The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission continues its aggressive campaign against employers accused of violating the religious freedom of Christians.
The federal agency announced Sept. 25 that it had settled a lawsuit it filed against a California mail-delivery company for failing to give a truck driver Sundays off to attend church.
In return, Blue Eagle Contracting in Grass Valley will pay $60,000 in compensatory damages and back pay to the former employee and revise its religious accommodation policies, the EEOC announced. A bulk mail delivery contractor for the U.S. Postal Service, the company also agreed to provided updated religious accommodation training to supervisors and other employees and to submit reports on its actions to the EEOC.
According to the agency, the Christian bus driver volunteered to temporarily cover the Sunday morning shifts that came open after another employee left. The man reminded at least two superiors of his need to attend church on Sundays, and that the arrangement was supposed to be temporary. But he resigned after the company kept him on the weekend schedule even after hiring the replacement driver, the EEOC litigation claimed.
The EEOC filed the lawsuit in March alleging Blue Eagle’s actions violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The lawsuit and a consent decree settling the case are among the latest in a string of religious accommodation actions.
“Religious accommodations under federal law can take many forms, including accommodations related to scheduling that allow the employee to attend religious services or other religious observances,” said Christopher Green, director of the agency’s San Francisco district. “Employers must take religious accommodation requests seriously and grant them unless doing so would impose an undue hardship.”
The lawsuit and a consent decree settling the case are among the latest in a string of religious accommodation actions by the EEOC under the Trump administration, including many focused around issues of vaccine and masking mandates dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EEOC disclosed on Sept. 28 a $20,000 settlement with a Wisconsin ski park and summer events location for firing an employee over religiously themed social media posts.
“Although the posts were not directed to and did not refer to the company or any employee of the company, and although the company received no complaints from customers, vendors or employees about the posts, the employee’s supervisor objected to them as discriminatory,” the federal agency said. “After an initial warning, the company terminated the employee shortly after he posted another Bible verse.”
In addition to monetary relief, The Rock Snowpark must agree to provide employment opportunities regardless of religion and continue to report religious accommodation complaints to the federal government, according to the announcement.
It has been a busy year for the agency, which has settled vaccine-related claims against Kaiser Permanente for $358,000, an Oklahoma manufacturing company for $4.2 million, a Chicago-area hospital chain for $325,000, and with an unidentified global electronics company for $15 million, among others.
In the more traditional style of cases involving workplace accommodations of faith, the agency filed a religious discrimination lawsuit in May against a Chick-fil-A franchise in Texas for not giving sabbath days off to a Christian employee. In August EEOC announced a $150,000 settlement with Apple Inc. for failing to give a Jewish employee time off to observe the Sabbath.