Employment Law Update: Workplace Religious Accommodations and Islamic Prayer
Date: August 15, 2024
By:
Rafiq R. Gharbi
Muslims are required by their faith to observe five daily prayers during certain intervals. The performance of the prayer requires preparation in the form of a ritual cleansing, followed by the actual prayer which consists of a series of standing, bowing, and prostrating actions accompanied by recitation of chapters from the Quran. The five daily prayers occur at dawn, mid-day, mid-afternoon, sunset, and nighttime. With each prayer time comes a “window” of time in which that particular prayer should be performed.
Prayer times will fluctuate throughout the year as they correspond with the rising and setting of the sun. Long summer days may only see one prayer “come due” during the workday, while short winter days may have up to three “come due” during a typical 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. shift.
For employers who are not familiar with the practice of the salat, or Islamic daily prayers, there are legitimate questions and concerns. How will the company keep up productivity if an employee is constantly taking prayer breaks? What if the company does not have enough employees to keep operations running while an employee prays? Just how far must the company go to accommodate this practice? It all depends.
Reasonable Religious Accommodation and Undue Hardship
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s religious accommodation protections require that employers accommodate sincerely held religious practices so long as they do not pose an undue hardship to the employer. Title VII’s undue hardship test for religious accommodations requires a case-by-case analysis, as every request for such accommodation will have its own set of unique facts.
Last year, the Supreme Court’s Decision in Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447, 143 S. Ct. 2279 (2023) changed the relevant analysis for what may constitute an undue hardship. Under the previous interpretation, the standard for the undue hardship analysis was that the employer must demonstrate that the accommodation poses “more than a de minimis” cost or burden. So long as the burden was more than trivial, it could be deemed an undue hardship. The Supreme Court in Groff, however, stated an employer must accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs unless it can show that doing so would “result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of” the employer’s business. The Court found that an evangelical Christian postal worker’s request not to work on Sundays should have been viewed through the more context-specific standard, and remanded proceedings back to the lower court.
This departure from the relatively low standard for defining an undue hardship has a rippling effect on religious accommodation cases and reshapes how employers must approach an employee’s requests.
The EEOC’s compliance manual provides the following instructive example:
Rashid, a janitor, tells his employer on his first day of work that he practices Islam and will need to pray at several prescribed times during the workday in order to adhere to his religious practice of praying at five specified times each day, for several minutes, with hand washing beforehand. The employer objects because its written policy allows one fifteen-minute break in the middle of each morning and afternoon. Rashid’s requested change in break schedule will not exceed the 30 minutes of total break time otherwise allotted, nor will it affect his ability to perform his duties or otherwise cause an undue hardship for his employer. Thus, Rashid is entitled to accommodation.
Preventative Steps for Employers
To avoid the issues that may arise when accommodating prayer breaks (and avoid costly litigation), there are a few practical tips to keep in mind.
Neutrality
If an employer’s policy regarding breaks is content-neutral, well-documented, and applicable company-wide, an employer has a much better chance of avoiding or defending against a claim of discrimination. Where a company only allows breaks at certain times, there should be documentation supporting the policy that reflects the operational efficiencies gained, and the costs associated with downtime in production where the policy is not followed. This is because, under the new standard, employers will still need to demonstrate that a change to that policy to accommodate a prayer break would have a significant impact on operations, such as substantially increasing costs to the employer.
Compromise
Employers with neutral policies regarding breaks who are still encountering issues accommodating prayers may need to scale back or adjust those policies. If the policy is only an issue for one or a few individuals, agreements can be entered into between those employees and the company acknowledging exceptions to the policy but maintaining the policy’s intent. Recent litigation has arisen out of companies’ unwillingness to adapt break policies to prayer schedules.
Understanding
Employers should understand that Muslims are obligated to perform daily prayers— it is a central pillar of Islam. By allowing liberal prayer breaks or crafting policies that carve out enough time to perform prayers, employers can alleviate the internal conflict that Muslim employees might feel. In return, employers can reap the benefits of more productive and mindful workers.
Whiteford’s Labor and Employment Law Team is ready to answer your questions on religious accommodation obligations, or any other issues that may arise in the workplace.
The information contained here is not intended to provide legal advice or opinion and should not be acted upon without consulting an attorney. Counsel should not be selected based on advertising materials, and we recommend that you conduct further investigation when seeking legal representation.