BROOKLYN NY: Sikhs have suffered persecution and challenge to their identity for centuries. These challenges to their beliefs were direct and often violent, Sikhs survived these challenges with courage and bravery. The times have since changed. The present day challenges to the Sikh way of life are of a different genre, indirect, very insidious but no less harmful to our beliefs. In the United States, these challenges are in the form of denying equal opportunity in the work place to practicing Sikhs under the guise of Industrial safely or Health’ regulations, such as wearing of hard hats, gas masks, or no facial hair, etc. We need to fight this type of indirect and insidious challenge to our identity at a social, political and legal level. Following is the representative case that our committee is presently handling
As a devout follower of the Sikh religion. Charan Kalsi is required to keep a turban on his head.
But as a subway-car inspector with the Transit Authority, he was ordered to wear a hardhat, instead.
Kalsi refused. And the 47-yearold father of three was fired five days into his new job. Now he’s turned in federal court in Brooklyn with a $1 million law suit against the TA and a demand for his old job back “During the interview. no one said I had to wear the hardhat,” Kalsi said. “The supervisor said I didn’t have to wear it, just carry it around.” But then another boss laid down the law: No hardhat, no work. “This is an important religious freedom issue,” said his attorney. Richard Nager. “Reasonable accommodations have to be made.”
The case goes back to December, 1993. Kalsi, a veteran of the Indian Air Force with an engineering degree, passed the TA’s written test to become a $19-an-hour car inspector. He had just begun his on-the-job training when the hardhat issue came up. As a probationary employee, he was swiftly shown the door. Despite the lawsuit, Transit Authority officials said they would not back down. TA Safety Director Carmen Bianco said religion isn’t the issue here. Safety is. This is a hazardous job,” Bianco said. The use of hardhals is mandatory.”
“The inspectors crawl under the cars,” said TA spokesman Termaine Garden. “They work with all kinds of heavy components. If something came loose and him in the head, we’d all be in serious trouble.” If the TA made an exception to the hardhat rule, Garden said, an injured worker might well sue the agency for that. The issue people on both sides.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 20, 1995
