religious exemption

Under California law, when you apply for a religious accommodation at workplace – your employer is entitled to request further information to better understand the reasons behind your request. The law is not clear what information the employer can inquire about, but they are entitled to a basic follow-up, reasonably necessary to address your request. This right has to be balanced against the idea that a claimed religious belief must generally be presumed true. Let’s look at two examples of religious accommodation requests and discuss one common mistake that an employee should avoid making in this process:

Let’s say you are a Sabbath-observing Jew. You request that your employer allow you not to work on Saturdays to accommodate your religious practice. The employer would likely be allowed to ask you how long you have been observing Sabbath, and how strict your observance is, i.e. – whether you also do not drive, do not cook, and do not use a computer / TV on Saturdays. It would likely be unlawful for that employer to demand to test you on your knowledge of Judaism or condition granting your accommodation on your presenting some kind of documentation of your temple attendance.
Let’s say you request a religious exemption from your employer’s requirement to be vaccinated against Covid-19 on the grounds of your adherence to an Eastern religion that cherishes purity of life and sanctity of body. Your employer is likely entitled to ask you for more information about your religion, even if it’s not an organized religion, and whether you also refrain from taking other vaccines or medications, and since when. The employer is likely not allowed to demand that you share with them your medication history from birth, a list of all of your religious beliefs, and other types of information that go far beyond what would be directly relevant to understanding the reasons behind your religious request.

Here are three highly questionable behaviors, to put it mildly, we have been recently obeserving employers engage in, when denying their employees religious exemptions from their Covid-19 vaccination requirement at workplace. These behaviors do not include the obvious point – continuing the vaccanation requirement policy despite being fully aware that the vaccines in question neither stop infection nor transmission of Covid-19 are needlessly harmful to both the employers and their workforce.

Requiring fully remote employees to be vaccinated and denying religious exemptions from this quirement on the grounds of “undue hardship”. It is hard to imagine a half legitimate argument as to why any employer would care about their fully remote workers’ vaccination status, let alone denying a remote worker’s request for a religious exemption from the vaccination requirement. These workers never come in contact with their co-workes or with the employer’s customers / clients, so there is no risk of any type of exposure from that employee.
Denying requests for a religious accommodation to be exempt from the vaccination requirement without a good reason. We repeatedly see employers deny religious exemption requests after receiving more than sufficient information to grant an exemption, using the following vague verbeage: “Based on the information you have provided, we are unable to grant you your accommodation request”. Employers often do not (and cannot) provide any legitimate basis for their decision to deny these requests.

Articles Tagged with religious exemption

Avoid This Mistake When Requesting A Religiuos Accommodation At Workplace

Unethical Behavior By Empoyers Denying Religious Exemptions From The Vaccination Requirement