Katayoun Alidadi

Religious diversity and reasonable accommodation in the workplace in six European countries

After a period during which many in the West, especially Europe, expected religion to progressively fade away from public life, for various reasons religion has, over the last two decades, re-established itself as a phenomenon to be reckoned with in the globalized West. It has also become a favoured research topic for, amongst others, social scientists and legal scholars. While the European Union (EU) has a limited competency when it comes to matters of religion, in 2000 an important Directive was adopted, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of religion or belief in the area of employment. The EU’s interest, however, extends beyond the anti-discrimination framework, explaining why in 2010 it funded a three-year multidisciplinary project on religious diversity and secularism in Europe (RELIGARE). One of the areas of investigation, illustrating the various tensions that arise when religious claims are formulated in 21st-century Europe, concerned the area of employment and labour relations. This article provides an introduction – philosophical, legal and sociological – to a special issue with six contributions drawing from sociological data collected within the RELIGARE project. From a sociological perspective, these contributions illustrate the challenges and tensions raised by religion and belief both in secular workplaces (the individual religious freedom cluster) and in faith-based or religious ethos workplaces (the collective religious freedom cluster) in England, the Netherlands, Denmark, Bulgaria, France and Turkey.

Framing multicultural challenges in freedom of religion terms: limitations of minimal rights for managing religious diversity in Europe

Multicultural challenges in Europe are being framed in human rights language, and in particular in terms of the freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The question is whether the practical case-by-case application of the fundamental right to freedom of religion in national and European case law facilitates a ‘deep (and normative) diversity’ in Europe or rather only allows space for a limiting or ‘conditioned diversity’ instead. While opening up possibilities for minorities to live out their lives in accordance to their deeply-held convictions, it seems to us that the human rights working frame in a predominantly ‘minimalist’ conception comes with its inherent limitations as to the management of Europes religious diversity. While human rights purport to liberate and protect, they also impose conditions, criteria and standards that are grounded in a Western vision of law, society and religion. Religious minorities stand to gain from playing by the human rights rules as long as they accept to mould, shape and limit their claims to fit dominant conceptions, which perhaps diverge from their own understandings, needs and aspirations. Drawing on case law collected through the RELIGARE project network, this article aims to illustrate some of the limitations and confines that Europes diverse communities face in the areas of the workplace, the public place, the family, and State support to religions.

Out of sight, out of mind? Implications of routing religiously dressed employees away from front-office positions in Europe

Using employment cases from Belgium, France, the US and the ECtHR, this article argues that the distinction between front-office and back-office positions forms a useful analytical tool for religious discrimination/accommodation claims. Sweeping restrictions on religious dress are (too) easily accepted for front-office positions; a highly problematic back-office routing of religiously distinct employees has been taking place in creeping and unnoticed ways, with court cases lending legitimacy

Religion and unemployment benefits: Comparing Belgium, the Netherlands and Great Britain

When employees are dismissed or resign because of a conflict between their religion and job duties or expectations, how does this affect their claims to unemployment benefits? How do European countries address this question? The answer has significant consequences for many jobseekers and employees belonging to religious minorities and in many ways excluded from the mainstream labour market, yet the role of religion in the adjudication of European unemployment disputes has so far received limited attention. This article focuses on the role of religious dress in unemployment benefits disputes in Belgium, the Netherlands and Great Britain. It also assesses whether the messaging in relevant case law in the area of unemployment benefits has been sufficiently interlocking with employment law. Finding a level of disconnect, it is argued that an explicit duty of reasonable accommodation in employment would appropriately address the interplay between unemployment benefits and employment law in Europe.

Through the door, up the stairs Religion and its sins striding up the equality ladder

In light of the upsurge in interest for religion or belief in conjunction with equality in law, policy and political discourse, this review article looks at two recent additions to the steadily growing literature relating to the intersection of religion and equality, in particular with regard to the British scene: Equality. The New Legal Framework by Bob Hepple and Ethnic, Racial and Religious Inequalities. The Perils of Subjectivity by Marie Macey and Alan Carling. This review article brings out the inherent dialogue between the two works with regard to a number of reforms under the UK Equality Act 2010, including whether this Act signifies a shift away from the politics of single identities towards the politics of fundamental human rights.

Marie-Claire Foblets, Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens and Alison Dundes Renteln (eds.), Cultural Diversity and the Law. State Reponses from Around the World. Brussels and Québec: Bruylant and Éditions Yvon Blais. 2010

The streets of urban Europe have never looked more multicultural. The story of the immigration waves to Western Europe after the Second World War is wellknown. The labor gap created by the devastation of large parts of Europe necessitated the import of cheap labor from abroad. In spite of the ‘myth of return’, most so-called ‘guest laborers’ settled down in the receiving Western countries and, together with their reunited family members, became European immigrants. Other new citizens often came in search of a safe refuge after violent conflicts back home, from former colonies, or were driven by the wish to start a life in a more economically prosperous environment. Certain segments of this group, in particular Muslim immigrants, soon became an issue challenging various European state governments, some formed by right wing protest votes. Becoming the subject of state policies in the areas of immigration, nationality, labor and social rights, human rights and family law, in more recent times this group has been presenting claims based on cultural or religious identity, sometimes questioning established state policies.