General Chat

these kind of pc decisions do a disservice to Muslims - no wonder they say it's wrong - M & S should have a rethink - if it happened to me at an M & S till I'd just leave the lot and walk away

Oooh look - the Daily Fail has had to print something from Moslems about the M&S policy:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2528388/Not-just-u-turn-M-amp-S-u-turn-Now-chain-apologises-Muslim-check-girl-refused-sell-alcohol-customer.html

Basically, Moslem leaders are saying it's a load of tosh and M & S's policy is wrong.

It would appear that m and s think there is a difference between religious belief systems and non religious belief systems such as vegetarianism and others.

Why should one be more important than the other, they are both forms of belief/morals. Seems religion gives more credibility to issues, which is thoroughly not fair.

Sue

Can the non-Muslim staff refuse to serve halal food then? Just asking?


:-S :-S :-S :-S

True OFiTG, I suppose it all depends on which part of the religion the person belongs to.
Strange how Moslems are all bunched together as if it was one view.
It's the same as Christianity - Roman Catholics are a whole spectrum away from Baptists, but they're all 'Christians' likewise the same differences apply to Judaism and Islam - in fact any religion.

Strange that from John O'Groats to Land's End - the owners of thousands of corner shops who belong to faiths other than Christian - have no problem in handling these goods ;-)

I wonder if M and S would be just as sympathetic to Christians if they as assistants were to refuse to serve Halah meat ? on the grounds of the way these poor animals were slaughtered....

The Mail may be a dreadful paper but the Independent is quoting the Telegraph for the story (I tried to get the story from the Telegraph yesterday but couldn't get it to download). And the report in the Independent (a Paper I dislike actually), is a correction of the story yesterday and an apology from M&S because they had obviously not made it clear to the person who reported it to the Telegraph.

I will try my hardest for you Ann I promised :-D

You mean the story is tosh Hayley? If so what is the correct one please?

M & S have a policy. Staff with religious beliefs that determine what food etc they can handle are usually put in the clothes department, or bakery.
Neither Jews nor Moslems are expected to handle pork, Moslems aren't expected to handle drink, and both are allowed Saturdays (their religious day) off. Likewise, Christians aren't expected to work on Sundays.
In this case, the person was accidently put on the wrong job.

Another Daily Fail Islamophobic rant, methinks.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/23/ms-muslim-alcohol_n_4491491.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

My daughter works for M & S ( yes I love the 20% discount I get ;-) ) Anyway she said its a load of tosh :-D

In view of the Independent article -

At this time of year staff are pulled off other departments to cover busy areas, in this case Food. Could this have been the cause of the problem? If it was, the member of staff should have politely explained to the supervisor why they had a problem with the temporary re-assignment.

Not quite as The Mail portrayed it - but it is a dreadful paper so I'm not surprised.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ms-apologises-after-saying-muslim-staff-may-refuse-to-serve-customers-pork-and-alcohol-9020982.html

I also note that M&S is opening their first store in Australia


I sure hope they do better than they did in Canada!


They failed miserably when they first opened their stores here ..................... no-one had done any advance research, so they were completely taken aback when Canadians would not buy clothes without trying them on

It took a year of falling sales before M&S reno'd stores to allow fitting rooms ......... and that incidentally, is why their UK stores now have fitting rooms.

But they never did adjust to Canadian tastes in clothes, and they shut up shop entirely here in the mid-1990s after failing miserably in catering to the people with money here ................. mainly well-to-do young people of other ethnic origins!


Nor did the food go down well ....................... especially as none of it was fresh, or frozen. Pre-packaged cakes, pies etc just did not sell well.



so I really was not surprised to see the link that AnnG posted!

Well reading this is quite unbelieveable.

I am a vegetarian and have been since i was little. When i was 17 i went to work in a bank and when i was a cashier, i had to serve every customer including the local butchers 3 or 4 of them who never failed to have blood and meat stuck to the notes. The smell was dire but i was paid to do my job and just had to get on with it.

We simply cannot pick and choose because of our beliefs, otherwise the whole country with its many different religious beliefs would quite simply grind to a halt.

If you apply for a job then you will be aware of what that entails, if you disagree with the conditions then find a different job.

In my local supermarket there are 20 tills and its always quite busy, if our local staff started this nonsense of refusing to serve, what a disaster zone it would create, utter chaos.

Please can we just get the uk back to a normal civilsed, common sense country and get rid of all these ridiculous rules and exceptions.

There rant over, enough said

Florence
in the hebrides :-P

Joeva,

""Just thinking, M&S is jewish owned""

It is owned by shareholders - including big pension funds and individuals. Are they all Jewish?

What a load of baloney.

M&S are now on my naughty list Regards
Father Christmas
(and who on earth called me Santa I am not a Labrador)

I reckon the Muslim staff don't mind at all serving / checking such things after all we aren't asking them to eat or drink it.
A friend of mine is an ex alcoholic but goes to and holds parties where there is alcohol with no problems what so ever.