(Yle) Three civil servants with Helsinki City’s Urban Environment Division face labour discrimination and dereliction of duty charges in Helsinki District Court after failing to finalise an employment contract with a new hire after he said he was a practicing Muslim and would require prayer breaks during working time.
In 2016, the city hired the plaintiff as an engineer for the city’s housing production unit, but the recruitment process came to a halt after the plaintiff sat down with a senior civil servant and human resources director from the Urban Environment Division to draw up the employment contract.
During that meeting the plaintiff told his new employer that he was a practicing Muslim and would need to take daily five-minute breaks for prayers in addition to a one-hour break on Fridays that he did not expect to be paid for.
