Victory: Company Reverses Course After Punishing Employee for Refusing To Work Extra Shifts on the Sabbath in a Big Win for Religious Liberty

The ACLJ just secured a big victory for one of our clients who was being disciplined for attending church instead of working extra shifts on the Sabbath in a win for the free exercise of religion in the workplace.

Too often in our society today – and despite federal protections – employees are forced to place their job duties above their sincerely held religious beliefs and practices. Employers instruct employees not to share their faith in the workplace, or they schedule an employee to work on the Sabbath despite knowing that doing so violates that individual’s religious beliefs and/or prevents them from observing the Sabbath. (You can learn more about your right to a religious accommodation to attend church here.) The ACLJ has represented many employees whose religious accommodations have not been acknowledged and remains dedicated to defending religious freedom in the workplace.

Just last week, the ACLJ successfully defended against such an infringement. Our client in Texas works for a large manufacturing company. Saturdays were never part of our client’s scheduled work week; however, the employer consistently scheduled our client to cover other employees’ shifts that carried over into Saturday. After joining a new church that observes the Sabbath on Saturdays, our client, in accordance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (“Title VII”), provided his employer a letter requesting Saturdays off.

Despite being aware of our client’s religious beliefs, the employer continued to schedule our client to cover shifts on Saturdays. The employer was certainly in the position to accommodate our client’s request because several other employees possessed the same skills and did not observe the Sabbath on Saturdays. Nonetheless, the company went as far as filing a disciplinary report against our client and forcing our client to use 48 hours of paid time off in order to observe the Sabbath. Moreover, if all our client’s paid time off (PTO) was used up, the employer would note his absence as unexcused.

As soon as the ACLJ became aware of this egregious conduct, we sent a demand letter to the employer outlining applicable federal law and explaining that the company’s conduct violates federal law by failing to accommodate our client’s religious beliefs. As we explained in our legal letter, federal law – specifically Title VII – prohibits the company from discriminating against employees on the basis of religion and requires that it make reasonable accommodations to an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs as long as it does not pose an undue hardship to the employer.

For decades, the “undue hardship” standard placed an enormous strain on religious freedom in the workplace as employers were only required to show the accommodation constituted more than a de minimis cost. However, a unanimous Supreme Court recently held in Groff v. DeJoy that employers must demonstrate a substantial burden to satisfy the undue hardship requirement and lawfully refuse a religious accommodation. In other words, costs to the employer must rise to a level that is excessive or unjustifiable for an employer to deny an employee’s religious accommodation. (The ACLJ filed an instrumental amicus brief in this case defending religious liberty.)

As we explained in our demand letter, the company faced no substantial burden whatsoever in accommodating our client’s request. In fact, the employer had several other employees who could cover the extra shift our client was being forced to work at no additional or minimal cost.

The ACLJ was prepared to move forward and file a lawsuit. Fortunately, the company quickly responded to our legal demands and not only agreed to accommodate our client’s request by never requiring him to work again on Saturday but also to remove the disciplinary report from our client’s file and return the 48 hours of PTO that our client was required to use in the past to observe the Sabbath.

If you have requested a religious accommodation and your employer has ignored your request or suggested that they cannot accommodate it, your rights under Title VII may have been violated. The ACLJ is dedicated to defending your constitutional rights. If you have experienced a similar situation, please contact us at ACLJ.org/HELP.