IT Worker Allegedly Fired For Offering Bacon Sandwich To Muslim Co-Worker

AOL – by Dan Fastenberg

When it comes to discussing religion orpolitics in the office, of course, tact is required. But just how tight-lipped should you be? Clive Hunt, a 58-year old IT consultant in Manchester, England, confronted this question head on earlier this month, when he offered to pick up “bacon sandwiches” during a meeting with a new client. That reportedly offended a Muslim co-worker – and soon after, Hunt says he was told he lost the job. According to a report in the Manchester Evening News, Hunt says a manager told him the decision was made because of his “racist remark.”  

Hunt says he was in a meeting at a Manchester office of the Reed recruitment company to discuss an eight-month contract worth £32,000 (or $50,000) to work with the British National Health Service (NHS). And during the meeting, Hunt offered to pick up “bacon sandwiches,” which as the Examiner points out, is “standard English breakfast fare.” He didn’t know that a colleague in the meeting, Sharika Sacranie, 29, was an observant Muslim, forbidden from eating pig products.

Hunt says he didn’t intend to offend anyone. “I’d never met [Sacranie] before,” he told the Daily Mail, adding “we got on fine.” But after the meeting, Hunt says he received the call telling him his services were no longer needed due to his “racist” remark — an allegation Hunt disputes. “There was no slur at her because I’d already met all the contractors on site before and one of them had actually told me they had really good bacon sandwiches.”

Hunt added Sacranie herself chose not to address the incident both when it happened and during a follow up phone-call about the hiring process that took place before he was told he was being let go. He said the job loss was a blow; he’s been out of work for two months. Finally he claims to be bewildered that Reed had the power to terminate his employment. The “agency was just a middle man. How can it rescind an offer that was made to me by the NHS?” he asked the Daily Mail.

But according to John Spitzler, the president and principal recruiter for the Perimeter Consulting Group, an Atlanta-based executive search firm, it is common practice for search firms to rescind job offers. But in an interview with AOL Jobs, he said the decision is usually the result of a criminal or other background check. “It’s unusual for the choice to be made as a result of a cross-cultural insult, unintenteded or not,” he said.

Both the NHS and Sacranie have turned down media requests for comment. The Reed staffing firm, however, did release a statement defending the decision and suggesting that Hunt made additional “inappropriate” comments during a phone call:

Due to inappropriate comments made to members of our staff during the recruitment process before Mr Hunt started his new role, we do not feel we can represent this candidate further…. A senior manager from the Reed team spoke to Mr Hunt via telephone… [d]uring that conversation, Mr Hunt made further inappropriate comments. At this point it became clear to the senior manager that Reed could no longer represent Mr Hunt.

Both side are in agreement about the charge that Hunt had a strong reaction to the news. In recounting to the Daily Mail the conversation he had with the Reed manager, he said he “got so exasperated that [he] told him to ‘sod off’ and put the phone down.'”

Either way, Hunt’s fall from grace is in keeping with the trend throughout Europe of workers running into problems for how they’ve handled religious matters in the office. Seven years ago, British Airways suspended clerk Nadia Eweida for refusing to take off her cross, saying she wasn’t in compliance with the airline’s uniform code. Earlier this year, however, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, ruled the airline discriminated against her, and said she had the right to wear a symbol of her faith.

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2013/06/27/it-worker-fired-bacon-muslim