secularemployee

[Worldslaziestbusker]

My experience of this is confined to a single person, but by refraining from contacting the annoying party in any way beyond my email responses to their nonsense, I ensured there was a written record of all that went between us. As I was never the instigator of those interactions, the bullying claim made against me was shown to be spurious.

Welcome to the forum.
Matt

[Darwinsbulldog]

Welcome SE.

A person's private belief is their right, but to annoy others in public with it should be a serious crime. Having prayers in parliament and a million other stupidities encourages this sort of bollocks.

[4lan]

Originally Posted by secularemployee

Hi everyone.
<snip>

Howdy secularemployee,

Welcome to the forums. I hope your time here is fruitful and that you achieve a positive outcome with your work issue.

4lan

[secularemployee]

Wow!
Thanks everyone for your advice and encouragement! I was starting to feel a bit alone. The council I am working for are employing devious means to sack me. It is blindingly obvious that they are taking revenge on me for being the spokesman for many employees, who have complained to the HR department about his overbearing speeches and quite frightening beliefs. My union is looking into their shonky tactics, but I would like to know where I stand in relation to council's repeated refusal to answer our questions regarding their shielding of this employee. They {HR} have been ignoring us for a year now, despite their repeated promises that they would answer us "Within a couple of weeks". When I eventually got to the Director, and asked him why we were being ignored, he said he would "get things done". He sure did. He flung back at me my list of questions, mostly unanswered, and told me that my position no longer existed. A phone link up with their solicitor informed me that if I couldn't pass a physical to perform new duties, I would be sacked. I am nearly 50 yrs old, and the test they propose is often failed by fit young men. I won't pass it. What a stitch up! But I am to be an example to the rest as to what will happen if you point out HR's unproffessionalism in dealing with religious matters. Does anyone know someone i can talk to about this sort of stuff?

[Blue Lightning]

What state are you in? Do you know if you covered by any Federal or state award? And which union do you belong to?

[Darwinsbulldog]

@SE: I suppose corporatism has always been about max profits or max market share. Thus any increase in wages is linked to productivity, and so in the end, even government departments have to show "productivity gains". In moderation this is a good thing, because people pay for goods and services, and it does not make any sense to pay more for something than one has too. Globalisation has hyped this productivity up because everyone has to try to be better than anyone else in the world, whether they be individual workers, companies or even governments.
The downside is that people are now as disposable as paper clips, [unless they have rare skills]. So in work problems like yours will tend not to be addressed unless/until it is perceived by management as a productivity problem.

But really it should be interpreted as being an Occupational Health & Safety Problem. People should have the right to peaceably work in a productive manner for good wages. They should not have to put up with stress that is not integral to their function as an employee.
If sexual harrasment is a problem, why shouldn't religious harrassment? Neither necessarily can produce a drop in productivity, because the brave victims often suck it up and continue to produce the goods or services that their appointment requires.

[rayne]

If it's not being fixed internal, go external. Fair trade ombudsman would be a start. Making work life unbearable is generally a way for them to force you to quit because it's easier than them having to find an acceptable reason to fire you and HR doing nothing about it to me seems like a way for the council to keep good press. Keep it under their hats so to speak but it's futile because the less that gets done the more chance someone will go to the press.

[prudie]

Hi SE,
Welcome aboard. I have had a few over the years at work to varying degrees. I have one that sits outside my office (from a different team) that has pictures of jeebus all over their desk who made a formal complaint that I leave the AFA magazine, skeptic magazine and New Scientist in the lunch room for others to read. I was requested by management to not leave the magazines in the lunchroom as people found them offensive. Yet when I requested that the moron out the front of my office remove all pictures of jeebus because I found them offensive, it was rejected. So now I have pics of the FSM all over the glass frontage of my office. I don't think anyone has realised yet that I am taking the piss.

[prudie]

Originally Posted by The Irreverent Mr Black

@Prudie: New Scientist? Offensive?

(Atomic-powered-head-colliding-at-near-light-speed-with-unstable-matter-desktop smiley)

Don't ask me. The memo I got asked me to remove all of my magazines from the lunch room. I suspect it wasn't New Scientist that triggered the complaint

[Logic please]

Originally Posted by prudie

Don't ask me. The memo I got asked me to remove all of my magazines from the lunch room. I suspect it wasn't New Scientist that triggered the complaint

Ah, so that'd be non-discriminatory discrimination, then. Well done them, I s'pose.