The Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employers other than religious organizations to discriminate people due to their religion in firing, hiring, and other conditions and terms of employment. Employers are required by Title VII to reasonably put up with prospective workers or workers religious practices, unless doing so would result to undue hardship to the employer. Based on this requirement employers are not required to treat workers less or more favorable due to their religion. Based on this provision workers cannot be forced to participate or restricted from taking part in a religious activity as employment condition. Employers must sensibly accommodate workers who are honestly held religious practices except when doing so would inflict an undue hardship to the employer. Employer thus has a duty to inhibit religious harassment(Anti-Defamation League, 2012).
Reasonable accommodation in this case is one which eliminates the worker’s complicit between work requirement and religious practices and which does not impose an excessive hardship to the employer. For instance, a worker can get specific off day annually for religious celebration, or a weekly off day for Sabbath. Religious worker may also be permitted to have prayer place or dress in religious grab. However, this freedom should not interfere with employee’s safety or workplace hygiene, for instance religious workers should not be permitted to wear loose clothing while operating machines as a religious fulfillment, or have long beard in a catering business (HR Hero, 2017).
Similarly, an employer is outlawed from discriminating job applicants or employees based on disability. According to American with Disability Act of 1990, employers are required to make sensible accommodation to permit a disabled person to perform the important job functions if one qualifies to do so. According to ADA any person with mental or physical impairment which considerably confines one or more main life activities is regarded to be disabled. Main life activities in this case include lifting, standing, walking; main bodily functions operation that include reproductive function, cell growth, and immune system function; or mental tasks that include thinking, reading and learning. Others include an individual that the employer considers to be disabled, or one with disability record. In this case employers are needed to make sensible to make sensible accommodations for all qualified persons with disability except when doing so would result to excessive hardship. Some of sensible accommodations that an employer with disabled employees will need include offering extended leave to a worker. This should happen even when the worker has spent all his or her vacation leave, and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave or sick leave. Worker with disability may require to be granted extra leave (HR Hero, 2017b).
The employer should also adjust or modify the process of job application to permit a qualified applicant containing a disability to be regarded for the position that includesdesires of qualified applicant. Employer should also adjust or modify the work environment, or to the circumstances or manner in which the position desired or held is customarily performed, that permits a qualified person with disability to accomplish functions of the position, or usually performed, which permit a qualified disabled person to conduct the important activities of that position. The employer is also required to make adjustments or modifications which permit a covered entity’s disabled worker to enjoy equal employment privileges and benefits as enjoyed by other healthy workers in the similar working position. The accommodation should consider physic or structural adjustments that should be enhanced to ensure effective and easy operations of individuals with disabilities (The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2002).
American companies have tried to observe equal employment law by observing Title VII provision on religion accommodation and ADA disability accommodation. One of the companies that have tried to enhance disability accommodation is Apple Inc. Apple is dedicated to working with and offering sensible accommodations to job applicants containing a disability that need a sensible accommodation for any part of hiring or application process should follow. However, based on the research, private organizations are finding it hard to offer reasonable accommodation of religious practices in their workplace, especially those related to unique dressing. There is various law cases associated to religious discriminations in different workplaces in the United States. These law suits range from denial of leave in important religious days in a week or during large religious holidays that one must participate based on the religious requirement to dressing which include need to wear a scarf or beard based on the religious requirements, but conflicting with employers preference. One such case is reported in MacDonald where a Muslim employee requested to grow beard based on religious requirement. MacDonald refused to permit this and his persistence results to his firing. The company preferred paying a fine than taking him back as the company employee.
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