Tipp Council sued for discrimination, what could they have done?

CatFromHue

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/born-again-christian-awarded-70-000-in-discrimination-case-1.1873468

The link to the story is above but the gist of it is that a worker has successfully sued Tipp council for discrimination after he was fired after being warned repeatedly to stop talking about his faith at work.

What could the council have done here to accommodate, if that's the correct word, the worker?

To me it seems a mad case altogether.

Nody

If I was to guess; implement a blanket policy on not being allowed to discuss or practice religion that could be seen to upset people of other faiths during working hours. The problem is they told HIM not to talk about it but everyone else could in theory do so which would also be backed up by this line.

She [the judge] said the ban placed on him from sharing his faith between 9am and 5pm impacted disproportionately on people of his religious faith.

I'm not a lawyer though but that's about the only way I can see it stick.

Technocentral

Maybe a clause in peoples contract that says something like repeated non professional conduct during work ours may lead to dismissal, sounds fair enough to me? For instance if someone spent all day talking about "Game of Thrones" to collogues and the public it would be the same thing, basically you are employed to carry out a job not discuss you're private life ad nauseam, obviously a bit of banter and craic is fine but in the same way political beliefs or other really divisive stuff shouldn't be espoused all day either.

RobbingBandit

So if anyone gets in now in the latest competition can come into work dressed as Obi One Kenobi or Luke and just say they are a practicing Jedi?

zambo

I hope it is appealed all the way to the highest court possible.If I as an atheist had to meet him over a planning application or suchlike I might feel very uncomfortable being preached at.
it would be interesting to know how he would have reacted to working with a radical Muslim or Christian from another sect.

Manach

zambo wrote: »

it would be interesting to know how he would have reacted to working with a radical Muslim or Christian from another sect.

Or God, forbid a militant secular atheist.

Stheno

I think the issue here is that he was individually singled out due to his religious beliefs which is one of the nine legal grounds for discrimination.

I remember way back in the 90s working as a teamleader, and discovering one of my new hires was a Muslim, who was quite devout and did pray five times a day.

How did I find out?

I found him in the corridor underneath where we all hung our coats, carrying out his prayer ritual.

I then approached the company and said we were not accommodating him with his religious beliefs, and it eventually led to a prayer room.

Slightly different, but recognised by the company as an obligation on their part.

It's like that case in British Airways where an employee went all the way to the European courts suing the British government for failing to legislate in this area.

Eoin

When I read that article I was hoping that it was just a case of the process not being followed correctly, even if it was a legitimate complaint.

I'm not one of those people who are as evangelical vocal about being an atheist as some very devout people are about being religious, but that would drive me mental - it's completely inappropriate in the workplace.

If nothing else, hopefully this case will either help make better employment law, or even simpler, better defined policies if it was indeed that they should have just gone through the motions of making it apply to everyone (even if nobody else was causing an issue), as Nody said.