I've been following this case because it has huge ramifications for many workplaces.

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/scotus-takes-case-that-could-upend-5838456/

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Gerald Groff was a U.S. Postal Service employee who had requested an accommodation to be excused from working on Sundays due to his religious beliefs. After that accommodation was denied, he sued the U.S. Postal Service. He lost at the trial court, and on appeal the Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment to the employer because it found that other workers would be burdened if Groff was exempted from working on Sundays.

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The standard for whether your employer can require you to work on your Sabbath are pretty low.

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The current standard provides that an accommodation is an undue hardship if it presents "more than a de minimis cost" to the employer.

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Many expect SCOTUS to raise this standard. And yes - having USPS workers deliver Amazon packages on Sundays seems unfair. But that's only until you realize every exemption you give for religious reasons means someone else now works MORE Sundays to accomodate you.

And then of course - there are all the jobs that are 24/7. My wife has had new nurses who tell her "it's against my religion to work on Sundays" to which she says "wow you really needed to think about that before becoming a nurse - you're gonna work Sundays for years". Police are in a similar vein.

Those seem obvious. What about grocery store workers? Waitstaff at restaurants? If half the staff claims religious objections, the other employees are forced into working perpetual permanent Sundays

SCOTUS needs to think long and hard about how to address this. if at all.

As long as it is applied to all religions equally, then I see no issue.

Reality : special groups of Democratic voters will get exemptions.

Wouldn't mind if most businesses followed the chick fil a model; honestly

If SCOTUS makes religious accommodations equivalent to disability accommodations (where the law has been inching for years) the number of Title VII religion cases in the services industry will explode. It's already bad enough for an employer to wade through this garbage, but I expect it will be tougher pretty soon.

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Wouldn't mind if most businesses followed the chick fil a model; honestly

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Until you need a gallon of gas? I guess we can go back to blue laws, but think about all of the non-Christian holidays out there, and a few made-up ones?

The courts refuse to get into the question of whether the religious belief is sincerely held - a requirement under Title VII, so you want to make up a religion and an accommodation to go along with it? How about allowing an employee to wear a ceremonial dagger to work? That was an actual accommodation request I got. Or creating a different uniform b/c 7th Day Adventists refuse to wear a US Flag? Refusing to bathe?

All I said is I wish more businesses CHOSE not to be open Sundays... eeesh

It's real simple. SCOTUS needs to deny on the grounds that he chooses to work at the post office, he doesn't have to.
If his religion is so important, find a job where he doesn't have to work on Sunday.

Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

USPS acting like shifts and associated differentials aren't a widely used tool for this very reason.

The sabbath is Saturday. Not Sunday. More specifically sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. Sorry to break everyone's lifelong belief.

Lots of CFA employees work on Sunday…

Just not open.

aggie813 said:

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It's real simple. SCOTUS needs to deny on the grounds that he chooses to work at the post office, he doesn't have to.
If his religion is so important, find a job where he doesn't have to work on Sunday.

Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

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There's no way there could be a blanket religious accommodation. There are too many jobs that are 24/7 by definition.

Police? Firefighters? Emergency Room staff? Those seem obvious, but an overarching religious exemption would put a heavy burden on those who don't claim it.

Grocery stores? Gas stations? Fast food? For every individual who claims a religious exemption, it's a direct impact to one who doesn't.

I for one am a free marketeer. No exemptions whatsoever. If you have an issue working on a Sunday, go find a job that better suits your religious needs. Of course, I feel the same way about disabilities and toher accommodations people ask for.

I wish everyone was closed on Sunday but cat is out of the bag now, and granting exceptions based on religion would create chaos for scheduling

1) On the one hand I totally agree that if Sundays were important to this dude he should have found a different job and making people work for him is an undue burden

2) But as we all know, if a Jew or Muslim makes the same demand it will of course be (D)ifferent and accommodated without question or hesitation

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It's real simple. SCOTUS needs to deny on the grounds that he chooses to work at the post office, he doesn't have to.

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This. It is unclear from the description of the lawsuit what the issue really is. Does he object to working on Sunday or does working on Sunday interfere with his observing his religion? Me thinks in reality he just objects to work.

IF it is Sunday observances most churches have non Sunday opportunities to worship. Spent many a Sunday working and none of my fellow workers ever objected- Of course they had to be replaced when absent at some premium pay. Certainly wasn't de minimis cost if we had to replace an entire crew.

There was a time when USPS didn't operate on Sundays. If it changed after the employee was already employed by the USPS does it change his standing in y'all's opinion?

doubledog said:

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As long as it is applied to all religions equally, then I see no issue.

Reality : special groups of Democratic voters will get exemptions.

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Which ones got exemptions and what were they?

Aggie Jurist said:

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How about allowing an employee to wear a ceremonial dagger to work? That was an actual accommodation request I got.

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That one isn't from a made up religion, they were probably Sikh.

I'm old enough to remember when many, if not most, businesses were closed on Sunday (including the USPS).
It kinda sucked.

And waiting with my mom in HEB because they wouldn't sell you cooking sherry until a certain hour.

aggie813 said:

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It's real simple. SCOTUS needs to deny on the grounds that he chooses to work at the post office, he doesn't have to.
If his religion is so important, find a job where he doesn't have to work on Sunday.

Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

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Tell this to a Jew or a Mohammedan and let me know how that goes for you.

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The current standard provides that an accommodation is an undue hardship if it presents "more than a de minimis cost" to the employer.

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that standard was set in the 70s, one question on tuesday is whether that is the right standard.

given the text of the statute, "unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee's or prospective employee's religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business" the "de minimis cost" standard appears to be one does not fall in line with the wording of the statute

. employer needs to show more than "de minimis cost" in my opinion to fit in the meaning of "undue hardship"

Remember postal workers are also covered by APWU and NALC collective bargaining agreements as well as Civil Service. This is an overly represented class of employees. Apparently the issue od Sunday work has not reached their union bosses.

None of you should be posting today.


Crap I just did.

laavispa said:

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Remember postal workers are also covered by APWU and NALC collective bargaining agreements as well as Civil Service. This is an overly represented class of employees. Apparently the issue od Sunday work has not reached their union bosses.

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try again.

their unions agreed to work sundays and they are siding against the man in this case.

BMX Bandit said:

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laavispa said:

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Remember postal workers are also covered by APWU and NALC collective bargaining agreements as well as Civil Service. This is an overly represented class of employees. Apparently the issue od Sunday work has not reached their union bosses.

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try again.

their unions agreed to work sundays and they are siding against the man in this case.

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Hell it's Overtime WTH they beeyotching about? Jesus knows you have to work to support your family.

their position is more that using a random system to assign sunday work is not subject to a review on religious discrimination grounds and its not right to force others to work on sunday to accommodate religion of others

aggie813 said:

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It's real simple. SCOTUS needs to deny on the grounds that he chooses to work at the post office, he doesn't have to.
If his religion is so important, find a job where he doesn't have to work on Sunday.

Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

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This is right here. Most jobs don't require it. Go get one of those.

OK, so through collective bargaining they get OT for Sunday work. They get a fireproof job though civil service.

Agree with you. As they once said 'take the king's shilling'..... He got them... can always quit.

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. employer needs to show more than "de minimis cost" in my opinion to fit in the meaning of "undue hardship"

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That's a huge part of the problem. Undue hardship is the language of the ADA and it's based on a sliding scale. The larger the employer, the more impossible it is to show undue hardship. I represented a very large retailer in the early 2000s - they were required to spend $30k on software for a single employee. That would have bankrupted a smaller company.

The de minimis standard for Title VII religion (which was judge-made) has until recent years allowed employers to argue that infringing on other workers' days off was sufficient showing on burden to negate the accommodation requirement. That started changing with Baker v. The Home Depot in 2010 and has continued to change since. Employers have no idea where the line is anymore.

Those of you saying "he knew the deal when hired" or "he should just find another job" have no idea what the realities of our employment laws are. This area is one of the most counter-intuitive you can find.

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That one isn't from a made up religion, they were probably Sikh.

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I didn't say that one was made up. The employee was Sikh and we agreed to allow it if the dagger could not be removed from the sheath. The employee balked at that.

I've seen requests for days off tied to religious observances clearly found by the employee on the internet. My favorite was the guy who hit us with a list of observances totaling 14 weeks of time off - from probably 10 different religions. We denied the accommodation request and he filed a Charge of Discrimination with the EEOC which was dismissed quickly.

doubledog said:

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As long as it is applied to all religions equally, then I see no issue.

Reality : special groups of Democratic voters will get exemptions.

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^^^^^^This is the thing: if they're exempting, say, Muslims and/or Jews from working on Fridays (Muslim and Jewish Sabbath), then they have to give other religions (LDS, for example) exemptions for their Sabbath.

For as long as I can remember, USPS didn't deliver on Sunday, and it didn't bother anyone. I wonder how much Amazon pays them to get things delivered on Sunday?

SpreadsheetAg said:

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Wouldn't mind if most businesses followed the chick fil a model; honestly

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I lived in Germany for a year where basically all businesses are closed on Sunday. You don't want this. It ****ing sucks. Luckily they have started seeing the light recently and many are starting to open on Sundays.

If we can't have religion in the classroom then it should have no weight in the workplace.

To me this is like the case of the Muslim woman who worked as a grocery store checker, but she didn't want to scan pork or beer. It's part of the job. Don't like it, find another job.