Reconciling Faith & Livelihood
Between 1992 and 1993, claims of employment discrimination based on religion jumped 82%! To put this in perspective, during the same period, claims involving race dropped by 3.5%.
Many employment discrimination claims based on religion involve instances in which employers refuse to provide an accommodation for an employee's religious practices. Three primary problem areas arise out of conflicts between work requirements and holy day observance, religious garb, and religious grooming requirements. A few claims arise out of conflicts between religious faith and a specific assigned duty. It is not only members of small or poorly understood faiths whoe experience trouble in the workplace. Cases coming before the courts have included Roman Catholics denied time off on Christmas Day; Evangelical Christians denied time off to attend church on Sundays; Sikhs whose employers require them to remove turbans; Jews and Seventh-day Sabbath keepers for refusing to work on Saturdays; Muslim women for wearing head scarves; and attempts to force Rastafarians to cut their dreadlocks.
There are four trends that drive the upsurge of religious discrimination:
- The movement toward a 24/7 work week with consequent conflict with religious demands for rest and worship on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays.
- Increasing diversity, marked by a broad spectrum of religious traditions, some of which may clash with workplace parameters that do not take into account the religious observances of immigrant peoples.
- Latent animosity toward some religious traditions after 9/11.
- A growing emphasis on material values instead of spiritual ones.
U.S. civil rights laws protect people of faith in the workplace, but this protection has proven controversial from its inception, and inadequate in its application.
What follows are examples of ordinary Americans who have suffered in extraordinary ways because their employers refused to take simple steps to respect their religious faith:
- Amric Sign Rathour, a practicing Sikh, was sworn in as a new officer in the NYPD in 2001. During 6 weeks of training, his supervisor requested that he shave his beard and remove his turban. When Rathour refused to compromise the tenets of his faith that requirement of wearing turbans and beards, he was fired.
- Teri Strickland, a SDA, worked ffor a temp agency in Oklahoma City. Her supervisor knew of her sundown-to-sundown Sabbath. One Saturday, her boss called and requested that she come to work on a project. She replied that she would be happy to come into work after sundown, but due to her religious convictions, she could not come in before then. Her boss became upset and fired her. She struggled to find a new job, did some part-time bookkeeping, and eventually turned to cleaning homes and selling her plasma to make ends meet. She completely depleted her savings and lost her home.
- Zeinab Ali, a Muslim, worked for Alamo Rent-A-Car. She was asked by her supervisor to remover her headscarf. Rather than removing it altogether, she replaced the scarf with a smaller covering. After a lengthy period of negotiations, she was laid off. Her efforts to gain legal redress have failed.
- Peter Howard worked in a furniture warehouse. After many years of employment he was ordained as a Methodist minister. Twice he had to miss work because of his ministerial duties, one being a funeral. He asked permission on Thursday, Friday at 5 he was told he could not take Saturday off. He did anyway, to conduct the funeral, and was fired.
- Michael Escoffery is a Rastafarian who worked for FedEx. His hair is in dreadlocks. FedEx maintained a tight personal appearance policy that did not include exemptions applicable to the Rastafarian hairstyle. When he refused to cut his hair, he was fired.
- Theresa George is a Roman Catholic who was convicted she should not work on Sunday. She told her supervisor at Home Depot, and they offered to let her have time off on Sundays to attend mass, but refused to accomodate her need to spend all of Sunday in rest and spiritual reflection. She remained steadfast in her religious conviction; Home Depot refused to explore possible accommodations and fired her.
- Rick Katz, an Orthodox Jew, applied to work as a repair tech with Sears. He received high marks on the employer's test, but was told he would not be hired because he would not work on his Sabbath. Mr. Katz offfered to work on Sunday nights instead of Saturdays, but his offer was rebuffed. Sears consistently told Katz that the reason for its refusal to hire him was that Saturday was the busiest day for repair technicians. Later investigations revealed that in fact Saturday was not the busiest day.
These are just a few of the types of cases that will find redress under WRFA.
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