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Well, as someone who has also worked in the casino industry, I find this absolutely ridiculous. If you don't agree with the industry, then don't work for it. It would kinda like me, a vegetarian, working for a poultry processing plant (which I actually did for eight months right after college, lol).
Another issue that hasn't been brought up is this ... if this particular group is allowed to keep its particular prayer area, then accomodations will need to be made for every other religious group that requests its own area. If I were an HR person, I'd be just as concerned about that as taking away something that was never authorized by HR or the company administration in the first place.
It really comes down to that nobody else has asked and until now there was never an issue.
What gets me is I started this what 2 days ago, I have yet to get a response from either HR or Legal to my email. I spoke to my VP yesterday(he was copied on the email) and he said if someone does ask you to take that cube back don't do anything until you talk to me again and I call up our Legal guy(he works out of Texas now) and get him to give us a legal opinion.
Which is precisely what we have to do since you always have to worry about
suing in this country.
I'm not really much of a Muslim, but my grandma takes about 5-7 minutes. And I don't know at what times exactly, but it's done all throughout the day. 2-3 prayer times would probably be around the time you're at the office if you work full time.
I'm not really much of a Muslim, but my grandma takes about 5-7 minutes. And I don't know at what times exactly, but it's done all throughout the day. 2-3 prayer times would probably be around the time you're at the office if you work full time.
I'm not really much of a Muslim, but my grandma takes about 5-7 minutes. And I don't know at what times exactly, but it's done all throughout the day. 2-3 prayer times would probably be around the time you're at the office if you work full time.
Man if I had to do that and ASFN, I'd never do any work at all.
It really comes down to that nobody else has asked and until now there was never an issue.
What gets me is I started this what 2 days ago, I have yet to get a response from either HR or Legal to my email. I spoke to my VP yesterday(he was copied on the email) and he said if someone does ask you to take that cube back don't do anything until you talk to me again and I call up our Legal guy(he works out of Texas now) and get him to give us a legal opinion.
Which is precisely what we have to do since you always have to worry about
suing in this country.
Well, Russ... while consulting HR and Legal is prudent, I'd be careful about drawing legal into the decision at this point.
I wouldn't be surprised if they say that there's no legal requirement to provide the space, but, as noted, a precedent has been set.
I can easily imagine a case being drawn up if an accomodation is not reached, and the ramifications could go well beyond the confines of your company.
P.S. BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL of the language used in any exchanges between you, your VP, HR and Legal. If things go awry all correspondence is likely subject to a court order.
A guy I work with prays before he eats anything (break or lunch) and I don't have a problem with it. If any person stops a job to pray, that's when the problem starts, you are at work to work (browsing ASFN aside). A person's religious beliefs should not make their work suffer. If praying 5 times a day at work is acceptable, than why can we not start a religious organization that will pray 16 times a day and will do no work on Mondays or Fridays? I say that tongue in cheek, but in all honesty, people are being paid to do thier work, not to worship thier God.
I find it hard to believe any workplace is even required to provide "reasonable accommodation." The only thing a workplace can't do, in my understanding, is prevent someone from practicing their faith -- unless it interferes with common expectations of performance. Do they not have their cubicles?
If you're obligated to accommodate them at all, I don't believe you're obligated to do anything more than create a common "faith" area -- for whomever needs to pray to whomever or whatever. However, I believe you're allowed to prohibit any icons or other things that would "create a hostile workplace." I almost got fired once for having a "Buddy Jesus" plastic statue from Kevin Smith's Dogma on my desk -- and I'm a pretty serious Christian. Some other Christian was offended. I think someone was trying to "out-Christian" me. Two others on the other side of the room had South Park "devils" on their desk and no one ever complained about that.
I'm betting a common area that also potentially allowed Christians, Jews, etc., would bring an end to it entirely and they would find someplace else to pray.
OTOH, I can't believe how uptight some are about the issue. I was talking with someone at work once and we ended up talking about which churches we went to. It was not a high spiritual conversation, and in fact I recall it was entirely about service times and parking issues. The conversation was less than 10 minutes long. A third person listening in on the conversation had a cow and went to HR about it. In their opinion no one should be even allowed to mention a place of worship, I guess.
Russ,if they try to put your a** in a sling contact Bush's old AG somewhere in Texas for help.He can write a rule or a law that can at least protect you.
Gad--I believe you are correct. "Reasonable accommodation" only applies to ADA, (no, not the American Dental Assn) not religion.
Right I looked online the only thing I can find is you can't discriminate based on religion. So if we allowed Catholics to pray but said sorry Muslims can't, that would be illegal. I guess the issue is by allowing them to have this cube for awhile now(approved or not) does that constitute some implicit approval?
That's why I asked HR and legal who still have not commented so I'm guessing if they don't care, I shouldn't either.
I'm going to take my painters tape down there and make a big pentagram on the carpet in the cube now, that ought to stir things up.
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