Turban-wearing Sikhs can still enter the port, but if they don’t put on a hard hat they have to stay in the cabs of their truck. dock workers to obtain helmet exemptions for Sikh longshoremen failed on arbitration; turban-wearing Sikhs were simply reassigned to areas where hard hats weren’t mandatory. Currently, there are only two places in Canada where turban-wearing Sikhs can find a codified exemption from a safety requirement. It’s why the turban-wearing Sikh community has successfully fought anti-turban policies at restaurants, soccer games or public institutions. In the U.K., for instance, it was a 1989 amendment to the Employment Act that allowed turban-wearing Sikhs to be exempt from head protection requirements on construction sites.

Source: National Post September 29, 2016 16:41 UTC