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Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Accommodating cultural conflict; or, why won't Muslim women wear pants?
From a Minnesota newspaper, the Post-Bulletin:
Fatuma Hassan has just enough rice in her near-empty cupboards to make it through the month. The anger she felt when she lost her job in May has given way to a dull, nagging hunger.
Yet this soft-spoken 22-year-old became an unlikely hero within the Somali community when she and five of her Muslim co-workers were dismissed last month from the Mission Foods tortilla factory in New Brighton, Minn., for refusing to wear a new company uniform -- a shirt and pants -- they consider a violation of their Islamic beliefs.
"For me, wearing pants is the same as being naked," Hassan said, noting the prophet Mohammed taught that men and women should not dress alike.
...
Many Somalis come from tribes that move with their herds every six months in a constant search for safe grazing land, [Professor of Islamic Law] Sheikhosman said. Many of these nomads are fiercely independent and equate freedom with being left alone, he said.
...
"Imagine that a person comes coming from that environment is suddenly subjected to all these regulations and rules" in the workplace, he said. "He may think these are an intrusion to the freedom that he had at home. He's not afraid to take a stand."
Combined with this nomadic sense of independence is a belief that faith and life are interconnected, and that religious practices should not be confined to a particular hour or day of the week.
What's interesting about this particular article is Dr. Sheikhosman's take on the attitude of the Somali immigrants. He makes them sound almost like libertarians; but, of course, I doubt a libertarian would demand employers relax their uniform requirements to accommodate particular religious practices, or react with anger if the demand was refused.
And they certainly wouldn't back up such demands with legal action, as the Somalis might if they lived in Canada and had access to human rights tribunals. Recall that the role of the various HRTs is not confined to suppressing unpopular speech; they also force restaurants to accommodate employees who have a problem with washing their hands, as Ezra has pointed out.
Donna Seale, a lawyer who has worked with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, notes that:
Based on the undue hardship factors and how the courts are interpreting them, in most instances employers will not reach the undue hardship limit when it comes to accommodating religion in the workplace. In other words, employers should assess requests for religious accommodation from the starting point that, somehow, they ought to be able to modify the workplace to meet the employee's needs.
Thus, if Ms. Hassan lived in Winnipeg, her employer would be required to alter the rules in whatever way was necessary to accommodate her religious practices: the uniform, at least, would be out. As likely would be the kind of rigorous scheduling of breaks necessary to maintain efficiency on the factory floor. I would be surprised if somewhere in Canada a complaint from someone like Ms. Hassan isn't already under consideration.
If it is illegitimate for the HRTs to tell us what we can and can't say, isn't it also illegitimate for the tribunals to dictate how employers should run their businesses?
Posted by Terrence Watson on June 17, 2008 | Permalink
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Comments
A private company can (morally) hire and fire and have a dress code.
The lady's conundrum seems to be: "Many of these nomads are fiercely independent and equate freedom with being left alone."
Yet she doesn't respect the business owner's right to be fiercely independent and to be left alone. It seems to me that she's a hypocrite.
Posted by: Blogster | 2008-06-17 6:49:36 PM
Few people would take the pure libertarian position that forcing factories with extremely unsafe working conditions to make changes (as happened in the early days of the industrial revolution) is wrong. Still fewer would take the other extreme that every whim of employees must be accommodated. So the hard question is where the reasonable line is. Human Rights Commissions across the country have had to try to deal with these issues and have typically tried to balance the questions of how hard it would be for an employer to accomodate and how essential the employer's requirement is to being able to do the job with how important the requested accomodation is to the person asking for it. In many cases the HRCs and HRTs have decided against complainants who thought they were discriminated against. In fact most cases that go to decisions end unsucessfully for the complainant.
The hard-nosed libertarian will likely draw the line at significant risks of harm to employees - beyond that the employer can demand what they like. But that never has been the dominant view anywhere on the planet and likely will not become the dominant view. So the task of drawing black lines in grey areas will continue and will continue to be controversial.
Posted by: Fact Check | 2008-06-17 6:54:22 PM
Whatever your view, Factcheck is right that controvery will continue.
Blogster, I agree with you. When we use the state to get our way, we should understand it will turn around and bite us one day. But I doubt Fatuma, and people like her understand that.
Posted by: TM | 2008-06-17 9:08:14 PM
>""Imagine that a person comes coming from that environment is suddenly subjected to all these regulations and rules" in the workplace, he said."
A person who comes from that environment has subjected THEMSELVES to a new environment with new rules.
America: Love it or Leave it.
These people from another environment should adapt to the new environment or go back to the old one where they won't "feel nekkid".
>"For me, wearing pants is the same as being naked," Hassan said, noting the prophet Mohammed taught that men and women should not dress alike."
The difference between women's shirt and pants and men's shirt and pants in the west is in the cut.
The same could be said of the dresses both men and women wear in the Middle East.
Posted by: Speller | 2008-06-17 10:18:14 PM
She can get a job in Somalia.
Posted by: philanthropist | 2008-06-17 11:09:58 PM
OK. How often do Christians impose their requirements on their employers, anywhere? Hmm. Let me ponder that thought for a while.
Posted by: Agha Ali Arkahn | 2008-06-17 11:35:18 PM
philanthropist | 17-Jun-08 11:09:58 PM
Agreed.
>"Fatuma Hassan has just enough rice in her near-empty cupboards to make it through the month. The anger she felt when she lost her job in May has given way to a dull, nagging hunger."
Fatuma and the other "heroes" can make tortillas with too much baking soda back in Somali just the way they lik'em.
I don't know why she's been eating rice at all.
Somalia is too dry for rice paddies.
Oh, the humanity!
Being forced to wear pants and eat rice, it's too much!
Where is the freedom?
Everyone knows nobody ever goes hungry in Somalia, right?
>"Yet this soft-spoken 22-year-old...yadda yadda yadda...."
Ever notice how these commie human interest writers always characterize the unlikely "hero" as "SOFT SPOKEN"?
Fer instance, on the "Harper's phony apology" thread @ 11-Jun-08 4:19:42 AM, "granny" quotes the
2003, Grassy Narrows:
"Another warrior, Charlie, 48, has a SOFT and SLOW VOICE that can be difficult to follow, but his stories are worth the effort."
Are we witnessing the re-birth of a cliche here or do Leftist writers just have shallow imaginations?
Billy Jack!
Where are you?
Speak softry, glasshoppah.
The white eye ah no match fo'ah you kung fu!
Posted by: Speller | 2008-06-17 11:40:50 PM
I would say since the business belongs to the owner, he/she can impose what ever work rules (assuming they are legal, and uniforms are legal) they want. This woman is free to leave this job and work somewhere else if she is not comfortable with the rules there.
Posted by: Tom | 2008-06-18 10:51:42 AM
When in Rome..do as the Romans do. If they dont like the rules, go back home or to Canada where they accept everything.
Posted by: peterj | 2008-06-18 7:24:48 PM
Yet this soft-spoken 22-year-old became an unlikely hero within the Somali community when she and five of her Muslim co-workers were dismissed last month from the Mission Foods tortilla factory in New Brighton, Minn., for refusing to wear a new company uniform -- a shirt and pants -- they consider a violation of their Islamic beliefs.
Posted by Terrence Watson on June 17, 2008
A couple of years ago Somali taxi drivers refused to pickup people at Minneapolis - St. Paul Airport if they had duty free booze. They claimed that their religion gave them that right as alcohol was a sin. Needless to say a lot of people started boycotting taxi's with Somali drivers even if they didn't have any duty free, myself included.
Posted by: The Stig | 2008-06-18 8:16:39 PM
If they don't like it...go home. There are rules and regulations established by the health and safety board for a reason when working with food. I feel the same about guy who wanted to be granted the right to not wear a helmut because of his religious belief to wear a turban (he was denied ). I am sick of the Canadian government catering to these ethnic groups...they came to Canada for a reason..If they don't like it...go home. Oh yeah and is she on welfare now so I can pay for her rice and healthcare?
Posted by: mlb | 2008-06-19 10:27:32 AM
I also would like to demand the right to come to work without pants.
Posted by: Anonymous | 2008-06-20 2:07:44 PM
If everyone can do whatever they want we no longer have a civilization. We must all obey the same set of rules otherwise we descend into chaos. Perhaps they would prefer to migrate with their herds rather than work in factories in canada. They must make a decision: work here, or herd there.
Posted by: kasia | 2008-06-29 5:09:29 PM
There really is only one fair solution. Knock down thirty or forty blocks of downtown Toronto and plant wild grass and give Fatuma a herd of sheep she can shepherd there.
Of course any remaining assets of the newly homeless Torontonians can be garnisheed to make sure she gets a decent salary while she grazes her sheep up and down what once was Bloor St.
I'm certain all the former business owners from the area will sleep well on their park benches feeling great about the sacrifice the government made them make to give Ms.Hassan a sense of the kind of freedom she used to enjoy in Somalia and as everyone knows, Somalia can teach Canadians a lot about freedom.
Read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's most excellent book 'Infidel' to get a really clear sense of perspective on Somali life Vs. The western world's.
Vladtepesblog.com
Posted by: vladtepesblog.com | 2008-07-06 9:38:57 AM
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