“remember the sabbath day to sanctify it. six days may you work and perform all your labor, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the lord, your god; you shall perform no labor…”
exodus 20:8-10
the united states supreme court, in groff vs. dejoy, tackled the issues of employment and “sabbath observance”. the case’s facts involve the behemoth amazon contracting with the united states postal service. as a result of this contract, a usps worker-not someone employed by the commercial retaile- has his ability to observe the sabbath compromised. in this instance, mr. groff, a christian, observed the sabbath on sundays.
the facts, as laid out in the supreme court opinion are as follows: ” gerald groff is an evangelical christian who believes for religious reasons that sunday should be devoted to worship and rest, not “secular labor” and the “transport[ation]” of worldly “goods.” in 2012, groff began his employment with the united states postal service (usps), which has more than 600,000 employees. he became a rural carrier associate, a job that required him to assist regular carriers in the delivery of mail. when he took the position, it generally did not involve sunday work. but within a few years, that changed. in 2013, usps entered into an agreement with amazon to begin facilitating sunday deliveries, and in 2016, usps signed a memorandum of understanding with the relevant union (the national rural letter carriers’ association) that set out how sunday and holiday parcel delivery would be handled. during a 2 month peak season, each post office would use its own staff to deliver packages. at all other times, sunday and holiday deliveries would be carried out by employees (including rural carrier associates like groff) working from a “regional hub.” for quarryville, pennsylvania, where groff was originally stationed, the regional hub was the lancaster annex. the memorandum specifies the order in which usps employees are to be called on for sunday work outside the peak season. first in line are each hub’s “assistant rural carriers”— part-time employees who are assigned to the hub and cover only sundays and holidays. second are any volunteers from the geographic area, who are assigned on a rotating basis. and third are all other carriers, who are compelled to do the work on a rotating basis. groff fell into this third category, and after the memorandum of understanding was adopted, he was told that he would be required to work on sunday. he then sought and received a transfer to holtwood, a small rural usps station that had only seven employees and that, at the time, did not make sunday deliveries. but in march 2017, amazon deliveries began there as well. with groff unwilling to work on sundays, usps made other arrangements. during the peak season, sunday deliveries that would have otherwise been performed by groff were carried out by the rest of the holtwood staff, including the postmaster, whose job ordinarily does not involve delivering mail. during other months, groff ’s sunday assignments were redistributed to other carriers assigned to the regional hub. throughout this time, groff continued to receive “progressive discipline” for failing to work on sundays. finally, in january 2019, he resigned.”
the supreme court’s decision essentially laid out the test for religious accommodation with respect to matter in the workplace. tests, in law, are essentially evidentiary guidelines. once a test is established, both parties are allowed to present their facts pertinent to the test. essentially, a trial judge would then hear the facts and apply the test.
essentially, the court’s opinion was that “we think it is enough to say that an employer must show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business. … what matters more than a favored synonym for “undue hardship” (which is the actual text) is that courts must apply the test in a manner that takes into account all relevant factors in the case at hand, including the particular accommodations at issue and their practical impact in light of the nature, “size and operating cost of [an] employer. …“what is most important is that “undue hardship” in title VII means what it says, and courts should resolve whether a hardship would be substantial in the context of an employer’s business in the commonsense manner that it would use in applying any such test.”
the matter before the supreme court was remanded back to the lower courts to adjudicate. in sum, the judge, in determining the matter, will address the nature and extent of the employer’s hardship with respect to providing the reasonable accommodation. in the supreme court decision, when discussing the fact of the case, noted “faced with an accommodation request like groff’s, it would not be enough for an employer to conclude that forcing other employees to work overtime would constitute an undue hardship. consideration of other options, such as voluntary shift swapping, would also be necessary.”
be well!!
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