{"id":642,"date":"2019-12-10T17:55:48","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T17:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/?p=642"},"modified":"2021-03-05T14:56:35","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T14:56:35","slug":"dear-professor-accommodating-religious-preferences-in-the-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/2019\/12\/10\/dear-professor-accommodating-religious-preferences-in-the-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Professor: Accommodating religious preferences in the workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Posted by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.umflint.edu\/som\/alexis-menard\">Alexis Menard<\/a>&nbsp;on December 10, 2019 at 12:55 pm <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dear Professor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Q: I am an employer of\n110 employees in a retail setting. How far do I have to go to accommodate\nreligious preferences? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A: Religion is one of the five protected classes under Title\nVII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, along with race, sex and national origin. &nbsp;Employers cannot discriminate against\nemployees or applicants on the basis of being a member of one or more of the\nfive classes.&nbsp; The law applies to\nemployers of more than 15 employees, including government employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Typically, religious bias arises when an employee\u2019s work\nschedule conflicts with a religious observance or appearance requirements.&nbsp; But frequently the type of work creates a\nconflict, such as anti-abortion nurses required to assist in abortions.&nbsp; Further, pejorative statements by other\nemployees or supervisors can form a basis for a religious discrimination claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An employer is required to accommodate religion unless it\ncauses an undue hardship on the employer. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that\nthe accommodation does not have to involve more than minimal expense or\noperational problems.&nbsp; For example, an\nemployer does not have to incur shift or overtime premiums to cover for an employee\u2019s\nreligious request or change seniority or require others to work a shift to\naccommodate. On the other hand, an employer would have to allow employees doing\nthe same work to voluntarily switch shifts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;(If you have a\nquestion of general interest in any area of business, send your inquiry to <a href=\"mailto:fcullari@umich.edu\">fcullari@umich.edu<\/a>.&nbsp; An answer will be posted in the immediate\nsubsequent issue. Individual advice is not offered in this forum.&nbsp; The opinion is that of the professor\nanswering your question and not necessarily that of SOM or UM.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by&nbsp;Alexis Menard&nbsp;on December 10, 2019 at 12:55 pm Dear Professor: Q: I am an employer of 110 employees in a retail setting. How far do I have to go to accommodate religious preferences? A: Religion is one of the five protected classes under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, along with race, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":409,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-157","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/409"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions\/843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.umflint.edu\/som\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}