Muslim staff at M&S can refuse to sell alcohol & pork

[Clinton Huxley]

It's against my religion to pay for booze. I'm off to M&S.

[Pappa]

I struggle to care about this much because the impact it actually has on customers is likely minimal. I do agree though that ultimately, if someone won't handle certain good for whatever reason, they should get a different job (it's no different to the Scottish footballer who refused to play on Sundays a while back). I'd be interested to know what M&S would do if a member of staff refused to handle bananas for purely philosophical reasons too.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, it's more the principle (and stupidity) that annoys me. If an employer and employee reach a non-coercive compromise on some things, then that's all good.

[rainbow]

As a bacon eater, I feel discriminated against.

[mistermack]

In Saudi Arabia, they lock people up for drinking alcohol.

Ok, it's their country, they make the rules. If you go there, you accept the rules.
But how about applying the same logic here.

In this country, alcohol is legal.
If you accept a job, and refuse to carry it out, your employer should have the option of sacking you without penalty.

If you accept the job, you accept the rules. Did she declare this alcohol or pig problem at her interview?
I doubt it.

In any case, why did god make Noah take a couple of pigs on board the Arc, if he didn't want us to eat them?

[Audley Strange]

Every work place I have ever worked in there have been some, most or all of the employees engaged in a battle of wills with management. In many cases this is because many employees are just disgruntled lazy fuckers who want to exploit the workplace for as little effort as possible, but in almost all cases it is a case of "lets see how far we can take it". In the case of ideological swinophobics it's just a gang of people taking the piss, its an exploit, a challenge to the employer which has fuck all to do with their religion. I know this because the number of products that pigs and alcohol are used in is phenomenal, to the extent that they would not even be able to work, probably have to walk around naked and avoid many medicines.

Its no different from a bunch of mothers demanding preferential treatment because they have kids. Its an exploit, they know some places will acquiesce rather than face bad publicity. However groups like that end up shooting themselves in the foot since while no one is going to admit that such groups are problematic, it does impact on choosing new employees. Yes it is discrimination and there is not a fucking thing anyone will be able to do about it, because all you need to do is hire one or two "token" individuals to prove lack of bias.

[pErvinalia]

The problem is that British society seems to be so willing to bend over to religious (particularly Muslim) "freedom" and so scared to offend anyone. Perhaps that's just the British, or perhaps it's because they don't want any more 7/7's, or perhaps they are just brainwashed.

[Warren Dew]

The Muslim cashier can ring a bell for the manager to come over and perform that particular transaction. That's the way it's done here if, for instance, a cashier is underage and cannot legally handle alcohol. In the case of Muslim cashiers, if the manager is bothered enough then perhaps he might eventually question the wisdom of putting such a person on a till in the first place.

I wonder about the motivation for that law. In the case of the 17 year old cashier - or 20 year old cashier, if the drinking age is 21 - the concern might be that the cashier wouldn't enforce laws about who alcohol could be sold to, if his or her high school or college buddies applied peer pressure. However, I'd think there wouldn't be any laws against selling alcohol to muslims, if they chose to buy it.