“A Connecticut Bath & Body Works staffer who practices witchcraft claims her boss put a hex on her career for using vacation time to attend Salem’s annual Halloween celebration. Gina Uberti charges in a federal lawsuit that Bath & Body Works fired her after she took a week off around Halloween 2008 to mark the Wiccan holiday of Samhain.
“Any and all excuses offered by (Bath & Body Works) for the plaintiff’s termination are a pretext for the true reason – religious discrimination,” the East Haven, Conn., woman’s lawyer wrote in court papers. Neither Uberti, her attorney or Bath & Body Works returned calls seeking comment on the case. But in court filings, Uberti alleged that the chain canned her after eight years because she took time off for the holiday, also called “Witches’ New Year.”
Uberti, a Bath & Body Works district sales manager, claims she’d taken vacation around Samhain for years, but said her new supervisor flipped out when learning why. During a Nov. 4, 2008, phone call about her absence, Uberti’s boss allegedly said: “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,” adding, “Well, you will need a new career in your new year. . . . I will be damned if I have a devil worshipper on my team.” Two weeks later, Uberti claims, Bath & Body Works fired her.”
Read more at Boston Herald
If she’s daft enough to believe in a devil, maybe she needs a career change…
“I will be damned if I have a devil worshipper on my team.” That’s the key phrase, she was fired based solely on her beliefs.
Witchcraft is no more ridiculous then any other socially accepted faith, plus she was using her allowed vacation time. If she had demanded extra time-off, it would be a different story.
surely that’s prejudice even if her boss was horrified it still classed as a religion.
That is absolutely sickening. I hope that man is at least stripped of his position if that was the reason he fired her. Granted, he may not have said that and may have just plain old fired her, but with the way people are these days it would not surprise me if that was not the case.
Burn her!!
Strongly in favour of equal rights for religions…take time off for EVERY holy day. If there isn’t one listed, invent it
Plain stupid reason to sack her. If her time off was pre-booked and part of her annual leave anyhow, there’s no reason for it.
Religion or not, it aught to be an open and shut case unless she was bringing goats into work to sacrifice at her desk or something blatantly against most reasonable company policies (in fact if she worked in an abbatoir even that could be taken as an asset!).
I have a friend who is also pagan (she comes from a pagan family,) and her mum got a warning for the exact same reason, except it was because her employer didn’t see paganism as a valid religion.
I hope everybody on here also realises that pagans DON’T worship the devil. We don’t even believe in Satan.
Sorry to be pedantic but witches don’t worship the devil – they don’t even believe there is a devil !
I whole-heartedly agree with _JonBaxter_ & tonight I shall be celebrating the holy festival of stuff your face with cream cakes !
I love how he assumes that she’s a devil worshiper. You can tell the guy has never read a Wikipedia article in his life.
i think there’s more to the story (gee what a surprise that would be). i can see taking time off for the holiday, but a whole week? WTF was she planning to do, raise the entire cemetery?
why doesnt the article mention for what official reasons the lady was fired?
i dont think that the article is balanced and really gives all the imformation that there is,
and so i think no conclusions should be drawn on this thin basis.
respectfully,
christine
Try that on Granny Weatherwax and see what it gets you.
Oh my, what a dumb supervisor … he apparently did not have enough stuff from his wife/partner yet, nor did his job apparently take enough from him. Unless there\’s more to this ofcourse than just the holidays. You for some reason sort of hope for that … at least …
What\’s next? Get the fuck out of people\’s private life. And have the man send to court himself. He did not do that much overthere anyhow. Fire the bastard.
roz: How about travel to Salem, stay for festivities, travel back? I’m taking a week off around xmas as well, and I’m not even religious. Samhain is the (neo)pagan New Year, lots of people take time off around the standard New Year. Not seeing the problem there.
Nobody would be brave enough to try that on Granny Weatherwax