Narrock wrote:Lueyen wrote:Narrock wrote:Employers have tried to play the "undue hardship" card and lost in court. The first bolded part is the key to the entire law... not the "omg what are we going to do? We can't get anybody else to work on Saturdays" BS.
Not all Employers will lose this argument if they have justifiable reasons, yes those that use it to cover discrimination will hopefully lose court cases, that is the whole point of why they have to prove undue hardship.
If employers lost on the basis that the law had a loophole that violated civil rights then the law it's self would be unconstitutional and therefore would have to be rewritten, they lost on a basis that is exactly what the law tries to guard against in requiring proof of hardship.
Really Narrock, you posted an example of a case that went to SCOTUS, one in which a law specifically stated exactly what you are arguing. SCOTUS did not agree, and the law was struck down as being unconstitutional. Furthermore the judges cited thier reasoning as being exactly that which Kizzy is arguing. Think about that a second here, SCOTUS agrees with Kizzy.
Then why did the Adventist working for the FAA win when he said he wasn't going to work on the Sabbath? They tried telling the court that they would be "dangerously understaffed" if he didn't show up to work on Saturday. Well, he didn't and they fired him. The court directed the FAA to reinstate his employment, and he won the lawsuit with punitive damages of over 2 million dollars.
Because the FAA was unable to prove undue burden, in fact the contrary was proven. It was proved beyond reasonable doubt that the supervisor not only setup the situation but made comments that were discriminatory.
From the case files:
http://www.kscourts.org/ca10/cases/2004/03/02-1461.htm Evidence presented at trial supports Reed's contention that Hof orchestrated the situation which led to Reed's absences and, ultimately, his termination. First, Hof converted the QATS position to a one-year, temporary assignment. Reed then was required to bid for his days off and the accommodation problem arose. Although Hof testified that he was motivated by a desire to give other controllers the "opportunity at a career enhancing position," the jury was free to disregard his explanation. Hof then instructed the other controllers to re-bid their days off under the hypothetical assumption that Reed would be given every Friday and Saturday off. Reed testified that this created hostility and made it more difficult for him to convince other controllers to swap shifts with him. Hof then approved personnel actions that resulted in a staffing shortage at the Pueblo facility. Although the union agreed to the decrease in staffing, it was on the condition that Hof and the other members of management agree to cover leave requests. Reed testified that Hof nevertheless refused to cover his Saturday shifts. There was also evidence that Hof refused to implement alternative staffing plans that would have alleviated most of the accommodation problem.
Other evidence in the record supports the jury's finding that Hof's actions were motivated by intentional discrimination. Reed testified that Hof quizzed him repeatedly about his religious beliefs and frequently asked him to work on Saturdays while he was in the QATS position. Further, at a meeting in March 1995, Hof referred to Reed's religion as a "scam" and a religion of convenience. Hof's actions on May 27, 1995, when he turned the Pueblo airspace over to Denver Central after learning that Reed had been granted spot leave, could be interpreted by a jury as an indication of his hostility toward Reed.
Now, I have to ask the question... Why would a company risk all that just to be assholes about making an employee work on a day that is sacred to them? The law protects people with regards to Sabbath days. They cannot fire you if you don't want to work on the Sabbath. Nor, can they deny you employment for that reason. That's the part many of you are not letting sink into your thick noggins.
You see this is what you are missing here, it is conceivable for a company to be unable to feasibly accommodate requests for certain days off. The jury in this case found that the reason for the denial of time off was discrimination, and not undue strain, and frankly it looks like they were spot on.
The law makes a distinction you are missing, it distinguishes between denial of time off for the Sabbath based on realistic restrictive aspects of a business, and denial of time off based on religious prejudice and hate.
Now we've come full circle and you are back to again citing the first case you mentioned, the next one you mentioned went before the supreme court and the law stating point blank and without question that a company absolutely must grant an employee the Sabbath off was struck down as unconstitutional.
The law grants people protection from religion based bias in the work place, and this does include failure to accommodate time off for "holy days" but only to the extent that the failure to accommodate is based in prejudice toward a person for their religious beliefs. If due to the nature of a company or business granting those same days off requires undue stress on the company or extra ordinary actions then a company is well within their right within the confines of the law to deny the request.
The bottom line is that the law does not require a company to hire you if you can not work days they need covered, even if you are unavailable on those days due to religious belief. The law does not require that a company give you the days off, if it would require that the company go beyond normal means, those being the normal means used to facilitate ANYONES time off for ANY REASON.
Here is a realistic example for you.
Imagine you worked for a company where you and 2 other people did the same job on different shifts with different days off. Imagine you were the last one hired and that selection of days off was based on seniority, and this had been a long standing company policy. If the person with the most seniority had chosen Fridays and Saturdays off, then the company would not be obligated to force them to change their schedule to accommodate your possibly new found religious beliefs. I would think this situation would only occur if you converted to new religious beliefs after you had been working there because if you required Friday and Saturday off in this scenario you wouldn't be hired due to your availability not being congruent with what the company was looking for. In this case the company's inability to accommodate your request would be completely legitimate and legal.