Does the law protect you from having to do something contrary to your religious beliefs at work? Here’s why I ask:
I work for a company that helps individuals with developmental disabilities find and keep jobs. Most require what we call “supported employment,” which basically means that a non-developmentally-disabled person is with them at their job site at all times, coaching them and such. I am one such person.
Well, one of my clients, we’ll call him “Alfalfa,” cleans rooms at a high-falutin’ hotel downtown. One of his duties is to make sure that each room has a copy of the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Alfalfa expressed to me that he has some issues with putting copies of the Book of Mormon in the rooms; he feels like he is taking part in Mormon evangelism, and as a Catholic he will have none of it.
In response, I did what any red-blooded American laborer would do in a sticky work situation: I left a voice-mail with The Boss. However, I’m vexed. Does the law protect Alfalfa? He really likes his job, and I’d hate to see him have to face a situation where he does as he’s told or loses his job.
Something about this sentence doesn’t quite sound right to me. I have to do what’s expected of me in my job, or I would expect to lose it. If he has moral qualms about what he’s doing in his job, then he needs to consider getting another job. What if he considers the Hotel brochures to have morally objectionable material in them?
What does his priest say? I really don’t recall hearing that the Catholic church is real rigid regarding this type of activity, but I could be wrong. IMHO, I don’t see it as a religious freedom issue.
Qadgop- I recognize your concerns. Honestly, I don’t know what his priest has to say about it or what his religion in general has to say it. All I know is that my training taught us to respect the individuals’ religious beliefs at all costs; I wonder if his employer must do the same.
Catholic-school educated here----there’s nothing in our teaching that says that you can not handle literature of a different faith. However; there are people who carry their religious beliefs to an extreme that is not taught by the church.
No one should to anything that they feel is against their religion. Therefore—he should quit.
BTW—can YOU place the books? Or is it the knowledge that they’re there, that he disapproves of?
If your job is going to necessitate your violating religious laws (and cannot be avoided) then you should not take the job.
For example, I know that I could never become a chef at a major resturaunt. Why? Because Orthodox Jews are prohibited from cooking milk and meat together (even if they will not eat it). I could not, in good faith, accept such a job and then tell my boss “By the way, I can’t cook dishes 1, 2, 3 and 4 because doing so would violate my religious beliefs.”
It seems to me that the job is cleaning the hotel room, which means making sure that there is clean soap, sheets, towels, etc; that there are hangers in the closet, a phone book and Bible and Mormon tractate in the desk drawer, etc. So the first thing to do is calm his moral sense: he’s not being asked to preach Mormonism, he’s just being asked to be sure that the hotel room is up to standards. He’s checking for the presence of the books the same way he’s checking for the presence of the towels or the hangers in the closet. Tell him to get down off his high horse.
If he’s in a snit, ask his priest. The Catholic Church doesn’t prohibit him from touching the Book of Mormon (perhaps from reading it, but he’s not being asked to read it as part of his job.)
It’s difficult enough for businesses and for individuals who have serious religious/ethical disagreements to get them resolved. When a jerk like this invents moral indignation out of nothing, he makes it more difficult for those with serious situations.
This is likely a YMMV situation. The human rights laws I work with impose a duty on the employer to make reasonable accomodation for the religious beliefs of their employees. “Reasonable accomodation” is a very context-specific concept, based on things like the nature of the religious belief in issue, the size of the employer, and the type of job.
In the example Zev gives, likely no accomodation is possible, as it is the very job itself that is incompatible with his religious beliefs. But in other situations, like religious holidays, accomodation may be relatively easy for the employer - for example, if your religion forbids you to work a certain day, and you work in a big place with 100+ employees, the employer likely wouldn’t have much trouble accomodating you. On the other hand, if it’s just you and the boss in a small store, and the nature of the work requires two people on duty whenever the store is open, it would be very difficult for your boss to accomodate your religious beliefs.
A few months ago I read about a case like this that’s going through the human rights process in Ontario - an employee in a large drug store who objected to putting out Christmas decorations, because he considered that doing so was contrary to his religious beliefs. I believe that the tribunal upheld his complaint, in part because it was a large store with lots of staff, and they could have just put him on the till while someone else put up the decorations.
The one thing that the courts and tribunals try to avoid at all costs is trying to judge the merits of the person’s belief, nor is it a defence to bring in a priest/minister/rabbi of the employee’s faith to say that in his/her opinion the conduct in question doesn’t contravene that faith. The law is meant to protect the individual conscience, including that of the particularly scrupulous believer.
Which is a roundabout way of saying your guy may have a valid concern, but it depends largely on the laws governing the jurisdiction you’re in.
It could be a tricky situation. In a hotel in Chicago, a PBX operator was asked to change the normal standard greeting to “Happy Holidays from the XXX Hotel.”
She refused, saying it was against her religion. The hotel offered to relocate her for the holidays…She refused. Then they told her OK then just say “Greetings.” she refused. It went to court and she won.
The court ruled that because she only had to say it at a certain time of year it was the same. Not exactly the same but it goes to show you.
Another case was a Seventh Day Adventest took a job and was asked to work Saturday. She refused. They asked her again. She refused. She took the job knowing Saturdays may have been required. She quit, filed for unemployment and won her case.
On the other hand it can be unfair the other way. I recently worked at a hotel and we had no accommodations for handicapped employees. We got away with it as the hotel is a historical landmark and you can’t touch it. So we basically were exempt from much of the ADA.
In this case they would probably examin the job etc. For instance if they put condoms in the rooms for instance and they let some maids NOT do this as it offended them, the court may very well rule that if a bible offends someone it is a similar thing.
mormons are his bosses, they give him his paycheck and hired him in the first place
ask him how jewish people must feel that there is no Torah in the room
ask him how atheists must feel to have their hotel drawers cluttered with garbage fairytale books (make sure that word remains plural)
this is not a government job, so there is no freedom of religion for him here - he can quit or be fired. His rights are not being violated at all.
He doesn’t want to spread the word of mormon but he has no problem proselytizing his own religion? Gee, how typical of a religious person. Tell him if he doesn’t do his job he’ll get fired AND go to hell. That’ll solve the problem right there, and life will go on for alfalfa.
Sorry if that sounds insensitive - the truth often is.
Just a reminder, folks, to keep this thread in GQ: The question here is not whether this fellow should be concerned about his job, the question is, given that he is, in fact, concerned, what are the legal ramifications? Law is a relatively cut-and-dried, factual matter, so we can handle that in GQ. The rest would be Great Debates.
On the contrary, “factual matter,” like the law, is never cut-and-dried. Law has its Rules, but often a Rule of Law will come into conflict with another Rule, and therein lies the problem. Moreover, courts are always interpreting this cut-and-dried law, and different courts come up with different interpretations - even the same court with different judges or jurists - nay, even with the same jurists. Socioeconomic climates play a large part in interpretation, along with other non-legal factors.
In the instant situation, there are conflicting interests involved, and which one would prevail is anything but cut-and-dried.