The Turban and Safety
April 1, 2008 · By Shane Edwards
Here we go again. It’s a human right to risk getting your head bashed in, while working at a lumber mill? This isn’t the first time that Sikhs have taken Canadian law to courts, to permit them to wear the turban in breach of safety regulations.
I am trying to make sense of this. First, how is this a human rights issue?
Second, does the fact that these safety laws are being fought not point out the futility of safety regulations in the first place? In a free country, should we be legislating that people protect their health and well-being? Is this the end of liability law, since apparently Sikhs wish to divest themselves of any requirement to protect their well-being? How can we hold companies liable for injuries incurred on the job if the workers refuse to take safety measures?
On the one hand, as a small-government conservative, I should be cheering the Sikhs on, as this will result in less bureaucracy and more freedom.
On the other hand, I do believe in a governmental role for public safety. How do you reconcile the collision of the coercive power of government and religious freedom? (And before you say it, I know that the turban isn’t actually part of their religion, but it doesn’t matter, because they act like it is.)
I look at it from the company perspective. Regardless if they refused to wear Personal Protective Equipment or not, I guarantee if one of the Sikhs had a brick dropped on their head they’d be on worker’s comp AND probably suing the company.
Ta hell with em. I say if the company requires PPE and the employee refuses to wear it for whatever reason then they don’t work. Plain and simple.
Easy. You imagine this was occurring in a different country/jurisdiction and then ask yourself: “What business is it of yours?”
Care to elaborate, Charles?
From the article… “This is pretty ignorant and pretty insensitive of the employer to bring such a policy. We are living in the 21st century. We are living in the hub of multiculturalism.”
My guess is these workers don’t understand much about business, because this is a complete load of crap. The company didn’t bring in such a policy to be insensitive to other cultures. As an executive in manufacturing myself, I would venture to guess that this new policy is the result of some sort of directive from their insurance company and/or their lawyers to protect themselves. It’s that simple.
The costs of injured staff to employers can be huge, and so can the related insurance costs. Businesses have every right to mitigate such costs, and if doing so infringes on somebody’s religious right, then too damn bad. Find other employment if you don’t like it, but it’s not the company’s responsibility to assume increased costs or risks so you can practise your religion!
Simple solution… you want the right to wear your turban, fine. You sign a waver indicating you’re exercising this write and wave the right to workers comp and any right to sue the employer if you’re unfortunate to suffer an accident that a safety helmit might have prevented.
You want your multicultural right you have to give up something else…this gives them their option to wear the turban. You can’t have it both ways and if you have a problem with this then you shouldn’t have moved to Canada with your 58 other family members on the “Fast track Treaudo Immigration/please buy my vote plan.”
MrEd:
You have an overblown respect for the power of “wavers”. I think the courts would laugh themselves silly if an employer presented a waver to show that they weren’t responsible for a worker’s safety. Responsibility is not so easily shed.
Besides which, owners of sawmills don’t like to see people ground up into hamburger, no matter who is held legally responsible.
And turbans are nasty. They can become unravelled, and dangly bits of cloth are bad news in a saw mill. How about if I wear a tie as I lean over the conveyor belt that feeds into the chipper?
Rabbit, I agree with what you say about waivers but maybe it is time for someone to invent a iron clad one to protect the employers and one that the courts will recognize up to including the SC
I agree with what you say about waivers but maybe it is time for someone to invent a iron clad one to protect the employers and one that the courts will recognize up to including the SC
I’ve worked in saw mills and glass (bottle manufacturing) plants. I think one trip through either of these extraordinarily dangerous work places would convince most sane people that safey standards
should not be compromized for any reason.
So how about no waivers, and companies have the right to tell their employees exactly how they will dress and behave for their own safety, their religion be damned? And if employees don’t like it, they can go take up floral arranging for a living.
When did we depart from reality here? When did we land in this politically correct fantasy land?
That would be the year Pierre Elliott Trudeau was elected.
I have to agree 100% with Rabbit on this one. Worker safety trumps any precious notions of cultural sensitivity.
p.s. Matthew… You’re still blogging. What gives?
p.p.s. I see you folks still can’t seem to manage “Preview” feature. And yet you’ve got all the answers to fix the world. Go figure.
I find myself in agreement with Charles Anthony here. What business of mine is it whether or not they wear helmets? And what business is it of the government that represents me whether or not they wear helmets? Surely a country that governs approximately 33 million people and represents them on the world stage has better things to do than this. It’s not their job, it’s not their place, and it’s not their problem.
Thanks AD,
For a while I feared that my brief message was too cryptic to make any sense.
Shane,
I am trying to get you to change your frame of reference.
The answer to your question should be obvious: the two can not be
reconciled. Either you have freedom of religion or you coerce people.
You can not have it both ways.
Your authority to coerce people de jure is limited to geography. [I would say you have no moral authority to coerce people at all but that is a different story.] However, the authority you have is arbitrary — it can change. The same defense you have to support coercion can be applied to deny freedom of religion.
If this was happening in a foreign country — for example, in Punjab — you would not give a damn, would you? Probably not. I certainly would not. In fact, I would imagine that in Punjab today, this is not an issue.
More importantly, you would have no say over the matter in a foreign country either.
Therefore, your authority over this issue is completely jurisdictional. You have no morally absolute leg to stand on to order people in Canada to wear or not to wear a turban.
—–
The main conflict of this issue is between the employees and their employers. Unfortunately, the employees are using the coercive power of the state themselves in the form of the human rights tribunal as a means to their ends.
I genuinely believe the employers have every right to change the terms of employment (i.e., demand wearing helmets) with sufficient notice because implicit in the employment agreement is that changes in employment are made with sufficient notice. [I do not know why they are demanding helmets and I do not care. It is the prerogative of the employer.] The only thing these employees deserve is sufficient notice or severance according to their employment contract. Nothing more. I do not give a damn how long they have been working for the firm. Nobody owes them a job.
So we can all see what multiculturalism has brought us. Never-ending conflict between the minorities and the nanny state.
Nice.