March-May 1999 The Sabbath Sentinel
Practical Advice to Sabbath-Keepers . . .
Keeping the Sabbath & Keeping Your Job
by Dr. Daniel Botkin
"I'd like to keep the Sabbath,
but I can't -- I have to work on Saturdays." Wrong. You
may think so, but you are mistaken. No one who believes in
keeping the Sabbath has to work on Saturdays, at least not in
America. No one is pointing a gun at the heads of
American Christians and Jews and forcing them to work on
Saturdays. Americans who work on the Sabbath do so by their own
choice, not because they have to.
There were many Sabbath-keeping Christians in Communist Russia
who were ordered by their oppressive government to work on
Saturdays. Many of these Christians chose to obey God
rather than man, and they lost a lot more than some crummy job.
They suffered imprisonment,exile, and torture for refusing to
break God's holy Sabbath. When we stand with these faithful
saints before the Lord on Judgment Day, will any of us have the
gall to say,"Well, Lord, I wanted to keep the Sabbath, but
I couldn't -- I had to work on Saturdays"?
How does a disciple of the Messiah go about getting every
Sabbath off from his job? First of all, you do not go
in and ask your employer if you can have Saturdays off. You are
not there to make a request; you are there to inform. You
inform your employer (politely and respectfully, of
course) that you will not be available to work from Friday
sunset to Saturday sunset. Your employer may respond in a number
of ways:
-
"I'll see what we can do to accommodate you, but in the
meantime you'll have to keep working Saturdays."
-
"We can give you Saturdays off, but you'll have
to work for a few hours on Friday nights."
-
"We'll do our best to accommodate you, but we may have to
occasionally ask you to come in on a Saturday if we're short of
help."
None of these responses is acceptable. Pharaoh tried three
times to persuade Moses and Aaron to compromise the Lord's
demands. (See Exodus 8:25-29, 10:8-11.) Moses
and Aaron steadfastly refused to accept Pharaoh's offer of a
compromise solution, and we must likewise refuse to accept an
employer's offer of a compromise.
What if your employer refuses to accommodate you? One solution
is to look for a different job. However,that may not be
necessary. If this particular job is important to you, you may
want to inform your employer of his legal obligation to
accommodate employees' religious practices. This should be done
in a polite, respectful manner, not in an obnoxious
or threatening way.
Many people do not realize that federal law requires employers
to accommodate employees who need time off for religious reasons,
"unless the employer demonstrates that accommodation
would result in undue hardship on the conduct of its
business." You, the employee, do not have to prove the
validity of your case. It is the employer who must try to prove
that letting you keep the Sabbath would cause undue hardship to
his business. The burden of proof is on the employer, not on the
employee.
Federal law considers the following solutions to be
"reasonable accommodation" which would not
cause undue hardship to an employer's business:
-
Securing a substitute worker (even if the employer has to
secure the substitute).
-
Flexible scheduling (flexible arrival and departure times;
floating or optional holidays; flexible work breaks;use of
lunch time in exchange for early departure; staggered work
hours; permitting an employee to makeup time lost due to the
observance of religious practices).
-
Lateral transfer and change of job assignment.
The employer "must offer the alternative which least
disadvantages the individual [i.e., the employee] with respect to
his or her employment opportunities. The employer can also be
required to bear the extra costs of accommodating the employee,
unless the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determines
that it is "more than a de minimus cost."
Sometimes an employer is afraid to give an employee every
Saturday off for fear that other employees will see this and
likewise demand every Saturday (or Sunday) off for religious
reasons. However, according to federal law, this is
not proof of undue hardship: "A mere assumption
that many more people, with the same religious practices as the
person being accommodated, may also need accommodation is not
evidence of undue hardship."
The above legal information can be found in Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended [section701(j), 703 and
717] and in Part XII Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission Guidelines on Discrimination Because of Religion.
These same laws apply to labor organizations as well as to
employers. The laws pertain not only to scheduling (though this
is the most frequent accommodation needed), but also to other
religious practices such as a man's right to wear a beard because
of his religious convictions.
The employer's legal obligation to accommodate "pertains to
prospective employees as well as current employees." This
means that employers conducting a job interview must be very
careful when asking about the need for religious accommodation:
"The Commission will infer that the need for an
accommodation discriminatorily influenced a decision to reject
an applicant when: (i) prior to an offer of employment the
employer makes an inquiry into an applicant's availability
without having a business necessity justification; and (ii)
after the employer has determined the applicant's need for an
accommodation, the employer rejects a qualified applicant. The
burden is then on the employer to demonstrate that factors
other than the need for an accommodation were the reason for
rejecting the qualified applicant,or that a reasonable
accommodation without undue hardship was not possible."
I do not wish to bore readers with a lot of legal jargon, but
Sabbath-keepers need to know that employees have legal rights to
reasonable accommodations, and that some employees take
their employers to court to enforce these rights. Even as I was
writing this article, a story appeared in the 11/27/98 Jewish
Press about a Seventh-Day Adventist whose employer tried to
refuse to accommodate her: "Lisette Balint, a resident of
Carson City, Nevada, was offered a position in the city's
sheriff's department, [and] the department refused to excuse her
from working on the Sabbath" ("U.S. Court Defends
Religious Rights," p. 62).
Sometimes the employer wins the case, of course, because
sometimes it truly would cause undue hardship for the employer to
accommodate the employee. When undue hardship is not an
issue,though, the law is on our side.
Most employers are reasonable people and are intelligent enough
to know that it would be wiser for them to accommodate your need
than it would be to refuse you. Many employers will
actually respect you for taking a firm, but polite, stand for
what you believe. If they are smart, they will know that a person
with strong convictions is likely to be a reliable, honest
worker with some integrity. They will want to find a way to
accommodate you. Some employers are not so kind and
understanding, and will simply tell you, "No, you have to
work on Saturdays." If that is the case, then you must pray
and ask the Lord to show you what He would have you to do. Would
the Lord have you take your employer to court, or would the Lord
have you look for a different job? (You don't need to pray about
whether or not the Lord would have you keep working on the
Sabbath; He's already told you in the Ten Commandments not to do
that!)
Fighting for your legal rights in court is one issue, but there
is also the issue of maintaining a good testimony as a disciple
of the Messiah. Some questions you might want to consider:
-
Do I really want to work for an employer who lets me have the
Sabbath off only because he was forced to do so by the court?
-
Will going to court result in resentment and/or jealousy in my
workplace, and do I want to work in such an atmosphere?
-
Is this job really worth fighting for?
-
Is it possible that letting me have every Sabbath off really
would cause undue hardship for my employer's business?
Even if the court rules in my favor, would there still be some
hardship (though not "undue"), and would it be right to
let my employer bear this inconvenience?
Keeping your job should really be your third priority in this
arena. Keeping the Sabbath and keeping your testimony should be
the first priorities. If you can do this and also keep your
job, that's great. Personally, I would not feel comfortable
forcing my employer to pay extra costs in order to accommodate
me, even though the law can require the employer to bear these
minimal costs. For the sake of my testimony as a disciple of the
Lord, I would prefer to not exercise this legal right, and would
pay for the extra costs myself, unless my employer voluntarily
and cheerfully insisted on bearing the cost. I would also be
reluctant to demand my legal right to "the alternative which
least disadvantages the individual with respect to his or her
employment opportunities." If an employer was
willing to accommodate me, I would want to find the solution
which least disadvantages both of us. If my employer is willing
to bear some minor inconvenience in order to accommodate me, then
I should be willing to bear some minor inconvenience to keep the
Sabbath.
Every situation is unique and has many factors to consider.
This is why it is important to pray before deciding whether or
not to take your employer to court if he refuses to let you have
the Sabbath off. If you do lose your job for the sake of obeying
the Lord, the Lord will honor your sacrifice. He may not provide
another job immediately, but He has promised to meet your
physical needs if you "seek first the kingdom of God"
(Matthew 6:33).
In closing, always remember that you are not called to be a
slave to your job. Although you are to treat your employer with
honor and respect, your employer is not your Owner and Master.
If you are a disciple of the Son of God, then He is your real
Owner and Master. You are called to be a servant in His
Kingdom. You are not called to be a slave to the world system.
So don't let your employer or anyone else tell you that you have
to work on the Sabbath.
TSS
Written by Dr. Daniel Botkin, who publishes a bimonthly
publication, Gates of Eden. For a sample issue, write to PO Box
2257, East Peoria, IL 61611-0257
March - May 1999 The Sabbath Sentinel
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