Vegans and druids to gain workplace rights under new equality rules

[Second Summer]

Vegetarian or vegan employees with deeply held beliefs should be allowed to exert their rights in the workplace by refusing to clean out office fridges containing meat or dairy products, according to new guidance.

A document published for employers by the Equality and Human Rights Commission suggests that ecologists could ask to be excused from duties that increase CO2 emissions, such as flying to business meetings, and that druids and pagans should be allowed to take time off work to go on pilgrimages and attend sacred rituals.

Full article: Vegans and druids to gain workplace rights under new equality rules (The Telegraph, 7 April 2013)

The headline seems a bit misleading since these are apparently only guidelines, so I'm not sure "rights" and "rules" are the terms I would use.

 

[Muggle]

If you want to feel some outrage, or have a good giggle, here's the Mail's article on it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Give-vegans-pagans-special-treatment-too.html

Oh and this is not to do with the vegan part but the pagan part. Still bloody hilarious: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2305749/Met-Police-mediums-pagan-DRUID.html
Lock up your babies people, the police are going to sacrifice them!
(I just find it hilarious and incredibly worrying that somebody went to the bother of doing a freedom of information request into the religious practises of members of the police. Seriously? Who the **** cares? Well apart from the Daily Mail )

 

[IamJen]

Oh I was just coming to post about the Mail article! Way to get people all worked up.

 

[SummerRain]

Makes sense, seems reasonable. Guidelines to suggest ways in which employers could make allowances for employees deep-held personal beliefs, even if they're not necessarily common ones or religious.

Not rights or rules by any stretch of the imagination. "The EHRC said it did not make the law on what is or is not a legitimate religion or belief and stressed that employers were not required to accept the types of request offered as examples."

The daily mail. What can you say.