Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Telegraph: Stewardess sacked after refusing to wear Islamic robe
An air stewardess has been sacked after refusing her airline's demand to wear traditional Islamic dress and walk behind male colleagues in Saudi Arabia.
Lisa Ashton, who worked for BMI, was told that she was expected to wear the abaya, a long black robe that leaves only the face uncovered, when she was out in public in the Gulf state.
She was also told that she should walk behind male colleagues irrespective of their rank, in order to conform with the social codes of the conservative country.
Miss Ashton was instructed to consider the abaya as part of her uniform when flying to Saudi Arabia.
But she told her managers that she considered the requirement discriminatory, and was worried that Saudi Arabia was not safe to travel to because of the danger of terrorist attacks.
"It's not the law that you have to walk behind men in Saudi Arabia, or that you have to wear an abaya, and I'm not going to be treated as a second-class citizen," she said.
"It's outrageous. I'm a proud Englishwoman and I don't want these restrictions placed on myself."...
Hells yeah. Now as a matter of law, I think the airline should be able to require whatever they want to, but from every other angle, they at least should have let her keep her old rate of pay, and they should stop trying to be more Saudi than the Saudis. The airline ought to show at least as much pride as its employee.
Gordon Brown Speaking to the BBC, 27th March 2009
“I think in the 21st century people do expect discrimination to be removed and they expect us to be looking at these issues."
We shall see if he is a man of words or of deeds.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6169989.ece
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1173861/Stewardess-sacked-refusing-wear-Islamic-robe-walk-male-colleagues.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/sue-carroll/2009/04/28/bmi-stewardess-tribunal-was-plane-stupid-115875-21314859/
On Behalf of Lisa Ashton
My goodness, how can I thank you, your support means EVERYTHING. She has had none from the Union Unite/Amicus. They should feel ashamed.
The advise to Lisa from the Union was minimal some might even say non existent. Several times she requested and was refused direct access to a solicitor by the Union to ask very important questions that needed answering promptly. The fight has been with them as much as BMI. They would not defend her case in court.
We have fought this ALONE (We did not get any legal assistance at all until just before the tribunal date), however Lisa is gaining support and friends by the hour.
When support is shown to be 99.9% across all cultural divides this proves a VERY IMPORTANT POINT. This it is NOT and never has been a political statement or racial statement. Indeed she has support from all religious faiths as can bee seen on postings throughout the internet, who are appalled by BMI. To those people, you have no idea quite what a difference you are making, again thank you.
Those very few who do not support her stance do so from a point I would suggest of ignorance of the facts and the background that are yet to surface. This is not to time to delve into these in any great detail save to say it shows BMI’s lower management in an even worse light.
Lisa states. I DISTANCE MYSELF FROM ANY PERSON OR ORGANISATION WHO ATTEPT TO TURN WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME INTO A POLITICAL STATEMENT OR POLITICAL FURTHING OF ANY CAUSE OR BELIEF……………THIS IS AN EMPLOYMENT ISSUE ONLY.
Put simply, this is Lisa’s stance against BMI imposing its own interpretation of Saudi law on its female workforce and other work related issues that we will bring to the public’s awareness at a later date if it is required.
We wrote a ten page letter going into details of exactly how she was being treated by her Manchester managers, to the CEO, around two years ago. He does therefore not now have the excuse that he was not aware of what was happening. He did not even have the decency to give a direct reply to Lisa, we were not surprised.
Without going into great detail now, the following points need to be known regarding the case,
a) She was never given the course that BMI said was required before crew flew to Saudi.
b) She was Manchester based; the flights were out of the Heathrow base.
c) She told the company clearly that she would refuse a Saudi duty 18 months or so before she got the phone call for the “Saudi duty” in question. One point that is significant is that the company “taped” the conversation between the crewing officer and Lisa that morning. Her documented requests to similarly “tape” meetings between herself and management during meeting were refused. We leave you to decide why.
d) She was already flying a mix of Long and Short Haul therefore could have easily been given a short haul flight instead, out of her home base.
e) No other cabin crew member according to BMI was refusing to fly to Saudi i.e. they were perfectly happy to follow the written instruction by BMI to “walk behind the men…irrespective of rank” (we do not know, or do we care, if the same memo was sent to BMI’s female pilots). Is BMI’s rostering system so poor that it can’t handle a simple request of no Saudi flights due to BMI’s own imposed requirement that only one person has issue with? Or, is there another reason? For your information, all major airlines in the UK can and do make changes on a daily basis to crew trips based on preference, illness, even personality clashes.
f) BMI introduced the Saudi route AFTER Lisa had worked for bmi for 9 years and had worked on long haul for 18 months.
The Tribunal was aware of these facts and a lot more…. Lisa lost the case.
We still need your help, it is of note that as of yet no politicians have mentioned the case or has it been covered on any major UK TV News channel. Please tell them about it.
We are pushing for this to be taken to a judicial review and we need your help.
Let’s see if Mr. Brown or the Home Secretary stands by the statement at the top. We want them to order a judicial review of the case, please write to them and demand one.
Let’s see if the CEO of BMI wishes to re-read the copy of the letter that was sent to him all that time ago by us, let it sink in, and then make a public apology for the way BMI have treated this lady who was once a highly regarded crew member for BMI for all those years, and who they were only to happy to make an “Ambassador” for the company a number of years ago.
We are waiting for “we admit we were wrong, we are sorry” from the CEO of BMI
Please write, email, and help raise this matter in any way you can.
We can be contacted at friendsoflisa@mentalsounds.com.
Once again on behalf of Lisa, thank you.
Friends of Lisa