Please Mr Postman

Here's a story bound to get a reaction. It's about all things being fair at work, which is a standard often promised and rarely found. 

For example, when smoking was outlawed in the workplace, smokers found themselves outside hooving on their Marlboro Lights. That kept the smoke out of everyone else's eyes, but it also kept the smokers out of the office for ten, fifteen minutes or so, and the non-smokers then said they had the right to step out a couple times a day, just the same.

For all I know, that fight is still going on at workplaces around the nation and the world, and I'm hoping you'll tell me how it goes where you are employed.

But what about this one: In Pennsylvania, there is an evangelical Christian former mail carrier who has been fighting with the U.S. Postal Service. He does not wish to work on Sundays, the Sabbath of his faith. It may well give the Supreme Court the chance that many feel they are looking for to widen religious rights, but it raises the thorny issue of whether practicing a certain religion gives one the right to be scheduled off on that religion's day of services. 

Put bluntly, is Gerald Groff, a part-time letter carrier in Lancaster County, PA, more entitled to having Sundays off because he wants to attend church than a coworker who wants to watch NFL football? or be with family, or whatever they want to do, grooving on a Sunday afternoon.

 

Groff

Groff was disciplined for not showing up for Sunday shifts he was assigned to work.  A lower court rejected his claim of religious discrimination. He said the Postal Service unfairly refused to exempt him from working Sundays. And now that the matter is before the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, there are those who feel he has a chance of winning there. This court has been siding with Christian plaintiffs recently. And if he wins, what will be the effect on businesses all over, suddenly having to grant a wide variety of religious accommodations to workers?

An attorney for Groff, Alan Reinach, says, "The whole point of religious accommodation is you have to make special or favored arrangements in order to have an inclusive workforce." 

But an employment law expert from Boston University Law School, Michael Harper, says if the Supremes find in Groff's favor, that would "give a preference to the religious because they get to stay home on their Sabbath or their day of rest." And non-religious people, like non-smokers, would call that unfair.

"Whenever you depart from neutral standards it creates the potential for greater friction in the workplace, " Harper pointed out.

Groffs union, the American Postal Workers, says "not so fast:" 

"A day off is not the special privilege of the religious. Days off, especially on the weekend, are when parents can spend the day with children who are otherwise in school, when people can spend time on the other necessities of life, when the community enjoys a common day of rest for churchgoers and the nonreligious alike."

Groff bases his argument on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on religion and other factors including race, sex and national origin.

A ruling is expected by the end of June. I was going to say God only knows how Clarence Thomas, Amy C. Barrett, and beer-guzzler Brett Kavanaugh are going to come down on this, but that's sort of obvious. 

Oh, by the way, I'm going to need Thursdays off, and every other Monday morning. And Saturdays would be great, too!