British Airways cracks down on religious symbols
Posted by xenophon on October 17, 2006
British Airways has come under fire for a purge of religious symbols from the workplace with the policy now being extended to, “non-traditional interpretations of religion”. In the last week, unions report over 100 British Airways staff have been cautioned or stood down without pay for violations of the company’s new policy.
Even atheists have been targeted under the new policy. “We consider the absence of belief to be a form of belief in itself,” a British Airways spokesman said today. “Therefore, we have taken steps to prevent any displays of atheism in the workplace that might alienate others.”
One former ticketing agent was sacked after her supervisor found a copy of Richard Dawkins’ Selfish Gene in her bag. “I had gone out to lunch and when I returned there was my supervisor flicking through the book,” she told Satirical Muslim. “He said that Richard Dawkins was listed on Wikipedia as an atheist and his book was advocating the theory of evolution. As such, he said, I had to be let go.”
Another woman tells a similarily disturbing tale. “When I told my boss that I worshipped Justin Timberlake, I never expected it would cost me my job,” she told us. “He said that I had no business bringing my religious beliefs into work.”
But for one BA employee, a trip to a theme park would cost him his job. When his supervisor noticed a photo of him sitting on the back of a horse-drawn carriage, he was accused of being a “closet Amish”. “The BA executive said that the photo was clearly an attempt to promote the austere Mennonite interpretation of Christianity in the workplace,” he said. “He asked me to take three weeks unpaid leave from work and to meditate on whether I wanted to continue with BA.”
Sadly, for the executive, he was overhead by another BA employee and was disciplined for promoting transcendental meditation in the workplace.
In other news, British Airways executives are lobbying the British government for a change of flag. “We have a problem with the Union Jack on the tail fin of our planes,” a spokesperson said today. “We are concerned the Christian symbolism is causing unnecessary suffering and hardship for citizens of non-Christian nations that we might fly to.”
