Can you fire someone without it being discriminatory?
People are losing their jobs left right and centre. Despite predictions of close to 10% unemployment over the next few years there’s still too many people that are mortgaged to the hilt with mouths to feed propping up their entire lifestyles on the premise they will always have a steady income.
These people need to be slapped across the face.
What happens when one day you have a job and the next you don’t?
Well naturally it’s not your fault. With the Labor government in power and the economy weathering a storm there’s never been a better time to cry discrimination and drag the unions in if you get fired.
Patricia Pitfield has worked at Myer for 30 years and was recently suspended without pay after she failed a HR safety check. At 61 years of age Patricia was unable to do a squat or walk up stairs without holding onto the railing due to a non-job related back problem and knee surgery.
I’ve worked for Myer myself at one stage and I distinctly remember the OH&S training involving a test on the safe way to pick up a box, even a small one from the ground. It involves doing a full squat and then lifting with your knees.
Now it didn’t matter where we were working, everyone had to do this test one by one infront of the OH&S guy. Myer (and every other large company) have a company wide OH&S standard and if you can’t meet that then sorry but you’re out a job.
It’s not discrimination it’s the fact that you can’t lift things safely and what if there was a fire and some steps without a railing… what is some other poor person going to have to carry you?
Whether you’ve worked at a company for 30 years or 3 days is irrelevant, everyone on site should be able to meet the OH&S checks whilst they work for the company. Otherwise they are compromising the safety of their employees and leaving themselves open to lawsuits. And yes, a frivolous discrimination claim is easier to defend yourself from then a massive insurance claim because you let unfit people work when they shouldn’t be.
I expect we’ll see more of this cash grab type behaviour over the next 12 months or so as more and more people are fired and it’s not just Australian’s getting in on the act.
Hasanali Khoja from the UK initially applied for a job as a catering manager in 2005. During the interview he raised his concerns about handling pork due to his religion, Islam. He was assured during the interview that this wouldn’t be a problem as it was a supervising role and he wouldn’t be handling anything.
Hasanali got the job and then shortly afterwards was demoted because “he was found to lack the required level of computer skills”. So basically he lied about how much of a computer ace he was during his initial interview and got caught out.
In good grace instead of firing him the company offered him a non-supervisory role and still manged to respect his porkophobia. In 2007 he was then transferred to another kitchen and advised “he had to prepare, cook and serve all food products”, you know just like everybody else working there.
Being treated like everybody else wasn’t good enough to Hasanali decided to take six months stress leave because the evil bacon was taunting him. At the end of his six months sick leave he then rolled out the discrimination claims.
Khoja told the tribunal in Watford, north of London, that he refused to handle pork products even if protective clothing and implements were provided.
“The reason for this refusal is because of the fact it is well known that if you are cooking bacon or sausages, which I was asked to do, I was exposed to splash and contact with pork which I object to,” he said.
“Gloves and tongs would not make any difference.”
1. Your employer can bend over backwards and remove pork from the menu discriminating against and potentially losing the business of clients who like pork.
2. Your employer respects your wishes and pays you the same for doing less work, discriminating against your colleagues.
3. Your employer fires you because you are a whiny employee unable to do your job.
Now each of those scenarios has a level of discrimination of some degree but option 3. easily makes the most sense and is the least discriminatory.
If I decide I don’t like beef and refuse to come into work because someone might spill there beef lunch on me in the cafeteria downstairs my workplace aren’t going to ban beef, nor are they going to bulldoze the entire ground floor and rebuild it in such a way that I don’t have to walk through the cafeteria to get to work.
No, they’re going to rightfully fire me for being a stupid pain in the arse and hire someone else out of the thousands of newly unemployed who aren’t precious tinkerbells.
Whether you can’t meet OH&S or pig fat is the stuff your nightmares are made of, if you cannot meet your job requirements and get fired it’s not automatically discrimination.
Instead of selfishly putting the lives of others at risk, or expecting other people to do more work because of your beliefs accept the fact that the job isn’t for you and go find work elsewhere.
I don’t want to have to deal with a cripple in the case of an emergency and I certainly don’t go applying for jobs in halal factories and then complain that it’s discrimination because halal is against my beliefs.
May 13th, 2009 at 3:37 am Van(Quote)
Oz, you’ve hit on something that has been growing for years now. There are two factors that put employers in this situation.
1) Union Contracts – While I understand unions provide a voice for those who may not have one, employers who have agreed to union contracts may have limited their ability to react with common sense to situations. As a result, people are “protected” from doing what most would consider every day jobs.
2) Making exceptions leads to limited ability to manage – once a company makes an exception for one group, they are basically forced to take action for all groups. If an employer does not treat everyone equally, no matter how absurd a demand, then the employer is immediately discriminating against a group or individual.
Someone, somewhere, needs to stand up and say enough is enough.
May 13th, 2009 at 7:23 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Well for now it seems at least Myer are sticking to their decision. They haven’t fired Patricia, they’ve just said they can’t offer her work seeing as she failed their OH&S test.
In the UK it would appear they’ve simply abolished ‘sorry but you don’t fit the criteria for the job’ and replaced it with ‘Oh you’re in a minority group, we’ll change the criteria of the job to suit you and disadvantage everyone else. Welcome aboard’