Religious Holiday Leave At Cintas Corporation

In “Working it Out” by Diana Eck, she writes about religious oppression in the workplace. The examples she gives on the many ways people have been fired, or the ways in which people's faiths have been compromised, reiterates that the amendment that states freedom of religion in the United States, is

Gomez-Mejia, L., Balkin, D., & Cardy, R. (2012). Managing Human Resources (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

This says it is unlawful to discriminate against people at work because of their religion or belief. The regulations also cover training that is to do with work.

Employment discrimination is any form of unfair treatment at the workplace practiced by the employer against a section of employees on the basis of their gender identity, sexual orientation, age, mental or physical disability, national origin, religion, gender, or race. Employment discrimination is unlawful according to the employment laws as underlined in the 1964, Civil Rights Act, Title VII (Clarkson, Miller & Cross,). In terms of salaries and payment of workers, it is unlawful to segregate employees or classify in compensation and other employment aspects.

Second, in 2013 the 10th Circuit Court ruled, an employee must communicate the disaccord between a religious practice and a work rule. The Court determined that an employee understands whether the practice observed by the employer is predicated in an inflexible religious practice. (10th Circuit Court, 2013) The relevance of this ruling is that only the employee can determine whether or not the employer is being inflexible in

Section 4 of the Equality Act 2010 lists many ‘protected characteristics’ that form the basis of discrimination law and one amongst them is ‘religion and belief’. Most of the provisions of the Act came into force on 1 October 2010 (Naamat et al., 2012). This Act repealed the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003. . Section 10 of the EA 2010 covers the protected characteristic of religion or belief. ‘Religion’ means any religion or lack of a religion and ‘Belief’ means any religious or philosophical belief, or lack of such a belief. As seen in the case of Grainger plc v Nicholson [2010] Mr Nicholson was made redundant from Grainger plc, the UKs largest listed specialist landlord. Mr Nicholson belived in climate change, for this reason he was nominated for redundancy first. He argued, as a initial matter, this was a philosophical belief within the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 r 2(1)(b) and that should be construed in accordance with ECHR art 9. He said it affected where he lived and how he travelled. Among other things, Grainger plc argued that if it was a philosophical belief then lack of the belief would be protected too. The employment judge held that Nicholson’s beliefs about climate change

The United States is one of the most culturally and religiously diverse countries in the world. The founding fathers of the United States wanted to ensure that its people would have the ability to practice their religion with no threat of persecution. In order to accomplish the goal of religious freedom and continue to ensure that all people of any religion would be free to practice their religion, the United States passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits an employer from discriminating based on the religious views of its employees. As the citizens of the United States spend a large amount of time in their places of employment, religious practices that these employees feel are necessary for the true observance of their religion must be accommodated by the employers. This law contends that in cases where the accommodation of religious practices of its employees does not create undue hardships, an employer must make reasonable accommodations for employees to practices the beliefs of their religion. As the demographics of the United States continues to change with more religiously diverse people immigrating to the country, employers are coming under more pressure to ensure they are taking all possible precautions to accommodate the religious practices of its employees. These precautions are important as the once an employee has established a bona fide complaint of religious discrimination, the burden of proof then falls on the employer to prove they

Reasonable Accommodation & Religion: The law requires an employer to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause difficulty or expense for the employer. This means an employer may have to make reasonable adjustments at work that will allow the employee to practice his or her religion, such as allowing an employee to voluntarily swap shifts with a co- worker.

In our company’s case the former employee alleges that enforcement of company’s new shift policy is discriminatory because the policy requires employees to work on a religious holy day.

time off from work to practice their faith and celebrate religious holidays. Employers may face

In the article Religious-Discrimination Claims on the Rise by Melanie Trottman, it is stated that “the EEOC received 3,811 religion-based complaints in fiscal 2012, the second-highest level ever and just below the record 4,151 in 2011” (Trottman, 2013, p. 1). In another article Study: Workplace Religious Discrimination on the Rise by Mike Ward lists similar number of religion-based complaints. The article by Trottman mentions that the EEOC has filed religious-discrimination lawsuits against companies in the fast-food, hair-salon, aviation, hotel, retail, medical and health-services industries. A recent case that the article mentions is about Muslim woman who worked at Abercrombie and was fired by the manager because her hijab violated

Cultural differences in the workplace can sometimes become a challenge in the work environment. In order to facilitate these differences, there must be some form of cultural awareness. Cultural awareness can help employees face the challenge of responding to individuals with different religions in the workplace, expose religious practices, and eliminate stereotyping in the workplace. Awareness of religions, and the beliefs associated with different religions, can be accomplished in many ways, such as training courses, workshops or company handouts (Thomas Kochan, 2003, p. 4). Companies must embrace multiculturalism and diversity.

As a young adult, I must exspress that I do, in fact, enjoy the talk about religion in the

Religion in the workplace can bring up some of the most difficult issues employers have to face. Resolving these issues requires understanding the law and balancing the business's needs with an employee's desire to practice his or her religion. One of the most contentious conflicts is between an employee's desire to take time off and the potential reduction in productivity and profitability. In ruling on Title VII religion cases, the courts have held that employers aren't required to accommodate employees' religious activities when it involves increased financial costs, transferring supervisory personnel or employees from other departments resulting in inefficiency, or discriminating against other employees or violating seniority systems. Accommodations that don't constitute undue hardship to the employer include voluntary substitutions or employee "swaps," flexible work schedules, floating or optional holidays, staggered work hours, and allowing employees to make up lost time. Transfers and job changes also are options if they don't cause reduced efficiency or

Today there are over 900 religious employee resource groups, according to the International Coalition of Workplace Ministries (Cañas & Sondak, 2010). These affinity groups can help encourage religious understanding by offering panel discussions that educate employees on their beliefs. By allowing open discussion, answering religious questions and creating an open, welcoming religious environment in the workplace employees can better relate to one another through shared religious principles (Cañas & Sondak, 2010). When looking at the business case for diversity, not asking employees to hide their faith at work allows for greater productivity, and time and energy focused on business results (Cañas