Welcome to ASFN Fan Forums! We're glad to have you here. Please feel free to browse the forum. We'd like to invite you to join our community; doing so will enable you to view additional forums and post with our other members.
Registered Members don't see these ads. Register now it's free!
So we have a group of Muslim folks at work who essentially on their own took an empty cube, took off some worksurfaces and set up a prayer cube that if I understand directly faces mecca. No problem, they've had one for over a year, never an issue. I was told once they got permission for this but I don't know from who, I know it wasn't from HR so I suspect at best they asked their manager.
Well it turns out we are expanding a lab in that area and the lab guys want to use that cube now, but the guys who pray in that cube also work in the lab and are complaining they have the right to have a prayer cube. Nobody wants to step on toes so they're telling me since I technically control allocation of cubes.
My inclination is it's really an HR and Legal matter and I'm letting them know but I'm just curious is there anything at all that says you can demand a place to pray at work? I know for example there are rules about providing rooms for pregnant women and nursing mothers, we've always done that here as per the law. But my understanding is the only laws relating to religion are about not discriminating, in this case asking them to move their location would not be discrimination would it?
Registered Members don't see these ads. Register now it's free!
I work in the gaming industry and experienced working with a preacher's wife who refused to assist on the casino floor when needed and would fall back on her religious beliefs as an excuse to stay away from it.
Which was a stupid excuse because she was a licensing agent and was responsible for placing people in those positions and she surely didn't have a problem walking into the casino to eat.
The substantive issue here is one of "reasonable accommodation." Under federal law, employers are required to take reasonable measures to accommodate employees' religious practices. I am not an expert in this area of the law (Paul may be), but it sounds as though Swift doesn't have any objection to the employees' prayers, it just doesn't want them walking off the line without permission, in a manner that impairs production.
This sounds like a conflict that could be worked out within the framework of precedents on reasonable accommodation. One wonders, though, whether it is another instance of radical Muslim groups like CAIR trying to impose on the rest of American society a duty to recognize and conform to Islamic religious laws.
i know in interviews we set expectations of what all employees are expected to do - this is regardless of any protected class
the job calls for x, y & z and we document the interviews - this is a safety net for instances where there is an obvious conflict - like if your job required you to taste soda and you had a religous objection to caffienated products
a company usually isn't expected to set aside a dedicated area for prayer - however, since they've allowed it for so long they need to be careful how they end it
__________________
"Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities."
Samuel Clemens
i know in interviews we set expectations of what all employees are expected to do - this is regardless of any protected class
the job calls for x, y & z and we document the interviews - this is a safety net for instances where there is an obvious conflict - like if your job required you to taste soda and you had a religous objection to caffienated products
a company usually isn't expected to set aside a dedicated area for prayer - however, since they've allowed it for so long they need to be careful how they end it
Yes that's precisely why I'm concerned, I'm worried that because they had one for over a year that's almost an implicit permission given by us. Note, I have no interest in removing their prayer location I'd happily give them another location if we had one, the problem is we don't, they picked the one open cube area in the company, right near the labs, and now the lab is expanding.
Yes that's precisely why I'm concerned, I'm worried that because they had one for over a year that's almost an implicit permission given by us. Note, I have no interest in removing their prayer location I'd happily give them another location if we had one, the problem is we don't, they picked the one open cube area in the company, right near the labs, and now the lab is expanding.
In any big corporation enviroment you simply dump that problem off on higher ups and make them make the call.
Then when they wonder why you aren't expanding you say cause so and so won't let me, I'm going to lunch now.
Letting them set it up in the first place was the primary mistake, that was pretty bad, the person declining it could have simply said we don't have the resources to allow all possible religions to set one up so you can't have one, end of story, now the can of worms is wide open.
__________________
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
In any big corporation enviroment you simply dump that problem off on higher ups and make them make the call.
Then when they wonder why you aren't expanding you say cause so and so won't let me, I'm going to lunch now.
Letting them set it up in the first place was the primary mistake, that was pretty bad, the person declining it could have simply said we don't have the resources to allow all possible religions to set one up so you can't have one, end of story, now the can of worms is wide open.
And that would actually be my fault since the folks in Legal and HR never get near the labs so they likely have no clue the cube ever existed. Like I said it never created a space issue so I never cared about it until now.
one of those path of least resistance decisions that could conceivably come back to haunt me now. I don't think it will but in theory it could.
Move them into the basement and take their stapler.
But, seriously, if the lab is expanding, the prayer thing should be able to be moved. You might want to be diplomatic about it, but come on, if the higher ups wanted me moved, I would get moved.
Move them into the basement and take their stapler.
But, seriously, if the lab is expanding, the prayer thing should be able to be moved. You might want to be diplomatic about it, but come on, if the higher ups wanted me moved, I would get moved.
So far nobody has asked them to move, they don't want to step on toes so they mentioend it to me. Nobody formally asked me to do anything, I just informed HR and Legal in case at some point that request comes.
I was mainly interested in covering my rear end since I did know about this setup all along and never felt compelled to tell anybody in HR or Legal.
I work in the gaming industry and experienced working with a preacher's wife who refused to assist on the casino floor when needed and would fall back on her religious beliefs as an excuse to stay away from it.
Which was a stupid excuse because she was a licensing agent and was responsible for placing people in those positions and she surely didn't have a problem walking into the casino to eat.
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.
__________________
Paul Calvisi: How about you, Gerald Hayes. If you had to call a travel agent and go to one place in the world, where would it be?
Linear Mode
