Well not all employers even serious bible thumpers tolerate flagrant violations of the law. At one job I was told (in front of 4 witnesses by asst. manager) that I would not be appropriate to promote to a supervisory position because I was not christian therefore had no conscience. Luckily our Regional manager (a recent christian convert) had a very well documented open door policy on darn near anything, damn good manager in general from what I saw. One phone call to him, the next morning and after checking with the witnesses I cited, assistant manager of store was fired.
:punt:
Wish I could have been there to see the meeting when they gave him the boot.
Having worked in an “entertainment business” in management I know this one.
IANAL but as I understand it A large part of entertainment is portraying a certain “image” this is why you dont get to sue for discrimination because your stunning platinum blonde daughter dosent get the part as Malcom X in a movie.
Any performer or public contact employee of an entertainment business my be selected for appearance (not religion, orientation, or other invisible traits). You want to hire nothing but women in a themed nightclub. You’re legal.
If your work is non-religious in nature, you theoretically can’t be fired based on your religion. I take it you fill book orders, pack cartons, track inventory, etcetera? The First Amendment naturally protects churches and other religious institutions (monasteries, nunneries, seminaries) from having to employ persons AS RELIGIOUS WORKERS who don’t subscribe to certain religious beliefs. That would be making a “law respecting an establishment of religion” Big Time. But to the extent that they’re hiring, say, bookkeepers, even a church probably can’t rule out applicants or fire them for not being in total accord with that organization’s particular dogma. (Unless they can point to a longstanding religious practice of never hiring unbelievers to count the shekels.) In any case, bookstores, book companies, video producers, are rarely religious institutions—they might be non-religious institutions operated by a religious institution, but that still doesn’t make them religious in and of themselves.
Of course, in a so-called “right to work” state (they should be called “right to exploit the hell out of your employees” states), your employer can come up with some innocuous non-faith-based reason to fire you (“just not up to our standards,” “wanted to hire my brother-in-law”) and fire you for that reason. Even if you KNOW, due to statements made to you, that the REAL reason you’re getting the ax is failure to believe in the-Bible-as-literal-truth, you have a PROOF problem. Sure you can take 'em to court; alas, it’s your word against theirs.
thanks for all your help guys, (I realy thought this would be more of a debate) and for the record I do phone tech suppport for the company–not exactly somthing that requires knowledge of all the sons of abraham…
I am familiar with how it works in MI. YMMV. We’re right to work state. My agency has a set of personnel policies (works like a union contract) I’m required to follow those. Had we not had the personnel policies in writing, I would be allowed to fire some one at any time w/o giving them a reason.
however, they can file for unemployment compensation, the unemployment folks then send me a document which asks “why was this person let go?”, and I must answer it there - and if the reason I give is insufficient (the brother in law, for example), then the employee will be able to claim unemployment compensation, plus I’ve now given them a written reason for the dismissal, which they then can take to court if they think it was unjustified.
I had fired a guy once, worked for me for only 43 days, he filed for unemployment (connected also with another job), so I had to elaborate, in writing, to my verbal “it just isn’t working out”. His claim was denied.