Back in 1977, Star Wars premiered, Seattle Slew won the Triple Crown, and the Supreme Court established that employers need not reasonably accommodate religious beliefs under Title VII if inconsistent with a collective bargaining agreement. Plus, Title VII does not require an employer to discriminate against other union employees by depriving them of seniority rights to accommodate an employee’s observance of the Saturday Sabbath.
What a Friday trifecta! The only thing better that could come in threes would be a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream — with chocolate instead of strawberry and vanilla. Continue reading
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in this blistering (albeit, PG-rated) 58-page dissent to yesterday’s non-precedential Fifth Circuit decision, in which the majority concluded that a private company’s workplace vaccine mandate could irreparably harm individuals with disabilities and strong religious beliefs. Continue reading
Over the weekend, a man held four people, including a rabbi, hostage for over ten hours at a synagogue in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Fortunately, the four hostages escaped — they were not released. Their captor died following a standoff with local and federal law enforcement officials. Continue reading
I have a lot of respect for human resource professionals. It’s not easy being in HR. Or so I hear.
(No one has ever confused me with someone who put the “human” in human resources. I can be more of a, shall we say, jerk.) Continue reading
Image Credit: finger pointing by BomSymbols from the Noun Project
While nerds like me were flooding LinkedIn with status updates about Sixth Circuit this and OSHA ETS that, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was hosting a secret “virtual dialogue” with the employer Illuminati about retaliation updating its COVID-19 Technical Assistance to include additional information on retaliation.
Anything 🤯? Continue reading
form by Jason Tropp from the Noun Project
Before I tell you which COVID-19 religious accommodation form you need to trash right away, don’t forget that today is the big, free live Zoom on the new OSHA vaccine-or-test mandate. Join me and my partners Amy Epstein Gluck, David Renner, Sid Steinberg, Gordon Berger at Noon ET. Register here (https://bit.ly/OSHAETSZoom). Continue reading
Image by Dominic Wunderlich from Pixabay
On Monday, a Texas federal court dealt with a nuanced issue relating to vaccine mandates. Continue reading
Image Credit: PublicDomainPictures.Net (Judge Gavel)
Do you remember back in 2020, when the Supreme Court in Bostock v. Clayton County held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employment discrimination based on LGBT status? But the court did leave one issue open, namely, the implications for religious liberties and other matters arising from its decision.
Last week, a Texas federal court filled that gap by concluding that certain religious organizations are permitted to refrain from employing those who engage in conduct that violates their sincerely held religious beliefs. Continue reading
Image Credit: https://www.maxpixel.net/Online-Dating-Email-Love-Letter-Email-Love-Tinder-4479544
Earlier this week, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission provided additional information on religious objections to workplace vaccine requirements to its growing technical assistance manual. Thank you.
But, yesterday, one of the EEOC Commissioners emailed me the actual form that the EEOC uses to process religious accommodation requests.
THANK YOU! Continue reading
The Employer Handbook Blog