Nadia Eweida: BA said she had failed to comply with their 'uniform regulations'
Posted on 10/13/2006 4:57:44 PM PDT by fanfan
Nadia Eweida: BA said she had failed to comply with their 'uniform regulations'
A Christian woman has been banned by British Airways for wearing a small cross necklace to work - while muslims and sikhs are allowed to wear headscarves and turbans.
Heathrow check-in worker Nadia Eweida was sent home after refusing to remove the crucifix which breached BA's dress code.
Her treatment by BA - which styles itself as the "world's favourite airline" - brought condemnation both from Christian groups and members of other faiths last night.
BA's chief executive Willie Walsh has upheld the action against Miss Eweida for failing to comply with "uniform regulations" despite himself coming under fire recently for failing to wear a tie.
Miss Eweida, who has an unblemished record during seven years at BA, is suing her employer for religious discrimination after being suspended from work without pay for two weeks.
She said her treatment was all the more extraordinary as she and fellow employees had just undergone "diversity training" - including receiving advice from pressure group Stonewall on how to treat gays and lesbians in the workplace.
The airline's uniform code states that staff must not wear visible jewellery or other 'adornments' while on duty without permission from management.
It makes exceptions for Muslim and Sikh minorities by allowing them to wear hijabs and turbans.
Under rules drawn up by BA's 'diversity team' and 'uniform committee', Sikh employees can even wear the traditional iron bangle - even though this would usually be classed as jewellery - while Muslim workers are also allowed prayer breaks during work time.
But Miss Eweida, 55, from Twickenham, insisted her cross, which is smaller than a ten pence piece, was not jewellery but an expression of her deep Christian faith.
She questioned why she was being forced to hide her religion when BA's Muslim and Sikh workers could express theirs.
Miss Eweida said last night: "I will not hide my belief in the Lord Jesus. British Airways permits Muslims to wear a headscarf, Sikhs to wear a turban and other faiths religious apparel.
"Only Christians are forbidden to express their faith. I am a loyal and conscientious employee of British Airways, but I stand up for the rights of all citizens."
Her case comes at a time of intense debate over the rights of individuals to express their belief - following Jack Straw's call for Muslim women to remove their veils.
Earlier this month it emerged BBC governors had agonised over whether newsreader Fiona Bruce should wear a small cross on a chain around her neck while on air in case it might cause offence by suggesting a religious affiliation.
Miss Eweida, a Coptic Christian whose father is Egyptian and mother English, was ordered to remove her cross or hide it beneath a company cravat by a duty manager at Heathrow's Terminal 4 last month.
She then sought permission from management to wear the chain - but was turned down.
When Miss Eweida, who is unmarried, refused to remove the necklace she was offered the choice of suspension with pay or unpaid leave, pending a disciplinary hearing.
Following a meeting with her managers on 22 September 2006, Customer Service Manager Caroline Girling told Miss Eweida in a letter: "You have been sent home because you have failed to comply with a reasonable request.
"You were asked to cover up or remove your cross and chain which you refused to do.
"British Airways uniform standards stipulate that adornments of any kind are not to be worn with the uniform."
In a letter to Miss Eweida's MP, Vince Cable, last week, BA chief executive Willie Walsh insisted his employee had not yet been disciplined but said she was off work for failing to comply with "uniform regulations".
He added: "We have previously made changes to our uniform policy to accommodate requests, after a detailed evaluation process including Health and Safety assessment to incorporate the wearing of Sikh bangles."
But Miss Eweida said: "BA refuses to recognise the wearing of a cross as a manifestation of the Christian faith, but rather defines it as a piece of decorative jewellery.
"I would like to say how disappointed I am in this decision and the lack of respect shown by BA towards the Christian faith.
"I have been badly treated. I am a loyal and hardworking employee and for seeking similar rights to other employees, I have been treated harshly by British Airways management.
"British Airway can be great again, but it needs to treat Chrstians fairly. I am not ashamed of my faith."
Miss Eweida is suing BA under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003.
Her case is being supported by her union, the TGWU, and she has hired Paul Diamond, a barrister specialising in religious affairs and an adviser for the Keep Sunday Special campaign, to represent her at her employment tribunal.
And a petition of support has been signed by more than 200 fellow workers.
BA is already at the centre of a criminal investigation into alleged price-fixing - which has led to the resignations of two executives.
The airline has come under fire in the past for its adherence to political correctness.
A decade ago it attempted to ditch its traditional Union Flag tailfin in favour of an ethnic design - which provoked the anger of Baroness Thatcher.
Mr Cable, MP for Twickenham and Liberal Democrat deputy leader said: "It is absolutely mind boggling that Britain's flag-carrying airline could treat its employees in such a disgraceful and petty manner.
"Nadia is a devout Christian who was displaying her faith, but in a modest and totally unprovocative manner.
"It is absolutely right that other religious minorities be allowed exemption from the dress code, but why can't a Christian be treated in the same way?"
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, international director of the Christian charity the Barnabas Fund, said: "Discrimination against Christians is commonplace in Muslim-majority contexts, such as Egypt where Nadia's family roots are. "Now we see the same thing increasingly happening within the UK.
"Her Sikh and Muslim colleagues at BA can show their faith publicly in what they wear, but Nadia and other Christians cannot. All we are asking for is a level playing field for all faiths."
Andrea Williams of the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship said: "The forces of political correctness are such that an individual needs to be very determined to protect their rights."
She looks like a Granny.....
British Airways has embraced political correctness with a veangance.
"And it will continie (sic), because we don't kill people like Muslims do to force their way on others.
Appeasement is our way."
I think the day is coming when you will see Christians and Jews pushing back. Do I know when that day will be? No, but I'd bet it is sooner than one might think.
Great Britain is swirling in the bowl.
<< IMO, the fact that she is fighting this, and getting public support suggests to me that the British have reached their limit.
I say "Good on 'em!
The fighting spirit has started to stir. >>
If such were true it would be the answer, for me, of at least forty years of prayer.
Sadly though, the evidence is that the Brits were never better represented than at Munich by Chamberlain. Most certainly not by the aberration that was the essentially-American, Churchill.
Not even by their sorry post-war parade of blithering idiots, twits, traitors, economics illiterates, cowards, Keynesians and socialists: Atlee, McMillan, Eden, Wilson, Home, Heath, Callaghan, Blair et al.
Neo-Axis co-founder, Blair, the al-Qeada-allied co-creator of the Euro-peon Neo-Soviet's very own islamanazi/gangster state, has been kept in office years past his use-by date by those to damned stupid to know they're being lied to and/or too damned mean-spirited and greedy to care. (By "ordinary" Brits, that is)
Even the much-vaunted Thatcher, whose in-the-end only lasting legacy is to have been female, is on that list. The real Thatcher, that is, whose every "policy" and every "conservative" successor has been tossed out by the British electorate (and/or has been thoroughly repudiated and/or corrupted, twisted and adapted by Blair and his fellow clipped-vowel-elitist totalitarian wannabes) and who cowardly attacked the Falklands, not Buenos Aires, when the latter's leaders invaded the former:
(Japs attack Pearl Harbor! Roosevelt heads for Hilo!! Hooray!!)
The Thatcher who thus presided over Britain's total humiliation at the hands of the all-powerful Argentines also even more definitively cravenly and for no more visible incentive and/or motivation than the considerable fortunes offered her cabinet and her family members by the Peking predators and accepted by several, surrendered once FRee British Hong Kong (As mush Sovereign British as is the land upon which stands the Westminster Parliament!) and its 7.5 million once FRee British Hong Kong Citizens and all of their wealth, to "china."
But I'll ignore the overwhelming evidence that the Limeys, along with the Christianity that once (a hundred years ago and more) at least offered some of them the strength of character and the courage to emigrate and the rest of them at least a glimmer of hope, have since surrendered their sovereignty to Brussels, to Strasbourg and to Sharia. And that, since having long ago having spiraled into post-Christian/post-modernist pagan-heathen/panthiest moral relativism, have even-further descended into dissolution, degradation, degeneration, disintegration and decay, into the craven appeasement of every evil -- and into bothersome bovver-booted Bush-Derangement-driven bullyboy rage!
And will keep Right on praying.
(Thank You, Dear Lord. Amen)
Blessings - Brian
"The Thatcher who thus presided over Britain's total humiliation at the hands of the all-powerful Argentines"
Yeah, that's what happened. You're cracked. I'de reply to your other points, if I could actually work out what they were.
<< Yeah, that's what happened. >>
It is.
Congratulations.
You're Right on the average.
One Right out of ten is about average for "you lot."
[Another clue: (The Pearl Harbor/Hilo analogy having flown over your head) When Hitler headed for Prague, that era's Limeys didn't respond by invading Czechoslovakia!]
So, the fact seems to have escaped you that the Argentine Army was comprehensively routed in what is universely recognised as a stunning military achievment, overrunning enemy positions that were prepared and dug in, in harsh conditions and terrain, at the end of an 8000 mile long supply line, and the regime that sanctioned the invasion was overthrown a short while later.
Apparantly, by your logic, that makes the Argentines 'all-powerful' and constitutes a total humiliation for the British.
No, we didn't have the resources to invade the Argentine mainland, not that it was either necesary or politically desirable. You also overlook the fact that Thatcher did this in the face of less than 100% American support and had to give Reagan a lesson on what was at stake in the face of his attempt to broker a ceasefire to save face for the Argentines.
At least try to get some factual basis into your obvious anti-British trolling.
<< "No, we didn't .... invade the Argentine mainland, not that it was either "necesary" (sic) or "politically desirable" .... >>
".... Or achievable, given that we were by then a long-ago-miserably-failed socialist state and focussed more on such secondary considerations as providing "free" eye glasses, cheap false teeth and abysmal Paki-provided "health care" to indolent geezers and other dole bludgers than on the defense of our once proud one-time First Class Nation. Which defense we had long since shrugged off to the envied, loathed, despised and, bloody ingrates that we are, neither acknowledged nor thanked Americans, to whose blood and treasure we had, since 1917, owed all that, any more, passed for our freedoms -- and had long since lost any of the resolve, the courage or the means to deliver the Argentines, where they bloody live, the bloody hiding their contemptuous Falking with our Islands so richly deserved!"
And although our help down there wasn't particularly overt, it was essential -- and it worked.
Cheers, Old Cobber -- BA
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.