Accommodating Religious Beliefs

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Harassment can happen from co-workers as well as supervisors and managers. Under the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee (EEOC) guidelines the employer is automatically responsible for the actions of supervisors and managers (Gilani, Cavico & Mutjaba, 2012). Liability for harassment initiated by co-workers depends on the situation. If the employer was aware that harassment was taking place by co-workers and did not take corrective or preventative action to stop the harassment, they become liable. Employers should take clear preventative actions to ensure that religious harassment does not occur in the workplace. It is an employer’s responsibility to create a healthy, safe and positive work environment for all its employees. Diversity …show more content…

Such standards would be in line with those that employers are mandated to take in cases of employees with physical and emotional disabilities and would also more closely approximate standard that now apply to federal agencies under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Although this bill has had many supporters, it has not passed.
Accommodation of Religious Beliefs Within reason, employers are legally required to accommodate religious beliefs. If an employee or applicant asserts religious discrimination, the company cannot simply ignore the employee, demote them, move them to a different department or fire them. The burden of proof is on the company to show the undue hardship accommodating the religious belief would cause. Ghumman, Ryan & Markel (2013) wrote, “Employers may not simply refuse an accommodation, but have to demonstrate that they have made a good faith effort to reasonably accommodate the employee, but the accommodation produces undue hardship on the employer”. One example would be, if a small business sells alcohol and tobacco, and an applicant states they cannot sell such items due to their religious beliefs, the business can determine …show more content…

As mentioned in “Managing workplace religious expression within the legal constraints (2016), “employers are likely to find justifications for imposing restrictions” (p. 409). Religious belief tends to be expressed through dress and grooming. Many Muslim women chose to wear a burqa, hijab, or niqab while some Christians feel as if wearing a cross is significant to their belief. Dress codes can be easily justified through health and safety concerns as shown through Azmi v Kirkless Borough Council. In Azmi v Kirkless Borough Council, an employee claimed she faced discrimination when seeking permission to wear a burqa (Hambler, 2016). The court decided the employer met justification for denying the ability to wear a burqa at work because Azmi’s job demanded that her facial movements could be

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