British Stewardess Fired for Refusing to Wear Islamic Robe

So is this what decades of suffragettes, the 60's-70's women's movement and modern day feminism has finally wrought?

Under the ludicrous guise of multiculturalism/cultural sensitivities, female flight attendants working for a BRITISH based airline (BMI) are now ordered to wear the abaya (muslim robe or dress) after flights to Saudi Arabia when they are in the country.

"BRITISH air stewardess was sacked for refusing to fly to Saudi Arabia after she was ordered to wear a traditional Islamic robe and walk behind male colleagues. Lisa Ashton, a £15,000-a-year stewardess with BMI, was told that in public areas in Saudi Arabia she was required to wear a black robe, known as an abaya. This covers everything but the face, feet and hands. She was told to follow her male colleagues, irrespective of rank."

And it gets even worse:

"Earlier this year an employment tribunal in Manchester ruled that BMI was justified in imposing “rules of a different culture” on staff and cleared it of sexual discrimination...........In the employment tribunal decision over Ashton’s case it was ruled there was no evidence that women would regard BMI’s requirements on wearing the abaya, or walking behind men, as “placing them under any disadvantage”. Ashton’s case was dismissed."  

One wonders how many muslim men sat on that muslim enriched City of Manchester  employment tribunal and clearly any other members are multicultural nitwits and dhimmis. The high muslim population undoubtedly provides plenty of fare paying patrons for BMI and the reason behind the increased flights to Saudi Arabia and other muslim nations. It would also be interesting to find out how much, if any,  Saudi monies directly fund BMI .

Thus the overt subjugation of women to men & discrimination against women has been given the 'high-five' by Britain's Department of Employment.  One wonders what would happen if the reverse had been demanded - that muslim female airline employess from Saudi Arabia (or other muslim nations) were told they MUST remove their abaya, niqab and or hijab and wear only Western clothes when they come into Britain - I think we all know the answer. Recently, Saudi Arabia did ban a BMI female stewardess for carrying a Christian Bible.

Lisa Ashton was fired from her job:

"Her letter of dismissal said it was “proportionate” to ask female employees to walk behind men out of respect for Saudi culture. BMI has also defended its decision to require female staff to wear abayas."

BMI or British Midlands Air - should be renamed British Muslim Air.

article in full:

BMI told stewardess to wear Muslim robe

Jon Ungoed-Thomas

A BRITISH air stewardess was sacked for refusing to fly to Saudi Arabia after she was ordered to wear a traditional Islamic robe and walk behind male colleagues.

Lisa Ashton, a £15,000-a-year stewardess with BMI, was told that in public areas in Saudi Arabia she was required to wear a black robe, known as an abaya. This covers everything but the face, feet and hands. She was told to follow her male colleagues, irrespective of rank.

Ashton, 37, who was worried about security in the country, refused to fly there, claiming the instructions were discriminatory. She was sacked last April.

“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,” Ashton said last week.

“It’s outrageous. I’m a proud Englishwoman and I don’t want these restrictions placed on myself.”

Saudi experts and companies that recruit women to work in the country say it is a “myth” that western women are required to walk behind men. There is no requirement for them to wear the abaya in public, though many do.

Earlier this year an employment tribunal in Manchester ruled that BMI was justified in imposing “rules of a different culture” on staff and cleared it of sexual discrimination. Ashton has consulted Liberty, the human rights organisation, and may seek a judicial review of the decision.

Ashton joined BMI in March 1996, flying to the Caribbean, the United States and India. Based in Manchester, she was told in the summer of 2005 that BMI was starting a service to Saudi Arabia and she might be required to work on it.

The Foreign Office was then advising visitors of a “threat of terrorism” in the country. Ashton did not want to travel there because of the security risks, and was offended by the rules for staff travelling to the region.

A BMI document circulated to staff who might travel to Saudi Arabia stated: “It is expected that female crew members will walk behind their male counterparts in public areas such as airports no matter what rank.”

Staff were also given abayas and were required to put them on when leaving the aircraft. Ashton, a practising Christian, was advised by union officials that it was considered a part of the uniform and she could face disciplinary action if she did not wear it.

Ashton said she did not want to fly to Saudi Arabia, but wished to continue flying long-haul routes. The firm said she could transfer to short-haul flights but that would have meant a pay cut of about 20%. She declined to switch to short-haul flights.

On June 13, 2007, she was told she was rostered for a flight from London to Saudi Arabia and refused to go. She was dismissed for refusing to fly and for making it clear she would not travel to Saudi Arabia.

Her letter of dismissal said it was “proportionate” to ask female employees to walk behind men out of respect for Saudi culture. BMI has also defended its decision to require female staff to wear abayas.

The Foreign Office advises women to dress “conservatively” but does not specifically advise wearing an abaya in public places. It also does not refer to any rule or convention that western women should walk behind men.

In a legal case in 2002 Colonel Martha McSally launched a legal action over American military orders that female servicewomen should wear an abaya in public places in Saudi Arabia when American women diplomats and the wives of servicemen were not expected to wear the garment. The Senate subsequently passed legislation that prohibited defence officials from requiring female personnel to wear abayas.

In the employment tribunal decision over Ashton’s case it was ruled there was no evidence that women would regard BMI’s requirements on wearing the abaya, or walking behind men, as “placing them under any disadvantage”. Ashton’s case was dismissed.

The firm said last week the tribunal ruling was “self-explanatory” and would not comment.

Since leaving BMI, Ashton has embarked on a musical career. She said one of her first songs, Shame, Shame, Shame, performed by the band Looby, was inspired by the airline.

Comments

[parisclaims]

where is Harriet Harperson when you need her?

[Robin_Shadowes]

This is horrendous. Europe is not Eurabia - yet. We are not muslims and should not succumb to muslim rules.

[ex-muslim infidel]

Lisa Ashton PLEASE SUE BMI. Do not let these muslim terrorists continue to harrass and intimidate you.

[Devlin]

If South Africa still practiced Apartheid, I wounder if a European Airline would even consider asking its Black employees to back behind, and in a subservient manner to, its White employees.

I'm agast at what has been done to this woman.

This kind of blatant, and self-allowed, discrimination agains Western Women must NOT be tolerated.

[Ariel]

Big business does not rule the world like these muslim countries think THEY do. We as consumers need to boycott BMI and put financial pressure on them to stop this step backward for all Western women. We need to let BMI know that we will not tolerate them treating their female staff like slaves to men as they do in saudi arabia and the like. Take a stand and write a letter, tell your friends not to take this airline. We can make them do OUR will for Lisa Ashton and all other women who face this discrimination!

[Jona]

This is such an outrageous story. Why don`t the British rise up against Islam, this utterly evil, vile and backward ideology that is destroying their democratic rights, freedoms and values. A good start would be to boycott BMI, and also to stop eating at restaurants that use halal meat (Pakistani and North Indian restaurants mainly). Any other ideas?

[Friendsoflisa]

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