Day of Worship - Overtime

qsausagelm

As a manufacturing company, we, on occasion, have to work on Sundays in order to meet customer orders. We have an employee that says that she will not work on Sundays because she is a Christian. I explained to her that she can still attend church on Sunday and then come in to work. She says that she attends church twice that day for a total of six hours and there would not be enough time to come in to work.

If it was just one employee, accommodation would be easy, but what if all or many of her co-workers take the same position? Help!!

Margaret Morford

You are required to reasonably accomodate her request. The hitch is what is reasonable? Does your company have a policy that says overtime is mandatory? If not, it should. You should inform anyone hired that the job he/she is being considered for may require some mandatory overtime. Also, will you allow her as an accomodation to find a substitute to fill in for her? You might also agree to allow her to make up the time by staying late several days that week. You might also tell her that you will permit her to use vacation time to cover her absence that day or agree to allow her to miss the mandetory overtime as long as you do not get an inordinate number of requests from others to do the same. If that were the case then tell her you would have to permit this on a rotating basis between everyone that asked off because they wish to attend church. Last but not least, try sitting down with her and tell her that you want to accomodate her desire to attend church, but that you need to be fair to everyone else who is required to work. What is her suggestion for how to be fair to everybody? Be sure to document the conversation.

Your business need for the mandetory overtime can override her desire to attend church twice on Sunday. At the point you are going to force her to come to work on Sunday, I would advise you to get some legal advise about the cases where the courts in your district have permitted companies to overide religious accomodations.

If you have any questions about my answer, do not hesitate to call me at 615-371-8200.

Margaret Morford

qsausagelm

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Unfortunately, I think the flood gates are opening because more employees are saying that they want Sunday off to attend church services. We can accomodate by letting them work a partial shift, but we would be short handed while they are not at work.

System

It sounds like this is a morale problem in addition to a potential legal problem.

If a sizable percentage of your employees want to go to church on Sundays, you might want to consider creative scheduling. For example, consider having a full or partial crew work an extra four hours on Friday and Saturday instead of eight hours on Sunday. Or have an eight-hour shift on Sunday that begins at 1:00. Or, as Margaret Morford suggested, spread out the overtime over the workweek.

I realize, however, that these ideas might not be practical at your company.

Paul in Cannon Beach

Hey,

I will be praying for you!

Sorry! Bad joke. But you got to keep your sense of humor when you are in HR.

Paul

Big Fred

Here is something that may help you!

Law:
Title VII prohibits discrimination based on religion. Religion includes not only religious beliefs which are associated with traditional religions, but religious "observances and practices" as well. A particular belief, observance, or practice falls within this definition if it is sincerely held and occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the GOD of those religions admittedly qualifying for the exemption.

The above does not express nor imply that casual requests to attend special functions or programs will be allowed. What this means is that we have a responsibility to reasonably accommodate religious requests. However, accommodations that result in "undue hardship" on the business are not required under law. As a result, our procedure will be to get it in writing, then we will decide. Be sure that when you or your support team respond to such requests they are aware of our procedure.

Douglas Neu RI

I would also make sure to check your state law in addition to complying with Title VII. There was a bill introduced this session in Rhode Island that would set forth the specifics on what accomodations must be given to employees who want to attend religious services, and it is much more specific than federal law. I don't know whether Texas has such a law, but it is definitely worth checking.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

Douglas B. Neu
Editor, Rhode Island Employment Law Letter
Powers, Kinder & Keeney, Inc.
[email]dneu@pkklaw.com[/email]

Rockie

Most of the time if this is an occasional request, you can get volunteers to work on Sunday especially if it involves extra pay. I agree that you should probably get a legal opinion on this. If you allow time to attend church services, this would seem to be sufficient,but there are some people who are adamantly opposed to working at all on Sunday (or Saturday, depending on religion). You would probably have to make this accommodation if this is the case and does not place an undue hardship on you.

This is a common problem in the hospital environment. Most of the time if an employee does not wish to work on Sunday, then they would have to agree to work on Saturday if needed. Again, you usually do not have problems getting volunteers to work if it involves extra pay.