don’t think even the M&S Deli has those on the counter.

What about rubber johnnies?

Non story and solved. Derek is the daily mail and I claim my 5 euros

There was a discussion on R4 this morning that I caught part of and the non muslim bloke thought that having exemptions like this for religious groups was acceptable, but only just, whereas the muslim woman thought it was ridiculous to have such exemptions. Her position being that you know what’s being sold in a supermarket so if you take a job there you shouldn’t expect special treatment. I tend to agree with her.

M&S should adopt this stance: you process all our product range through checkout or you cannot work here.

I suspect thats the message thats gone out, loud and clear, around the HR departments of the nations supermarkets. Though they won’t be announcing it publicly, of course

First question at interviews for checkout staff will now be: “well Mohammed… what exactly is it that has drawn you to career handling alcohol and pork, all day, every day”

I was wondering when someone would perturb their undergarments about this ‘story’ on here…

Personally I think it’s commendable that Marks and Sparks would try and accommodate the religious beliefs of their staff rather than taking the like it or lump it approach that a lot of employers seem to encourage.

The religious attempting to gain special treatment is not a non story.
It’s not a ‘story’ either.

It’s an increasingly important subject – and not a racist one before anyone starts.
Not from my perspective anyway, although it may descend into such.

Her position being that you know what’s being sold in a supermarket so if you take a job there you shouldn’t expect special treatment.

Shouldn’t be expected but M&S seem happy to accommodate so no problem.

I used to work in an offy owned by a muslim, he didn’t drink but was perfectly happy to sell it to others- “It’s their immortal souls, not mine. Also their scirrosis”.

As I understood it, it’s forbidden to consume intoxicants, but that’s all- so frinstance alcohol can be used for cleaning, and handled. Pork otoh is unclean and can’t be consumed or handled.

Personally I think it’s commendable that Marks and Sparks would try and accommodate the religious beliefs of their staff rather than taking the like it or lump it approach that a lot of employers seem to encourage.

Why? What is it exactly about religious beliefs that makes them deserving of special consideration?

Just a pragmatic thing, get a wider choice of employee.

They had some chap from Asda on the radio this morning about it – it was interesting, matey boy was trying to pin him down on whether they ahve a speocific rule to say, if you have a religious belief that would preclude you from handling certain goods, would you be forbidden from serving on the tills? Mr Asda wouldn’t be drawn, he said there’s no rule, but they work with their colleagues to make sure that everyone’s happy, the assumption being that a Muslim member of staff probably wouldn’t WANT to be in a position on the tills where they’d have to turn people away. Makes you wonder what would happen if they INSISTED on being allowed to work the tills – I suspect the European Court of Human Rights would implode, creating a wormhle that would suck us all in.

Rusty- if you haven’t already, check out some Brian Barrys books on multicultural issues. Very interesting reading, in line with your thoughts. I was surprised how “hardline” some otherwise tolerant European countries have been on the issue.

Personally, you either adopt a national “our way or leave” policy, or you try and accomodate where you can, as in this case. We are too far down the road to take the former option, and need to be careful that the latter isn’t abused by either side.

It’s an increasingly important subject

I thought religion was on the wain and we were already fairly multicultural, why do you think it’s becoming more important? It seems to be appearing in the news more often so is the media creating the issue or were these cases just quietly sidestepped in the past and for whatever reason are getting under the spotlight now?

Pork otoh is unclean and can’t be consumed or handled.

fairly sure the pork isn’t handled it’s inside a sealed bag/container, tho I guess we may need to clarify “handle” otherwise muslim/jewish bin men may start to get a little uneasy

Why? What is it exactly about religious beliefs that makes them deserving of special consideration?

I would class myself as anti religion but pro tolerance. So to me directly nothing makes religious beliefs particularly special but they are important to the people that believe in them and if those beliefs can be accommodated with little fuss then I don’t see the harm.

I think it’s commendable that M&S do this because it shows consideration to their staff, I would like to think that they would show the same consideration for staff that can’t work certain hours due to child care issues or for other reasons that may mean that they are not comfortable carrying out certain aspects of the job.

This will all come to a head eventually. At some point a high profile case will arise where two people’s legitimately held beliefs that are pretty much mutually exclusive both decide to enforce their basic human rights to be a right pain in the backside and behave unreasonably based on something that may or may not have held some practical purpose back in the mists of time.

It was only last week that many of the main religions were up in arms beacuse the scientoligists were counted as a religion and therefore eligible for the same tax breaks.

Religious tolerance – absolutely, people should be able to make their own choices in to what to believe, rights to then impose those beliefs directly or indirectly on anyone else – no thanks.

Religion itself isn’t on the wain Donk. The church of England is. Probably as its only a made up religion anyway, so that some fat bloke could get his end away repeatedly without the legal niceties. And, in any case, its essentially the box labelled ‘none of the above’ for people who are neither violent or misogynistic enough for the other more mental committed faiths

Islam (both the blowy-uppy and non-blowy-uppy bits) is very fast growing. And the recent surge of immigrants from Eastern Europe has seen a resurgence in left-footerism. OFSTED results also have an impact

I suspect the European Court of Human Rights would implode

Why?

Probably as its only a made up religion anyway

Well that’s a rather tautological statement.

Religion itself isn’t on the wain Donk. The church of England is. Probably as its only a made up religion anyway, so that some fat bloke could get his end away repeatedly without the legal niceties

Not sure that many people are influenced by that. Anyway, CofE wasn’t made up as such – just not Catholic which was the norm.

Perhaps (?) the important thing is to be clear how and why certain religious or societal beliefs can be incorporated into a multi-cultural society and when curtains issues are being taken too far. Hence it is interesting that the Beeb is reporting an Islamic legal consultant who described the employees behaviour as ridiculous. I have more sympathy with the view that any religious prohibitions on consuming certain products should not prohibit someone serving customers with the same products. Serving and consuming seem different activities IMO.

The most staggering thing of all is that in 2014, people will or wont eat or drink certain things because an invisible man in the sky says it’s not allowed 😆

There is a fundamental question here, despite the Daily Fail doing it’s best to stir up hatred, are particular faiths incompatable with life in Britian? If so what takes priority the faith or the law? It’s a knotty one for sure. Increasingly vocal groups of strict adhrents to particular faiths are hoping to change society and the law to more adequately support their particular brand of bigotry. I am Anti – theist and think these groups, however small, should not be allowed to gain an inch of ground. We are, as a society, past all this religious nonsense and I feel at times we’re being dragged back to the past by certain groups.

what takes priority the faith or the law?

Which law?

Thought so.

Should anyone’s religious belief allow them to refuse serving a homosexual couple?

Legally we now have a precedent there, but not sure it’s the correct one.

enfht – Member
Should anyone’s religious belief allow them to refuse serving a homosexual couple?

POSTED 14 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST
Do you actually think that’s an analogue?

It may not be an exact analogue, but it does raise the valid question that if you are prepared to make concessions for some relgious beliefs what beliefs will you not make concessions for and why?

I’m bored with Muslims now, there like the Irish from a few years ago always banging on about some irrelevant nonsense trying to get everyone’s attention.

True. Theres the whole beardy, AK-47 thing too…..