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The Supreme Court on Thursday made it easier for employees to seek religious accommodations in a case involving a lawsuit brought by an evangelical Christian mail carrier who asked not to work on Sundays.
The case involved a claim brought by a Pennsylvania man, Gerald Groff, who says the U.S. Postal Service could have granted his request that he be spared Sunday shifts based on his religious belief that it is a day of worship and rest.
His case will now return to lower courts for further litigation.
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Good, if you sincerely hold a religious belief about not working on a specific day why should your workplace be able to ask you otherwise.
What if you convert to a different religion while being employed at the same job? What if you do it repeatedly? “Sorry, boss. I’m Jewish now. You can’t schedule me on Saturdays anymore.” Two weeks later. “Sorry, boss. I’m a Christian again. Can’t work Sundays.” How do you prove the employee isn’t sincere? How do you prove anyone isn’t sincere about their religious beliefs?
Heres how it would work if you were claiming to be catholic, they’d go to whichever church you say you go to and ask the pastor there if you attend service ever, and likely check cameras depending on severity needed for this, if you go there for service that’s good enough proof.
“Sorry, I’m not the kind of Jew who goes to temple. Prove I don’t sincerely hold the belief that I don’t have to work on Saturday anymore.”
In practice I have heard if it gets to the court level they might demand evidence that you have converted.
I actually agree with this decision. We can’t force people to leave religion. And, in a secular society, reasonable accommodations can be made. In New York, it has long been common for religious Jews to leave the office earlier on Fridays and not work Saturdays. My mother needed home health aides 24x7 toward the end of her life. The ones who worked Sunday were always Seventh Day Adventists.
I don’t have a problem with this.
As a tangent, I do have a problem with people taking jobs that are wholly or partly against their religion. So, for example, pharmacists who are not willing to fill all prescriptions should choose another line of work. If you don’t agree with birth control or medical abortions, don’t take birth control or have a medical abortion.
But, if you’re not willing to fill a prescription for someone else, you need another job.
Taken to extremes, I can imagine a pharmacist refusing to fill my insulin prescription because they believe in the power of crystals and want to sell me a lump of quartz. I know it’s reductio ad absurdum. But, is it really any different ethically?
I have a problem with this. This particular case reasonable accommodation wasn’t possible. He was hired on to work the weekends. This wasn’t him not able to go above and beyond this was him not willing to do what he was explicitly hired to do. If he had been hired to work mon-fri and didnt want to work Sundays that would be one thing, but he was hired specifically to work Sundays.
I once had a coworker who was a diehard Christian we did a fair amount of weekend work. I took Sundays and it wasn’t a big deal and I never made it one because why should I? The thing is our normal shift was mon-fri.
Oh great. Just giving religious people more power, if I worked with this man, I’d be claiming I need Sundays off too “due to my religion” when in reality I’d just be getting a guaranteed day off. Obviously that won’t end well if abunch of people do it so idk why they’re humouring this one guy
Mail isn’t delivered on Sundays anyway. The only reason they’d be in is for an Amazon package contract. It’s a bullshit understaffing problem. No full time carrier should be working a Sunday unless someone in management fucked up.
Amazon delivers Sundays and it’s through an arrangement with the post office.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/reviewed/2023/01/25/does-amazon-deliver-sunday/11034029002/
The article calls him a “noncareer employee” and an “auxiliary mailman,” so I don’t know what he was doing on Sundays, but it wasn’t full time.
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There’s also the issue that USPS DID accommodate him for 4 years and then changed their mind. I would be upset if my employer capriciouly changed the terms of my employment to my detriment too.
