New York City Mayor Signs Bill
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has signed into law a bill set off by the Sikh Coalition to improve religion-based protections for employees working in the metropolis.
Amardeep Singh, programme director and co-founder of the community advocacy group said that this law is a key step forward in ensuring that Sikhs and other religious minorities are not unfairly ruled out from jobs for which they are otherwise qualified. The present law does not allow Sikhs to work for the New York City Police Department unless they remove their turbans. Sikh and Muslim workers who currently work for the Metropolitan Transit Authority are forced to sort their religious headwear with an MTA logo.
The new law, called the "Workplace Religious Freedom Act", would modify the legal standard by which courts evaluate claims of religious workplace discrimination by public and private New York City employees.
While the new law does not force either the MTA or New York Police Department to acknowledge Sikhs with their full items of faith, it creates a legal structure within city law that makes it very hard to continue to prohibit them from city jobs.
According to a research report issued in 2008, the group alleged one in ten Sikhs in New York City reported suffering discrimination in employment.
