One-Day Start Date Postponement To Accommodate Religious Observance: Not An Undue Hardship

Hard to believe but true.

A Maryland logistics/delivery company was just sued by the EEOC because it refused to hire an applicant for a dispatcher/customer service position who could not work on Rosh Hashanah due to his religious beliefs.

Why did it do that?

Got me.

Apparently, he was willing to start the day after Rosh Hashanah, but a company VP told him, according to the EEOC, that he had to report to work on Rosh Hashanah because “the company only honored federal holidays, and that if he gave [him] a religious accommodation, he would have to extend them to other employees.”

When he reported to work the following day, he was sent home.

An EEOC Regional Attorney said that “The freedom to exercise one’s religious beliefs is one of our nation’s fundamental values. Mr. McCloud simply asked if he could start work one day later than scheduled so he could observe Rosh Hashanah, one of the Jewish High Holy Days. A one-day postponement of a start date is not an undue hardship.”

One day later — why would an employer do that?  Hard to fathom.

I have noted before that religious discrimination was formerly a backwater of employment discrimination law but has shot to the forefront in recent years.  Indeed, as we have seen in this blog “employers refusing time off for religious observances has become an increasingly common issue affecting the workforce.”

The EEOC recently sued a Georgia automotive parts manufacturer and supplier for alleged religious discrimination for firing an employee who, because of her religious beliefs, refused to work mandatory overtime hours on designated Saturdays.  Initially she was excused from sundown Friday through sundown Saturday, until a new supervisor refused to accommodate her, and she was fired.

And last month I reported on a South Carolina company which had hired a Hebrew Pentecostal truck driver who told them that he could not, for religious reasons, work on the Sabbath, but it eventually fired him for refusing to do so.  The EEOC sued the company.

Takeaway:

Unless it creates an undue burden, an employee’s religious practices and beliefs must be accommodated by an employer.  And an employer must engage the employee in the famous “interactive process” to determine if there exists an accommodation that is not unduly burdensome.

Moreover, and this is important: most religious accommodations are not unduly costly!  Which is why I am always a little stunned that employers fail to accommodate a religious belief when it is so easy to do.

And a one-day postponement of a start date does not appear to be an undue hardship.