This one could get interesting… ;
Sikh truck drivers will file a human rights complaint Thursday against a rule that requires them to wear hardhats instead of turbans.
They are fighting a requirement that prevents them from driving into CP Rail’s two Toronto terminals without protective headwear. CP Rail said it is enforcing the hardhat rule because of safety concerns.
Major Singh, one of 500 drivers challenging the rule, has worked at the rail terminals for seven years. “There have been no incidents of drivers being injured,” he said.
CP Rail suggested the men could remove one of the two parts of their six-metre long turbans. That would allow them to wear a hardhat.
I can’t enter the local Agrium potash mine property without a hat, boots and safety glasses, even if I plan to remain in my truck, and that’s as a private contractor. Have they been giving a pass to Sikh drivers at CP, or have the drivers recently decided to refuse a hardhat rule they’ve been observing for years? Anyone know?
They sign a waiver knowing the dangers.When the first one to get injured the courts will side with the plaintiff.Safety first!!!!!!!
Damn reminds me of the case of a heavy machine operator who told his superiors that he would not be able to work on a Monday as he was going to get wasted at a wedding on the Sunday.The worker claimed he would be hungover thus incapable of doing his job within the safety parameters set out by the Ontario Government.
He was penalized ,went to court and won.
I have a sure fire solution. All CP has to do is issue cute pink hardhats with little rainbows on the front. When the Sikhs refuse to wear ’em, CP can sire homophobia. And as we all know, in human rights conflicts between religion and gays, the gays always win.
Hey Kate: ever see a turban on a cycle Jockey instead of a DOT helmet? 😉
Obvious point:
6 M of turban and all the hair it covers offer more protection than a hard hat!
I know that somewhere in Canada a similar case to this has been heard already – Somehow I’m thinking Vancouver and a construction site. If I were smarter I would be able to find it. The RCMP lost when the same issue went to court – but that wasn’t safety related.
Color blind guys can’t be pilots and it’s not called discrimination. I say if you don’t want to comply with the safety guidelines set out by your employer get a different job.
I second that sheila.
It sounds like these people have been hit in the head too many times already.
People who perform marriages can be forced out of their jobs for refusing to marry gays even though their religion forbids them from doing so. Yet I predict the court will side with the Sikhs and let them wear turbans. If that proves to be the case, then it’s further evidence of the selective “tolerance” of the leftist network. Mounties wearing turbans came first. Next: religious exemption from the requirement to wear safety gear? Why favor one religion and not others?
Remember, you only have freedom of religion if you are NOT Christian. If you are Christian, you are an evil scurge on society and you must be fought with all the power of Law! Didn’t you get the memo from the Liberals?
What is really pathetic is how little coherence and consistancy all these judgement have. The only pattern is based on a heirarchy of victimhood.
Men are on the bottom with white and christian. It goes up from there apparently with gays at the top of the favoured list. Everyone else is fighting for their place in between.
Such is Trudeupea.
Make that “Judeo-Christian”. Same thing.
Memo? What memo? I didn’t get any bloody memo from the Librano mob. Damn; I should’ve kept my Conservative political orientation in the closet when I worked for the feds. Guess I’m blacklisted on everything!
I fell for the bait when my supervisor saw me reading the NP and he said he doesn’t like Paulie and hates Conservatives. I couldn’t let it go… I fell for it. Those bloody lefties are sneaky as hell!
If anyone ends up working for the feds, better dress like Elton John and say moonbatty stuff if you want to stay there permanently…
What is often ignored is the fact that all Sikhs do not wear turbans. Why should some get special treatment?
Whether or not one wears a turban in everyday life is not an definitive clarification of that individuals religious beliefs or their adherence to those beliefs.
(if I were to wear a turban would that make me a Sikh?)
Are those Sikhs who decline to wear turbans but follow the Sikh religious guidelines any less “Sikh” than those who do?
My feeling is that unless the Sikh religion can demonstrate that ALL of it members wear turbans and must do so to be considered Sikh (boy theres another whole can of worms), then it is simply a matter of some individuals deciding to wear what should be considered ceremonial garb and as such their choices should not supercede existing laws and regulations based on religious grounds.
(10 years ago I provided vending service at a lumber mill in B.C. Plenty of Sikhs there with turbans. All wore hardhats atop the turban.)
This one shouldn’t get very far. The Supreme Court ruled, 5-2 if I read the decision correctly, in 1985 in Bhinder v. CN that a bona fide requirement to wear a hard hat was not an infringement of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
The summation of the majority opinion was:
“Per Estey, McIntyre and Chouinard JJ.: The hard hat rule was a bona fide occupational requirement which met the Etobicoke test: one honestly imposed in the interest of the performance of the work with all reasonable dispatch, safety and economy and not for extraneous reasons aimed at defeating the Code. The test does not vary with the special characteristics and circumstances of the complainant. A working condition does not lose its character as a bona fide occupational requirement because it may be discriminatory. Rather, as a bona fide occupational requirement, it may permit consequential discrimination, if any. Since s. 14(a) of the Canadian Human Rights Act clearly states that no discriminatory practice exists where a bona fide occupational requirement is established, applying such a requirement to each individual with varying results would rob the requirement of its character as an occupational requirement and would ignore the plain language of the section. There was no duty to accommodate since s. 14(a) declared no discriminatory practice where a bona fide occupational requirement existed.
Per Beetz and Wilson JJ.: If the bona fides of an occupational requirement is to be assessed in relation to each employee, s. 14(a) is effectively read out of the Act since, absent the section, an employer is obliged to accommodate the individual up to the point of undue hardship even if the requirement is a bona fide occupational one.
The purpose of s. 14(a) is to make the requirement of the job prevail over the requirement of the employee. It negates any duty to accommodate by stating that the imposition of a genuine job-related requirement is not a discriminatory practice.
The legislature, by narrowing the scope of what constitutes a “discriminatory practice”, has permitted genuine job-related requirements to stand even if they have the effect of disqualifying some persons for those jobs. Section 14(a) does not conflict with the avowed purpose of the Act which is to prevent “discriminatory practices”.”
The dissenters, including the Chief Justice at the time, engage in some pretty tortured reasoning in my view, that since it was only one guy, and the risk of his getting hurt was negligible, that the business would not be caused undue hardship by being forced to exempt him from the hard hat rule. Apparently in their view it’s not up to the employer to assess his own risks and set his own policies, it’s up to Nanny State, or at least Nanny Judges and Nanny Human Rights Councils.
As an engineer who works on sites where safety gear is often required, I think the majority got this one absolutely right, and this new complaint should be immediately dismissed.
Nobody has the “right” to get himself hurt on a job site by disregarding safety rules.
“What is often ignored is the fact that all Sikhs do not wear turbans.’
Interesting post Ward. I’m going to have to research this a bit more, becasue the first thing I thought of was the whole turban v. RCMP thing a few years back. The turban won that one, but if your post is true, I think it needs to be looked at again.
“What is often ignored is the fact that all Sikhs do not wear turbans.”
This is true. The difference is one of baptism. When a Sikh is baptised, he agrees to become religiously observant. There are five conditions to observance, one of which is that he will no longer cut his hair. The purpose of the turban is to keep the hair neat. The turban itself has no religious significance, only cultural. At least, that is what a Sikh friend of mine tells me — but since he’s not one of the baptised Sikhs, and wears no turban, I don’t know if he’s putting me on or not…
Here’s an interesting story I just found….
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/146/story_14604_1.html
” Asked about the turbans worn by Sikhs, he said later that an “arrangement” had been made with Sikhs to replace the traditional head gear with hair nets.
“We’ve come up with an arrangement,” Fillon said. “They accept wearing a hair net. It’s less aggressive, less showy,” he told The Associated Press.”
And if they are obliged to keep their turban, they are also carrying a concealed knife, the kirpan. Aren’t there laws against such things?
But hey, it’s all relative, right?
My “religion” dictates that I stride around naked with my scrotum hyperinflated with saline.
I WILL SUE IF YOU DON”T LET ME DO THIS.
/moonbat off
What’s the big deal. If someone doesn’t want to wear safety equipment due to religious reasons let them sign a waiver absolving the employer and Workers Compensation Board of all responsibility. That’s why the Darwin Award was invented.
Doug:
I see you also check Zombie’s site.
Didja hafta mention scrotal inflation guy? And here it almost the dinner hour. Oh well, I was trying to lose weight.
Years ago, I had a boss who was a turban-less Sikh. He used to wear one, but he said because he played so many sports, it was easier to cut his hair and dispense with the turban. He also said that it caused a scandal in his family and community, but they eventually got over it. He said he was as devout as before and didn’t see the big deal.
If the turban interferes with safety, either the turban goes or the person finds other work. What ever happened to common sense?
I recall many years ago after having a broken bone set, the doctor unrolled a long cloth strip and began winding it around my foot and leg. Then he applied hot water to the cloth, which was infused with some sort of plaster. When the new creation dried, I had fairly substantial cast. What with the advances in materials science, a simple solution to this problem must be at hand.
“What’s the big deal. If someone doesn’t want to wear safety equipment due to religious reasons let them sign a waiver absolving the employer and Workers Compensation Board of all responsibility. That’s why the Darwin Award was invented.”
Sorry, Doug, but it’s not that simple. An employer has the reponsibility to keep their employees as safe as possible, and if one of them got hurt and tried to sue over the injury….that “waiver” would get tossed in a flash.
Waivers aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, even if preformed properly, whereby you would have to explain it to the person, have them sign stating they understand and agree, and have it witnessed. They really don’t amount to squat in most situations involving physical harm.
ooops, should have been “Sorry, John B”
If someone refuses to wear safety equipment, then he is only qualified to sweep up the jobsite after everyone finishes up for the day.
Oh, someone comes in after hours to do that job? Sorry pal, no religous discrimination, I just do not want to be sued by your whole family and the WCB. Bye, 73s TG
Sucks to be Sikh
They will not win this case.
Sense and Sensitivity
About a decade ago there was a great controversy in the CF about the wear of turbans (it coincided with the whole “Turbans in the Legion” kerfuffle). In day-to-day training, the turban poses no problem, so long as the colour is appropriate and a hat badge can be perched on the front. The Indian Army has been doing this for centuries, and it looks pretty sharp.
Things change, however, in operations and operational training. The large Sikh turban precludes wearing a combat helmet, which is fairly important not only when people are shooting at and shelling you, but also on rifle and grenade ranges. As the CF agonized over how to accommodate Sikh sensitivities without imperilling the lives of Sikh soldiers, one officer – who, through having attended the Indian staff college at Wellington, had a number of friends and acquaintances in the Indian Army – was asked to ring up his sub-Continental pals, and find out how Sikh soldiers were protected on the grenade range.
Answer? “They take off their bloody turbans and they put on a bloody helmet.”
If the Indian Army does it this way, who are we to be more Catholic than the Pope (or more Hindu than Vishnu, for that matter)? Anyone who doesn’t follow safety rules is a danger not only to himself but also to his co-workers. Short answer? If you don’t want to follow rules designed for your safety and that of your team-mates, you’re a danger to yourself, to them, and to the mission. So go find a job somewhere else.
And it’s not just about helmets, by the way; both the turban and the beard prevent getting a seal with a gas mask. When the gas alarm goes off, it’s too late to start unwrapping one’s turban – and it’s wa-a-a-ay too late to haul out the razor and start shaving off your beard.
There’s cultural sensitivity on the one hand, and that’s fine; but then there’s common sense on the other. One way to measure the maturity of a society is to look at which one of these is considered more important – and particularly whether somebody in that society feels that it is appropriate to legislate sensitivity over sense.
pmaloney:
Good comment on waivers but my unstated intention regarding a “waiver” was that such a policy would have to be backed by government legislation to absolve the employer and insurance board of all responsiblity resulting from, in this case, wearing a turban in place of a hard hat.
Christians are discriminated against in Canada? What a pile of shit. I am a follower of Christ’s teachings and have never felt discriminated against because of it. Not allowing you to force your ideals on others is a lot different than not allowing you to practice them yourself. Nobody is forcing priests to marry homosexuals, in fact their right not to do so is guaranteed under the freeedom of religion in the charter. It is largely people who claim to be christian that are the ones discriminating.
Gays have the right to be married in a civil union and the same protections and benefits as other Canadians. Its too bad that the reform party and all its bigoted ideas had to ruin the conservative party and drive away most of its voters. Its easy to see that a lot of the posters in here dislike east indians and they don’t hide their bias very well in their feigned concern for their safety.
Its a lot like those people who don’t like us Cannabis users so they say Marc Emery should go to jail for the rest of his life because “he broke the law” Should Rosa Parks have obeyed the law and moved to the back of the bus? Should the slaves have stayed in the south because slavery was legal? You people son’t hide your racism very well.
Human rights should win over religious attempts to prevent people from having those rights. Its possible to be a Christian without forcing your views of how life should be on other people who don’t have the same beliefs as you. It makes me sick how people try to hide their prejudices, behind Christianity. We are all children of God, and by condemning your brothers and sisters for their sins you condemn yourseves.