No to ban on religious symbols at work in Oslo

Oslo City Hall, Oslo municipality finedOslo City Hall.Photo: Norway Today Media
Carl Hagen and Oslo’s Fremskrittspartiet (Frp) want to forbid municipal employees wearing religious, philosophical or politically labelled clothes at work, but did not receive agreement by the city council.
Elected councillors in the capital voted  on the proposal during Wednesday’s city council meeting, reported Dagen newspaper.
The proposal for a ban came in the wake of an EU judgment that employers can ban employees from wearing symbols at work.
Oslo Frp believed that this could be introduced in the capital, even though the Equality and Discrimination Ombudsman had earlier concluded  that the EU verdict wasn’t directly relevant or transferable to Norwegian conditions.
At the end of the debate in the city council, Carl Hagen said that he had ‘disregarded whether the state had considered something similar, and that it could hit the little piece of jewelry worn by Sylvi Listhaug while she was at work.’
Hagen’s party  colleague has received attention and criticism for wearing a necklace with a cross on her neck while being an integration minister.
According to Dagen newspaper, Hagen believes that the city council has now opened up the possibility, in principle, that Oslo’s municipal staff can now wear a large swastika or Frp button at work.
Erik Lunde of the Christian Democratic Party (KrF) refuted this,  pointing out that existing legislation already stops extreme examples, such as wearing, for example, swastikas.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today