{"id":2011,"date":"2010-09-10T11:56:39","date_gmt":"2010-09-10T18:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2012-04-03T20:57:48","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T03:57:48","slug":"both-sides-say-gross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2010\/both-sides-say-gross\/","title":{"rendered":"Both Sides Say, ‘Gross!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is widespread shock following the news that Duke Amachree has lost his case, having been sacked for mentioning God in the workplace. An employment tribunal has ruled that it was reasonable for Wandsworth Council to dismiss Duke. Duke was initially suspended for telling a client with an incurable illness not to give up hope and suggesting that she try putting her faith in God. He was later sacked for gross misconduct for his comments to her and for taking the story to the press. The decision has come as a huge surprise to Duke and to his legal team.<\/p>\n

Duke, a father of two and committed Christian, had worked for Wandsworth Council for 18 years and had an unblemished record. Yet, as a result of the comments he made in one 45 minute housing interview, he was subject to 6 months of investigations and three interviews with the Council. His solicitor was even told by the Council that saying \u201cGod bless\u201d to a client would require an investigation if the client complained.<\/p>\n

Gross misconduct usually covers such behaviour as violence in the workplace, theft or other such serious conduct. Yet the client herself expressly stated that she did not want Duke to be dismissed for what he had said and Duke had never been told that such small talk in a housing interview was prohibited. The Council have always accepted that Duke\u2019s motivation in speaking to the client was purely one of compassion.<\/p>\n

Duke, backed by the Christian Legal Centre, took his case to the tribunal where it was argued that the Council\u2019s decision to dismiss him was grossly disproportionate and unfair, and that they had discriminated against him on the basis of his religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For the rest of the story: Shock decision against Council worker sacked for mentioning God<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, an observation: If this had happened in the States, the issue raised may well have been racial discrimination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is widespread shock following the news that Duke Amachree has lost his case, having been sacked for mentioning God in the workplace. An employment tribunal has ruled that it was reasonable for Wandsworth Council to dismiss Duke. Duke was initially suspended for telling a client with an incurable illness not to give up hope … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,8,10],"tags":[580],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-endangered-christians","category-politics","category-religion","tag-religious-freedom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-wr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}