Tuesday, January 17, 2006

British Midland International is disgraceful

They have banned their employees from taking or wearing anything Christian on flights to or from Saudi Arabia. They have further told their female flight attendants (I gather they don't have female pilots...) that they:

must walk two paces behind male colleagues and cover themselves from head to foot in a headscarf and robe known as an abaya, the Mirror newspaper of London reported.

They also cannot take teddy bears or other "cuddly" toys.

The case can be made that the company must/should respect the "culture" of the locations that they fly to. The disgrace is that they have told their employees that they cannot opt out of flights to these locations. Their only option is to opt out of any international flights. At most airlines in the US international crews make more money than domestic crews. The article in this case claims that could result in being forced to give up $30K/year in wages.

As the company insists on being "tolerant" of the destination countries "culture" they have succeded in oppressing the sensibilities of their own employees. Disgraceful.

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