Posted on 04/17/2008 3:22:18 PM PDT by fanfan
Don't eat at McDonald's on South West Marine Drive in Vancouver.
Listen. I love McDonald's, both for their food and for what they stand for philosophically. I thought that Super Size Me was a piece of anti-capitalist, anti-beef propaganda.
But when you're in Vancouver, skip the McDonald's on Marine Drive.
That's because the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that one of the employees there has a human right not to wash her hands when working in their kitchen.
Beena Datt claimed that she developed a "skin condition" that meant she couldn't wash her hands in compliance with McDonald's hygiene policy. That's the same hygiene policy that makes McDonald's like an embassy to Canadians travelling overseas -- when you're in a Third World country, and tired of eating in hygiene-challenged local restaurants, you can count on a western standard of cleanliness and quality at McDonald's.
In B.C., McDonald's hygiene policy isn't just a matter of corporate pride. It's a matter of the law -- both the Health Act and the Food Premises Regulations. And then there's B.C.'s Food Protection Guidelines issued by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. McDonald's subscribes to all of them. Hell, they probably helped write them.
McDonald's is fanatical about hand-washing, to their credit. They have hand-washing rules. Not just the obvious "wash your hands after the bathroom" rules. But other rules, like wash your hands after shaking someone's hand. Wash your hands after retrieving food from the freezer. Wash your hands after touching a door handle. They even have a chime that goes off every hour. It's a "we're all going to wash our hands now" chime. Seriously -- see paragraph 23 of the ruling.
Datt wouldn't wash her hands. She just wouldn't -- she said she couldn't. So her employment was terminated. The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ordered that McDonald's pay her not only $23,000 for "lost income", but an additional $25,000 for her "dignity and self-respect". You see, in B.C. a food preparation worker's self-respect trumps a company's commitment to cleanliness. They violated her "human rights".
The $50,000+ penalty -- plus several years of legal fees and medical and rehab experts -- isn't the worst of it. Inventing a "human right" for a worker to go to the bathroom and then to handle meat without washing her hands in between, as an excuse for that $50,000 shakedown isn't the worst of it either.
The worst of it is that the BCHRT has ordered that McDonald's, in paragraph 298 of the decision, to "cease the discriminatory conduct or any similar conduct and refrain from committing the same or similar contravention."
Beena Datt and her filthy hands are gone. But the restaurant has been ordered not to enforce its hand washing policy in any future cases like Datt's.
I wonder what will happen if, God forbid, someone were to contract a disease from that McDonald's because of this insane order. Could such a victim sue McDonald's for failing to live up to its legal public health requirements, even though McDonald's wanted to do so? Or could the BCHRT itself be sued? Would your answer be different if it was just one customer who got an upset stomach -- or a dozen people dying from e. coli, Walkerton style?
And, dear reader, if you think that this decision is some rogue ruling, you just don't know human rights commissions. This decision has plenty of precedents -- such as the Alberta ruling that found a human right to work in a restaurant, while infected with Hepatitis. There, Ruby Repas only got $5,000 for her "human right" to be a health hazard. (That case, incidentally, was argued by the Alberta HRC's resident Muslim supremacist, Arman Chak).
In 2004, Repas won $5,000. Now Datt won $50,000 plus interest. What will the penalty be next time? If you were a restaurateur, what would you do: fire a hazardous employee -- or risk a potential $150,000 price tag?
And if you were a customer of McDonald's in Vancouver, or Albert's Restaurant in Red Deer, or any other citizen of Canada in whose name these absurd rulings are being ordered, how much worse must these commissions get before you agree with me that they are just not normal?
h/t BCF, AS.
ADDENDUM: Some commenters suggest that I am downplaying Datt's problem. I'm not. If she really did have a skin condition that stopped her from washing her hands, there are other remedies out there for her, from workers compensation to long term disability insurance, to switching jobs within McDonald's, or going elsewhere. All of those remedies predate the innovation of human rights commissions, and still coincide with them today. That's an added absurdity and unfairness with HRCs: my reading of the past five years of Alberta's HRC cases shows that they have essentially become an additional top-up to workers compensation claims. In this case, it's a $50,000 top-up. Not bad, for a McDonald's worker.
But HRCs don't have the expertise of workers compensation staff, nor are they bound by the same rules and precedents. And, it goes without saying, that in this case, they lack a basic understand of hygiene and food-borne illnesses. I have sympathy for Datt, as much as I would for anyone else who appears to have a long term disability, if that's really the case here (there was no testimony from doctors). For this to be twisted into a "human rights case", and for McDonald's to be ordered to accommodate her to the point of "undue hardship", and for a permanent order to be lodged against them reducing their hand-washing regimen, is abominable.
Does this woman ever wash her hands? God help her if she doesn’t. Anyway I have one piece of advice:
Eat at home folks.
Wash and cook your own food.
You can make a delicious cheese burger at home and make your own fresh french fries. The beat fast food anyday.
I have NEVER eaten at a McDonalds. Wonder if the other fast food outlets are under the same HRC rulings.
http://www.canadaka.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=63222
I stopped eating at fast food places after it became routine that the soap dispensers were empty. The help uses the same rest room.
McD’s should fire her, pay the fine, then close all business int the area. It won’t be worth it in lost sales to keep going once this gets out.
What are the secret ingredients? E. Coli and Hepatitis A....? Nice.
“..British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that one of the employees there has a human right not to wash her hands when working in their kitchen.”
Even if they overturn that ruling, it is still not possible to monitor if kitchen personnel wash their hands after visiting the restroom. Hell, they could piss on their hands before returning to the kitchen and no one would know.
Or they could spit on the burger like Jesse Jackson claimed he did when he was a waiter as he served honkies their food order.
If you don’t trust the cleanlyness of the food served, don’t eat there.
Beena Datt? Sounds like one of the unwashed third-worlders of which the left is so enthralled.
It's crazy. She could pass along hepatitis B, and all manner of things, from all kinds of surfaces. She must have some way of cleaning herself, and if she doesn't, I sure don't want her handling my food.
Eat at home folks.
Wash and cook your own food.
Always.
Ping
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1993936/postsRomans 1:25-27 tells us that same-sex sexual relationships are a consequence of idolatry. In other words, such relationships are a consequence of disobeying the 1ST COMMANDMENT, a major aspect of the GREATEST COMMANDMENT, to love the jealous God with all your being.
Homosexuals need to keep in mind, however, that the good news of the gospel is not about how God despises same-sex sexual relationships. In fact, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 indicates that certain members of that church had been slaves to such relationships but had been cleansed in Jesus' name. So these former homosexual had evidently repented and accepted God's grace to straighten their lives out.
John 3:16
Revelation 3:20
Gloves.
I don’t want her anywhere near me and I’m sure others feel the same way. YUK!\
If more people cooked their own fresh foods after cleaning them properly I think kids would eat more. Home cooked meals are flavorful, fresh, healthy, filled with natural ingredients that provide nutrients for proper growth, eyesight, bones and satisfaction. It tastes delicious and if made by your mom...it’s made with love which is the most important ingredient.
I’m glad to know that McDonald’s is that meticulous in its corporate guidelines re: handwashing (as long as it’s not at their Vancouver store).
But SOMEONE must realize that more people will be harmed by this ruling than will benefit. The ruling as it stands is just insane.
ought-six wrote:
Beena Datt? Sounds like one of the unwashed third-worlders of which the left is so enthralled.”
DING! DING! DING! You win the prize!
Beena Datt is from Fiji.Came to Canada 23 years ago with her family to seek a better life.Instead she figured out how to sue McDonalds for hiring her and then forcing her into the evil western practice of Cleanliness.We westerners are so backward and evil.
ttp://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=b09e714f-3a3e-4d73-a3c1-bff4906c3a59&k=39426
Yes, now that the precedent has been set.
I wonder if the next similar case will be for a religious reason.
After the employees wash their hands and blow dry them they have to put their hands on the bathroom door and pull it open to leave.
This means that the employees, as well as everyone else, must contaminate their hands with the feces and filth of every one of the people that didn't wash their hands that day. Probably that month too.
Yeah, like I'll ever eat there.
Or am I just paranoid?
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