Hatch Trick violated federal law by refusing to accommodate an employee\u2019s request to not work Saturdays in observance of her Sabbath and then fired her, the EEOC said. Prior to the lawsuit, the EEOC attempted to reach a pre-litigation settlement with the Chick-fil-A operator through its administrative conciliation process.<\/p>\n
The employee managed delivery drivers and requested to never work Saturdays. In her job interview, she said she was a practicing member of the United Church of God, a Christian denomination that observes the Sabbath and other rules as dictated in the Old Testament. But after a few months, the EEOC alleged Hatch Trick demanded that she work on Saturdays.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the EEOC, when she made additional requests for religious accommodations, and even suggested other options to keep her position, Hatch Trick told her she had to move to a non-managerial delivery driver position with lower pay, benefits and hours. She did not accept the demotion and was later fired.<\/p>\n
“The duty under federal law to provide reasonable accommodation of religion reflects an acknowledgement by our society of the importance of faith in workers\u2019 everyday lives and an abiding respect for those who observe religious practices as an expression of that faith,” said acting EEOC Dallas Regional Attorney Ronald L. Phillips. “Just as adherence to the dictates of one\u2019s own conscience is not optional, so too an employer\u2019s duty under Title VII is obligatory, and the EEOC stands ready to enforce that legal duty.”<\/p>\n
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination because of religion and requires employers to reasonally accommodate employees’ religious beliefs or practice unless doing so would substantially burdern the business. By law, flexible scheduling is a common religious accommodation, along with voluntary shift substitutions, job reassignments, and modifications to workplace policies or practices, according to the EEOC’s website.<\/p>\n
“Religious discrimination in the workplace is unlawful, and employers must make reasonable accommodations for employees\u2019 sincerely held beliefs. Title VII protects employees\u2019 rights to observe their religious beliefs, and no employee\u2019s livelihood should come at the expense of their religious convictions,” EEOC San Antonio Field Office Director Norma Guzman said.<\/p>\n
Chron has reached out to Chick-fil-A for comment. We will update the story when we hear back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hatch Trick violated federal law by refusing to accommodate an employee\u2019s request to not work Saturdays in observance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1703,1704,85744,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-295813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-chronfood","tag-chronstaff","tag-chrontexas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}