Good basic article on religious accomodation — a growing concern

Posted by George Lenard

June 26, 2004

Digging deep into my backlog for old stories that are still timely and worth passing on, I found this one from the April 12 (!) Christian Science Monitor: “Employers attempt to balance work and religion; Complaints alleging religious discrimination have risen 75 percent in the past decade.” (by Neal Learner)

Disputes over providing religious accommodations at work have increased . . . And the burden falls hardest on small businesses. . .

A typical religious accommodation charge involves an employee seeking to swap shifts with another employee to attend a Sabbath observance . . . They’ve arranged the accommodation on their own, but the employer will not permit that voluntary swap. . .

For years, Christians have filed complaints about working on Sundays and Jews about Saturday shifts. . . Now the other kind of case . . . is Muslim employees who need to go to prayer on Friday. They may . . . need . . . a two- to three-hour period in the middle of the day. . .

Federal law requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for workers’ religious needs, unless it imposes an undue hardship on the company. Most cases that end up in court involve disputes over what constitutes an undue hardship . . .

Some experts predict that workforce conflicts over religion will grow. “This is a problem that is going to get bigger and bigger because it’s demographically driven,” says Georgette Bennett, president of the New York-based Tanenbaum Center, which advises workplaces on religious diversity issues. Changing immigration patterns are boosting the number of people from parts of the world with less familiar religious beliefs and practices, she says. . . The workforce also is aging, she adds. The older people get, the more important religion becomes to them, Ms. Bennett says . . .

Another factor . . . is political: “With religion having been thrust into the public arena in a way that it hadn’t been before, that is emboldening people to assert their religious rights in a way they might not have done if religion had not been so politicized.”

Despite these factors, only about 4 percent of firms have policies that specifically deal with religious accommodations, according to a recent Tanenbaum survey of human resource professionals. Read more