Thanks to Frater FS – Media and Travel Correspondent for LAShTAL.COM – for this News from the Sunday Times:
New guidelines will allow employees to adapt their work duties to suit their beliefs…
DRUIDS and pagans will be able to take time off work to attend sacred rites, and ecologists will be able to opt out of duties that offend their beliefs, under new guidelines issued to employers by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
The guidance says bosses will have to “consider seriously” adapting employees’ work duties to suit their beliefs. They should also allow staff to wear religious symbols and promote their beliefs, provided colleagues do not object.
The guideline is in response to judgments by the European Court of Human Rights, including the decision that Christians can wear a cross at work. The EHRC has broadened these rights to include druids, pagans, vegetarians, ecologists and atheists. Vegetarians can refuse to clean fridges with meat in them.
Workers will be able to go on pilgrimages, including to sites such as Glastonbury and Stonehenge if they are druids. The rights may also mean that Muslims can request time off to go to Mecca. Christian nurses will be allowed to pray for patients — unless the patient objects.
The EHRC says employers can ignore a request “when they reasonably conclude that the belief is not sincere.”