You May Proselytize at Work Now: What’s the Tea in L&E?
Return to Work: Employer-Mandated COVID-19 Vaccination Policies and Accommodating Employee Disabilities and Religious Beliefs
Unlike private sector workers, government employees enjoy certain constitutional protections while at work, including free speech rights under the First Amendment. The extent of those rights has been the subject of countless...more
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has recently issued significant decisions against two federal employers for failing to provide reasonable religious accommodations to their employees. These decisions...more
The COVID-19 pandemic brought workplace vaccination policies to the forefront, raising complex questions about religious accommodations. Over four years after the initial rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, these policies remain...more
After the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, on January 30 a federal district court denied dueling motions for summary judgment filed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the U.S. Postal Service, and former Postal...more
The legal challenges relate to "abortion accommodation." Not long ago, I blogged about two legal challenges to the regulations interpreting the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. In one case, 14 state attorneys general filed...more
The EEOC recently released its final Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace, replacing earlier guidance issued between 1987 and 1999. The guidance, issued on April 29, 2024, reflects how the EEOC’s...more
In Part One of this two-part bulletin, we explored the expansive meaning of religious beliefs entitled to an accommodation under Title VII and the reluctance of courts to second guess whether a belief is “religious” in...more
For retail establishments, developments involving religious accommodation and the new Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) make scheduling employees more challenging. Religious Accommodation- The U.S. Supreme Court...more
How far must employers go to accommodate their employees' sincerely held religious beliefs? Last month, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Groff v. DeJoy, a case that asks the Justices to answer this very question—and...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Yesterday the Supreme Court held oral argument in Groff v. DeJoy, a case in which the Court is considering whether to overturn decades of precedent established by the seminal religious accommodation case,...more
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to consider whether its own definition of “undue hardship” with respect to religious accommodation requests, which employers have relied upon for more than 45 years, remains valid when it hears...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Accommodation requests continue to vex employers as they attempt to balance an employee’s religious beliefs with the overall needs of the business operations. But try they must....more
It just got harder to get out of working on the Sabbath on the basis of religion. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently issued its opinion in Groff v. Dejoy, rejecting a mail carrier's repeated...more
Religious accommodation cases continue to vex employers. Especially since the rise of COVID-19, employers have had to face a rising tide of employee claims that their religious beliefs entitle them to an exemption from...more
Second post in our series. NOTE FROM ROBIN: Last month, I posted the first in what will be a series of very basic explanations of the federal laws that govern the workplace. I could not resist having religious...more
Every employer who employs at least 100 employees is anxiously awaiting the decision from the United States Supreme Court on OSHA’s Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). One thing that cannot be avoided...more
The federal government recently issued guidance to agencies on implementing Executive Order 14042, the White House COVID-19 vaccination mandate for federal employees and federal contractors. However, many questions remain...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On October 28, 2021, an amendment to the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act passed the Illinois General Assembly and made its way to Governor Pritzker’s desk. The amendment creates a COVID-19...more
Federal law’s obligation to accommodate religious observances and practices has been in the spotlight recently because of employees seeking to be exempted from employer mandatory vaccination policies when the vaccine...more
Vaccine case law is developing rapidly on virtually a daily basis. Recent key decisions include...more
On Oct. 25, 2021 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued new guidance for resolving religious objections to COVID-19 workplace vaccination mandates. This guidance comes at a time when many employees are...more
Over the last several weeks, employers, in tandem with their legal counsel, have been grappling in good faith with religious exemption requests pouring in following the imposition of COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The analysis...more
On October 25, 2021, as more employers adopt workplace vaccination requirements for their employees, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) updated its guidance concerning requiring COVID-19 vaccinations in...more
On October 25, 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) updated its COVID-19 Technical Assistance Questions and Answers publication to provide additional guidance for employers on handling employee religious...more
As many employers begin implementing COVID-19 vaccine mandates, they are receiving a large number of employee requests for exemption from the vaccine for religious reasons. Before this week there was no direct guidance from...more