To think that if a workplace requires you to wear a poppy they should supply one?

[HaveIGoneMadHere]

Basically just that. My work group chat have had a text from our manager this morning to say that if we don’t have a poppy by the end of the day we could face disciplinary action. I don’t tend to carry cash with me and have no way of getting change as I’m now on my way to work. Would I be unreasonable to go back and ask them to supply one for me?

I have nothing against wearing the poppy, I just don’t tend to carry cash with me and don’t go to places where they’re sold that frequently. I’ve not seen a single poppy box yet this year.

I'd bypass the manager. Take a screenshot, send it straight to HR. Play dumb and say you're worried about disciplinary action as you can't afford a poppy until payday. If you have a competent HR team you'll get to watch the manager be called in.

Could you just print a picture of a poppy of make a simple one yourself? Really simple like draw on a piece of paper, colour and cut out and then stick it to your clothes using tape.

Having said that I totally agree with you. They shouldn't be forcing anyone and thr least thing they can do is to provide them.

Not qualified to give a legal opinion under UK law and this is not legal advice, but requiring you to wear a poppy or face disciplinary action sounds like basis for a workplace discrimination complaint. The act or wearing (or not wearing) a poppy could be argued to constitute political speech/opinion and forcing you to wear one against your wishes seems tantamount to workplace discrimination on the basis of political opinion. Is HR aware that this is being required from your manager?

We don't yet have thought police!

This isn't AIBU. It's a work/legal query about freedom of expression.

Then just don’t wear one. You’ve given a million excuses so just don’t. No one can legally force you.

And as for the posters asking why you wouldn’t want to. Well everything the British Army have been involved in hasn’t been good so I can imagine that if your family were originally from one of these countries you might feel differently.

You can't "claim work clothes back on tax". You can include some very specific workwear on your tax return and get a tax credit of the tax paid on the value, if you're a 20% tax payer then for a £10 top you'd get a £2 credit (/rebate).

But it is extremely limited and only if you have to provide your own very specific types of clothes.

The second part says that it's people on Facebook that have the opinion expressed in the first part and implies the poster doesn't agree with that opinion.

It's really not hard to figure out

You don't buy food? Or milk?

Washing up liquid is 60p and doesn't go off, so you'll just be one WUL ahead for a while.

But you've given so many different reasons for not buying one that it now sounds as if you don't have any actual issue with buying one.

So, don't. And stop making things up about why you won't.

As I said, I wouldn't buy or wear one. But I do donate monthly to a military charity.

Your employer will do what they will do. Just go along with it.

Though I do like the empty pin idea, except that it is just giving in.

My issue would be that all the members of the Armed Forces who fought in WW1 are now dead and very few if the ones who fought in WW2 would still be alive now. If someone was conscripted as an 18 year old in 1945, the last year of the war, they would be 97 now.

The conflicts that living soliders or veterans fought in are much more controversial and can divide opinion, e.g. Northern Ireland and Afghanistan so people can have legitimate reasons for not donating.

No way should a work place be enforcing this.

Secretary of State for Justice?

Disciplinary for not wearing a poppy is outrageous, they often fall off anyway!
The company should supply pin badges for staff to wear but I'm not sure where they stand legally if you refuse to wear a poppy.
However I would wear one, particularly if it's respectful of the customers you work with.
But your work are being far to heavy handed with it

Do you work at Reform HQ?

As for those old people complaining, then why should their complaints be pandered to? We were fighting AGAINST fascism 😡

These kind of people are exactly why I choose not to wear a poppy.

I'm Irish and I refused to wear one in the past.

Surely you're allowed your own beliefs op.

This!

Not your business why some people choose not to wear a poppy.

have you asked HR for a ruling?

I am great supporter of the RBL's appeal and I would strongly encourage the purchase and wearing of a poppy. However, it should never be compulsory and think any employer that tried to enforce this would be in the wrong. Some communities morally object to poppies-the Northern Irish catholic community in some areas do.

I actually do work in an army barracks and we’ve never been told we must wear one!

Where do you work, GB News, The Mail, The BBC? I hate this poppy watch nonsense, Mail is in full hysteria about it currently. I never wear one but I do think about vetrans, conflict, death, injury and all the other consequences of war. My father was a Japanese POW and his undiagnosed, unrecognised and untreated PTSD had a profoundly negative effect on my childhood, I do not need to pin a bit of red paper on my lapel to acknowledge the horrors of war, it has been passed down the generations in mine and many other families and I dislike all this performative stuff which seems to get more OTT every year.

what about non-British workers? Sure they are not expected to wear one?

Work requiring you to virtue-signal or face disciplinary action is obnoxious. Awful.

So would you be OK with being told at work you must donate to a charity you don't support?

I support certain charities, I don't support others. The British legion is a charity I would never support. How I spend my money is none of my manager's business.

Well it is under the AIBU topic.

This ⬆️

We used to have to wear them as journalists. No one challenged but I’d assume it wasn’t enforced. Wasn’t as issue as I choose to wear one. They take Apple Pay - I never have change. I make a donation then wear my M&S one each year.