Friday 12 April 2013

The Daily Mail wrong on religion and belief at work

via ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC by Ben Moxham

Last Sunday the Daily Mail reported that: “Druids, vegans and green activists should be given special treatment at work, according to ‘lunatic’ advice from the equalities watchdog.”

The lunatic advice was some fairly straight forward guidance published by Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on 18 February 2013 – 49 days earlier – on how employers should approach a request from employees based on their religion or belief.

The Mail’s main gripe seems to be that the beliefs of “fringe and non-religious groups” and are “put on a par” with Christians when it comes to the workplace. But how do you decide what a fringe group is?

The Mail thinks it’s vegetarians, who make up at least 3% of people in the UK. But that’s a lot more than the 0.5% of people who follow Judaism which I’m sure the Mail doesn’t mean to exclude. Of course such numbers should have absolutely nothing to do with whether a religion or belief should be protected.

Continue reading and discover that this is an excellent piece of reporting and not simply a hit at the right-wing press!


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