Skirt too long to please employer

[Khayr]

Skirt too long to please employer

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Voices: Skirt too long? Speak Out: Uniform rule justified? 'In this case it's very easy to accommodate her religious belief'

JO-ANNE PICKEL, lawyer acting for Teamsters Union Muslim airport worker, laid off after altering uniform, takes case to rights commission

 

Nov 17, 2007 04:30 AM

john Goddard

Staff Reporter

 

A few inches of skirt length have led to an airport security guard's suspension.

 

The skirt is too long – not too short – to please the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

 

Halima Muse, a practising Muslim, has been laid off without pay until she agrees to wear a standard uniform that includes either slacks or a skirt falling at the knee.

 

Instead, she has filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission saying she is the target of religious discrimination, as Islam instructs that she dress modestly in a way that covers the body and conceals its curves.

 

"My skirt is not that much different – it's a bit longer," she said yesterday from her home not far from Pearson airport, where she has worked for more than five years. "It's not about style, it's about my dignity."

 

Muse, 33, is the single mother of one teenage son. She came to Canada from Somalia in 1989 and says she enjoyed working at the airport and never had problems with her immediate employer, Garda of Canada.

 

"I love my job," said Muse, who scanned passengers and luggage in the security area. "I like the people working with me. All the managers are nice to me. Most of the travellers are nice. We meet lots of different kinds of people ...

 

"It's flexible," she also said. "I pray five times a day for five minutes."

 

Until February of this year, Muse wore slacks with her uniform but never liked them, her brief to the commission says. They showed the shape of her body.

 

She asked the Garda employee in charge of uniforms for a skirt longer than the standard one. No such skirt existed, she was told, but she negotiated a solution. Matching colour and material, she made her own skirt that reached the ankle.

 

For six months all went well, Muse said in the interview. Then a Garda manager said she must conform to regulations.

 

"The regulations are established by (the air transport security authority)," said Garda communications director Joe Gavaghan.

 

"We neither set those requirements nor can we interpret them ...

 

"We immediately went to (the federal authority) indicating what the situation was and asking them to please direct us as to what we could do. They came back and had made the decision that there are two alternatives: Women can wear a skirt that is knee length or they can wear pants."

 

No issues of safety or security have arisen, said Mihad Fahmy on behalf of the Ottawa-based Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, which co-represents Muse in the human rights case along with her union, Teamsters Local 847.

 

"This is the standard: `This is the uniform, end of story,' " Fahmy said, summing up the federal position as she understands it.

 

"This isn't even a case of hijab, of a headscarf not being allowed in the workplace, which is often what we come across," she said. "This is just the length of a skirt."

 

By law, an employer must show nothing can be reasonably done to accommodate religious belief, said Jo-anne Pickel, a Toronto lawyer acting for the union.

 

"We say that in this case it's very easy to accommodate her religious belief," Pickel said. "All she needs is a skirt that is slightly longer."

 

The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority will take questions next week, a spokesperson said.

 

Muse's suspension from work happened in stages. On Aug. 11, Garda suspended her one day for wearing the ankle-length skirt.

 

On Aug. 15, she was suspended for three days. On Aug. 22, the penalty became five days. On Aug. 29, she was sent home indefinitely.

 

"I am talking for all women who would like to wear a long skirt – practising Christians, Jewish, Muslim, all of them," Muse said.

 

Taking a stand has already cost her, she said. Out of work nearly three months, she is running up debt on a credit card and borrowing money from her brother.

 

The federal employment insurance agency has refused to qualify her, she said, because she is not officially unemployed – she can go back to her job if she conforms to regulations she considers to violate her religious rights. The welfare department has similarly denied her application, she said.

 

[Aaliyyah]

This is a blatant discrimination, and there is great likelihood that she might win the case.

[chubacka]

poor woman...why do these airlines make a mountain out of a mole hill...I rem a similar case with British Airways in which they asked a christian woman to remove a cross she wore on a necklace...after much pointless debate about religious freedoms the woman won her case and she was allowed to wear her cross.. :rolleyes:

 

I think they have been backed up against a wall and cnt jst reverse their ridiculous decision.

 

keep us posted ia.

[ElPunto]

Hmmm - interesting case. I wish her luck - her 'alteration' wasn't a big deal.

 

On a related note - I think there are limits to what Muslims can demand vis-a-vis a uniform. A uniform is about a certain kind of conformity - one is restricted about what changes can be made with regard to it. At some point Muslims have got to say - I will simply choose my religion's dictates and understand that accomodations to my religion are necessarily limited in certain cases.

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

she should have just wore the slacks, this is not the Riyadh airport

[rudy-Diiriye]

so what did the canoke said to her! aye, your skirt is too long aye!!

 

so wacked!! i gotta ask them canokes one thing.. wazup with leave in the flag! yo, they couldnt nothing else... how about a freaking rock or a snow ball?

 

gimme a break. its a Monday so i aint in de mood!

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

so wacked!! i gotta ask them canokes one thing.. wazup with leave in the flag!

The leaf represents the marijuana plant.

 

We should put a jaad leaf in our flag as well, I guess.

[rudy-Diiriye]

wat ever rocks your world m&m!! go 4 it.

[Seekknowledge]

She was wearing slacks then she got brainwashed to follow only the SS fashion all the rest is bid'a as they say.

[chubacka]

whats the ss fashion?! :confused:

 

 

Rudy, thxs for cracking me up so early in the morning!

[Baluug]

Originally posted by Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar:

quote:so wacked!! i gotta ask them canokes one thing.. wazup with leave in the flag!

The leaf represents the marijuana plant.

 

We should put a jaad leaf in our flag as well, I guess.

Dammit, man, don't be letting out our secrets like that!! Or else we'll be overrun with weirdos from California like Rudy trying to take all the weed!!

 

Anyways, ThePoint has a point, so I thought I should point that out. After all, there's a reason why these outfits are called "uniforms" and you can't just make changes to it on your own, although personally I would have allowed it and I feel they should have too. But if she was complaining that her pants were showing off her shape, then they were obviously too tight. Why didn't she just wear some pants that were a size or two bigger? Problem solved.

[LayZie G.]

By law, an employer must show nothing can be reasonably done to accommodate religious belief, said Jo-anne Pickel, a Toronto lawyer acting for the union.

To some extend, haa, but not when the person taking the job is aware of the policy and procedure of their employer and yet accepts the job with head in first, c'mon now. No one told her to adjust her own skirt, you either wear the length that is suitable for her work environment or surwaal kutuur, qalas, sheeko sheeko iyo lawsuit aan sameeynaa is just another way ay lacag ku hesho, soomali waaloo yaqaana iney their scheming ways practice kusameeyaan daily, anyway to get that easy doe, dooro oo been badan meel lageeyo malahan .

[Seekknowledge]

whats the ss fashion?!

 

salafu salahin a.k.a. wahabism.

[chubacka]

and (to change the topic) whats wrong wid salafis?

 

are they a bit too musim for your liking?!

[Seekknowledge]

Nothing is wrong with them. I just don't like the Tent uniform for somali ladies and nice abayas for their own women. Man why arab women never wear those tents? cause our somali salafi sheikh trainees have no sense of fashion.