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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 21291
[Pagan]
Date Posted:
10/24/2009
12:47:25 pm EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 3,260
RSS: 21,608
Comments: 4
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Observance Of Wiccan New Year Ends In Religious Discrimination Suit
Author: Jeremy Smerd Source: Workforce Management
Title: OBSERVANCE OF WICCAN NEW YEAR ENDS IN RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION SUIT
Last Halloween, Gina Uberti took vacation days to celebrate the Wiccan new year in Salem, Massachusetts, the town infamously known for the witch trials of 1692 that ended with the hanging of 14 women.
Less than a month after Uberti took part in the festivities of Samhain, one of the holiest days in the Wiccan calendar, she was fired from her job as a district sales manager for Bath and Body Works.
In a complaint filed in federal court in Connecticut last week, Uberti alleges she was unfairly terminated for practicing Wicca, known as the largest of neopagan religions.
Uberti alleges in the lawsuit that her boss said just before she was fired, “You will need a new career in your new year. … I will be damned if I have a devil worshiper on my team.”
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Community Thoughts: There are 4 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| I Don't Know... | Oct 27th. at 9:21:14 pm EDT
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Peg A. (Albany, New York) - Email Me
Not every witch or Wiccan celebrates Samhain as the "New Year." It's true that it's an important holiday for most categories of Wicca. But celebrating this holiday certainly does not require a pilgrimage to Salem. That's like saying Ash Wednesday requires a trip to New Orleans.
When my Jewish college students ask for time off for their high holy days, they are given the holidays off. When they ask why they are marked absent for missing the extra days they took off to travel home to celebrate with their families, I explain to them that campus policy does not allow them to miss class for travel time, but only for the official day of the holiday. So I guess what I am saying is, religious observance does not require a trip or pilgrimage. And an employer need not grant additional days off for the time surrounding a holiday.
And any employer is legally able to deny time off at their own discretion, if a religious holiday is not nationally recognized. Sad, but true. And I know of no calendar that isn't designed for neo-pagans, or at least intentionally includes a wide variety of spiritual paths, that designates Hallowe'en as Samhain on October 31st.
But the more important issue here seems to be the belittling and prejudicial comments of the employer about the employee's spiritual beliefs; that IS discrimination.
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| Bingo | Oct 26th. at 5:08:03 am EDT
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Roy Linford Adams (Buxton, Maine) - Email Me
Who's laughing now?
Bath And Body Works = overpriced, stinky products. Every time I walk by that place in the mall, me and my wife both go "Fewww! (hack, hack) that stinks."
I've always taken Samhain off as a holiday since I started working in 1994, while I was still in high school. My wife does the same as well. nd now that we have a little one on the way, they will too right from day 1. We personaly look upon anyone who tries to stop us in the very same manner as a boss who tries to make a christian work christmas... with a bauh humbug!
We also take Yule off as well. But we always work the 25th. Our bosses love it. usually they have to beg the employees to work that day and they know they can count on us.
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| National Education In This Case | Oct 25th. at 2:30:54 pm EDT
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
It's good to see that both this and the related "More" articles on WitchVOX are not just mainstream press, but are from sources that are educational and legal guides for both corporate lawyers and human resources managers. Religious issues are so complex as to details that most such people need to see more detailed examples of how generic law applies to specific circumstances.
This kind of case poses additional challenges as to the legal and practical issues of screening managers. Clearly a corporate chain with fully legal policies goofed, and failed to take not the bad manager's religion, but her malicious attitude and incompetence due to psychiatric pathology apparently caused by abuse of religion, into account over religion neutral critical job requirements. There's a critical distinction between discriminating against a religious sicko over religion, and proactively preventing a religious sicko from causing a hostile work environment for other employees, or perpetrating way over the line clearly illegal acts that abuse managerial authority.
Too bad Ms. Scibelli can't be subjected to some military style discipline. She could be stripped of her management job, and ordered to scrub a bathroom floor with her personal toothbrush, and continue using it on her teeth between 16 hours a day floor sessions, and then mow a cemetery lawn with her teeth before Samhain. The court likely will leave the employer to discipline or fire Scibelli, without qualification for unemployment, due to willful and malicious illegal acts that as has already been suggested in the "more" article here, will likely result in fines and reinstatement of the pagan discrimination victim. There's a good chance the litigation will push things up to corporate review, and result in a court signing off on a settlement agreement, as if the legal reporting is accurate, this case is so far over the line that a trial defense would not be a smart move.
This case reflects another form of manager incompetence that's beneficial to the victim. In many other cases, a malicious bigot employer (or, in a case like this, unqualified bad mid management hire) learns treacherous tactics to perpetrate just this kind of illegal act, but find some other means to document and justify it over a period of weeks or months, that pretends it's not about protected criteria issues. In one extreme case I witnessed, a radio program director didn't like the style of a DJ with greater seniority than the new PD, but was told by his boss he couldn't fire people when it would jack up unemployment taxes. The PD teamed up with a news director and found personal hot buttons to push over several weeks, double teaming the DJ, until they managed to convert an argument into the victim punching the news director. An assault arrest looks good as an excuse in a personnel file or to challenge an unemployment claim, and it's incredibly difficult to document a tactical, malicious plan of mid managers with permission from their boss to create a hostile work environment adequate to trigger that kind of reaction in an otherwise mature and stable long time employee, in that case a pacifist for the most part. That case in theory should have resulted in legal action against the employer, but with evidence that couldn't be proven.
In this case, Ms. Scibelli deserves a thankyou. She was such an obnoxious bigot as to supply evidence to both her immediate target of illegal discrimination, and to her employer of cause to fire her without liability. A victim of this type of discrimination couldn't hope for more, other than such people being branded unemployable in any position of authority, including as hotel clerks or food industries that also have obligations not to act as she did towards customers or workers. Better yet, perhaps our society could grow up a bit and have fewer such religious sickos among us?
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| Nice... | Oct 25th. at 1:14:36 am EDT
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RavenLight (Arlington, Virginia) - Email Me
...that their journalist got his facts straight. He even knew what a Sabbat is.
Way to go.
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