Should Employers be WARNED about Jehovahs Witnesses

by BlindersOff1 47 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Eustace

  A JW's life is hard enough without job discrimination based around religion.

  We're under no obligation to subsidize the bad choices of others. That just allows them to stay trapped longer in the mental prison that is their ill-founded trust in the Watchtower Society. The Watchtower tells them that as long as they put the Watchtower above all other considerations, including family, God will take care of their needs.

  Let's put this idea they're going around trying to spread to their neighbors to the test. Let's see if God takes care of them without this "wicked old system" propping them up.

  I'm a humanist and I believe everyone should be given an equal shot at life no matter your belief system.

  Given that JW employers are allowed to massively discriminate against worldly people in employment, why shouldn't worldly people be allowed to balance things out by discriminating in favor of worldly people?

  The JWs are playing a two-faced game here.
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  Eustace

  Eustace, I would like to see a wrongful dismissal suit won against a Witness-owned company for unjustly firing a disfellowshipped person.

  I would too, jgnat.

  I don't agree with the laws we have relating to this issue, but what makes the laws more harmful is the slanted way they're applied.
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  WTWizard

  The employers should warn the witlesses that, if they do anything illegal or that violates company policies because of their religion, they will risk getting fired. And prosecuted, if a law is broken in addition to company policy. This is especially true with policies where private information is blabbed to the hounders--at which point, the person blabbing it to the hounders can get fired, sued, and may even face criminal charges. They would be open to being sued by the victim, and the business can sue or prosecute the blabbermouth witless.

  In the case where it is a holiday or birthday celebration, and the job requires participation, the witless should be known that taking that job amounts to agreeing to perform that task. If the religion is going to get in the way, the witless should not take the job. If the witless agrees to the job and then refuses to perform holiday or birthday tasks, that is grounds to get fired. Suppose I agree to stock grocery shelves. What happens if I get assigned the aisle where pie crusts, flour, sugar, spices, cake mix, Jell-O, canned milk, and those non-pareils are stocked. Would I be able to get away with not stocking these things because they are often used for Christmas or birthday celebrations? What if a case of birthday candles comes in--and where I work, that sometimes happens (usually once a week, I will get several cases of birthday candles)? Do I let someone else put those up? If religion is going to get in the way, don't take the damn job. If you do, expect to get fired. And don't whine about religious discrimination because you were informed that these tasks are part of your job.
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  EdenOne

  As an active witness, I find it near insulting that the very question that started this post has even been raised. I run two corporations and God forbid if I would make religion a factor when recruiting someone. Would I require "warning" before I hire a muslim, because he/she might be a potential suicide bomber? Would I require "warning" before I hire an atheist because he/she doesn't follow christian ethics? Sorry, but the very question is irritating.

  When I was hunting for my first job, I remember at a job interview with IT&T, when I didn't get hired because the interviewer found out I was a JW and raised the question if I would skip my meetings if the company required me to work extra hours. Despite my answer that it would depend on the circumstances, and that I wouldn't hesitate to work extra hours if it was crucial for the company, and if the requirement was reasonable, I know I wasn't hired based on that issue. So it is a hateful question to be raised.

  Work ethics apply everywhere and to everyone. If a JW violates the work ethical rules - namely, confidentiality - for the sake of having another JW disciplined, that JW is to be treated in the same way any other worker, and shown the door out.

  Eden
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  Bangalore

  There is already enough discrimination in the world.

  Bangalore
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  Chariklo

  I haven't read every post in this thread, but answering just the question in the thread's title, from where I'm standing EVERYONE should be warned about Jehovah's Witnesses!
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  blondie

  http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/religion.cfm

  So this person, individual has not violated the HIPAA (sp) rules? Just basing it on that the group they are part of says you should? Not that all jws are obedient to the rules, eh? I think you would be in big doo-doo, not hiring someone based on what they might do...we'd all be in trouble.
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  Chaserious

  Given that JW employers are allowed to massively discriminate against worldly people in employment, why shouldn't worldly people be allowed to balance

  things out by discriminating in favor of worldly people?

  You've said this several times in this thread, but it's not correct. You seem to be referring to JW owned companies that only hire other witnesses. Mormons and other insular type religions have small business owners that do this too. In reality, what they are doing is hiring from their circle of friends and acquaintences and people their friends and acquaintences reccommend. Because all of their friends are JWs, you can't really separate the two. And it's not illegal to hire only people you know that you or have a mutual friend with. Now if they advertized the job and had a lot of people come in to interview and only hire the JWs, because they are JWs, that would be illegal. But I never knew any JW owned business to do that. When they want to hire someone, they just put the word out. They don't put it on monster.com

  On the other hand, I don't even know how you would implement what you are suggesting about warning employers, if one could get past how offensive it is. It is illegal to ask someone what religion they belong to in employment applications or interviews. So how would they even know? If anyone asked me what religion I belonged to on a job interview, I would walk out of the interview immediately and report them.
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  DaCheech

  Do hospitals and doctors make their employees sign a confidentiality agreement, where the employee can get terminated and sued on a personal basis?
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  Chaserious

  In the US, whether they sign an agreement or not, people who disclose protected health information knowingly can be fined $50,000 and face up to a year in prison. The government has to enforce it, not ther person whose information was made public. I really doubt many JWs in the medical field are tattling on other JWs under the modern privacy regime, regardless of what a Watchtower said in the 60's or 70's.