Christmas discrimination by employer?

n Jan 31, 7:27 am, "Stan" <stanle...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> question about discrimination has nothing to do with policies towards
> other religions ... all I'm asking is whether, when the boss needs people
> to work out-of-hours and first tries to staff the shifts with
> volunteers, is there an EEOC violation when he tells non-Christians
> (and at the time, the only known non-Christians in the organization
> were Jews) that he "had expected" them to volunteer?

I think I answered this in my post a couple of days ago, which may have crossed yours "in the mail" over at Chez Moderator... but I'll take another crack at it.

The missing fact IMO is whether the boss in fact COERCED non-Xian employees to work on Xmas, or just "asked nicely" but then imposed no consequences that in any way affected the terms and conditions of your employment if you refused.   I stand by the legal maxim, "There's no harm in asking."

If the boss said, "If you damn Yids don't come to work on the Lord's birthday, I'll fire your sorry Hebe asses", or something equally compelling and derogatory, you'd have a pretty clear-cut claim if this is in fact a company (and national) holiday and he is treating you (and your fellow Jews, Buddhists etc. in his employ)  differently from members of other (i.e. Xian) religions simply on the basis of your religion.   That is classic discrimination, and his bigoted words would help put the nail in the coffin.

But if all he said was, "Gee, Stan, you know I'm happy to help everyone celebrate their religious holidays and Xmas sure means a lot to ol' Bob Cratchett and his family, including little Tiny Tim, and all the other Xians in the IT department.   And you know I've already granted you and the other Jews a personal day off for Yom Kippur and all, so you can get together with _your_ family and have a big turkey dinner or whatever it is you do that day -- and I didn't have to do that, you know -- but it would sure mean a lot to me, not to mention poor Bob, if you could work on Dec. 25 next week so I don't have to tap Bob for the job.  But if you've already made other plans for the holiday, I'll understand."   Then, he didn't do anything wrong.

> And he feels
> justified in thinking this way because he did give them time off for
> their religious holiday, so he expected them to work so others could
> have their religious holiday off.

First of all, religious accomodation of a specific individual's request to be let off for a day that is NOT a recognized company holiday, is a totally diffferent issue.   I won't re-hash my previous post that covered the subject.

But how Mr. Scrooge feels has nothing to do with it.   What he DOES _TO_ you, in taking ACTION affecting the terms and conditions of your employment, is what matters.  The EEOC and other anti-discrimination-in-employment statutes generally require that, in order to make a claim, you must challenge some specific "job-related action" taken against you by the employer for allegedly discriminatory reasons.  If no "job-related action" was taken by the employer for discriminatiory reasons, there is no claim.   And trivial matters, such as merely ASKING if you would be willing to work that holiday, do not rise to the required level to be a "job-related action" even though, technically I suppose, it is, in a de minimis way.

It is not against the EEOC law for Mr. Scrooge to be a member of the KKK, hate Jews, Blacks and Catholics as well as Latinos, Asians, Arabs and Native Americans, as long as he doesn't DO ANYTHING about it that hurts your job.   So, if Scrooge asks you to "volunteer" to work next Xmas and you refuse because you and your buddies already have your reservation for Dim Sum at the Golden Dragon Restaurant planned weeks in advance, followed by taking in the Iranian movie festival that's playing down at the local art house theater, you can feel confident that you are allowed to say "No" with no legal risk that Scrooge could impose adverse job consequences upon you without in turn subjecting himself to a possible EEOC claim.

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Mike Jacobs
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