What happens when an employee’s religious beliefs conflict with work?

Good employers know they should tread softly in determining how to accommodate workers’ religious views. But as this recent case out of Pennsylvania shows, you don’t have to cave to every demand.

The trouble started when a jewelry store decided to send customers birthday cards that doubled as advertisements. The cards contained a message wishing customers a happy birthday and were to include a handwritten note suggesting they come in and get their jewelry cleaned.

A supervisor asked one of his workers – a Jehovah’s Witness – to write the handwritten messages in each card.

One problem: Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate birthdays, believing that doing so is a kind of false worship.

Supervisor: ‘Make a choice’

The employee said it was against her religion to write the message in the cards. When pressed by her supervisor to “make a choice,” the employee shook hands with her supervisor, said she’d enjoyed working with him, and resigned.

She then filed for unemployment benefits, saying she had good cause to quit her job because her beliefs were violated.

But the court sided with the employer. The company didn’t ask the woman to write personal birthday messages and sign them from her – it was simply asking her to write generic greetings on birthday cards that doubled as advertisements. That, the court ruled, did not violate the woman’s religious beliefs. Therefore she couldn’t prove her job duties conflicted with her religion.

Employees clearly are allowed – and encouraged – to make their religious requests known to management – for example, staffers who are unable to work on certain days because they must observe a Sabbath. But employers aren’t required to bow to every demand. The key: If an accommodation would result in an undue hardship, employers aren’t required to accommodate.

Cite: Calhoun Jewelers v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review