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OFFICE OF THE UMPIRE No. D-11 October 16, 1945
Discharge For Refusal To Work Saturdays Because Of Religious Beliefs
GRIEVANCE: Buick-Flint—Case D-1 "Protest against Buick Management’s vicious anti-religious policy. This policy deprived me of my livelihood for worshipping on Saturday. Request back pay for all time lost."
Umpire’s Decision: The grievance is dismissed. (Entire Decision should be read)
In the Matter of: United Automobile Workers of America—C.I.O.—Local 599 and General Motors Corporation—Buick Motor—Flint—Case D-1 The complainant, Employee H., has been an employee of the Buick Motor Division in Flint since 1921. For 16 years he has been a Seventh Day Adventist and in accordance with the tenets of that faith has refused to work on Saturdays. During the days of commercial production, when the plant was on a 40-hour week, there seems to have been little difficulty over his refusal. Even when overtime work was required on Saturdays, Management allowed the complainant to remain away and to make up the time on other days. In 1942, when the war program required Management to establish a 48-hour week, Management felt it necessary to alter its policy in such cases and to require that all employees work their regularly scheduled hours unless they had reasonable cause for absence. A religious belief which acted as a continuous bar to an employee’s working on one particular day of the week was not considered by Management to be such a "reasonable cause". On this basis a number of employees who subscribe to Seventh Day Adventist beliefs were discharged for "habitual absence without reasonable cause", Management indicating in each case that the employee would be allowed to return to work and have his seniority restored provided that he would agree to work on Saturdays. For some reason unexplained at the hearing, however, Employee H. was not penalized for his Saturday absences until his discharge on May 7th, 1945. It would appear that he was discharged at that time only because of the complaints of another employee that Management was discriminating in H.’s favor by not holding him to the same requirements to which it held other employees. Two issues are therefore present in this case. The first presents the question of Management’s right as a matter of principle to require Seventh Day Adventists to work on Saturdays as a condition of employment, and the second, the question of whether by its prior leniency toward H. Management deprived itself of the right to enforce its rule against him. With regard to the first issue, the decision must clearly be for Management. It must at once be made clear that no question of religious freedom is involved in this case. H. has every right to believe as he chooses and to act in accordance with his beliefs. His beliefs cannot entitle him, however, to special privileges which are denied to other employees. Management has the basic right to employ and retain in employment only such employees as are able and willing in the long run to perform the work required of them on the work days regularly scheduled. It has always been recognized that the Corporation need not retain indefinitely on its payrolls an employee who through illness or accident is rendered permanently incapable of performing work in the Corporation’s plant. In the same manner, it must be held that the Corporation need not keep in its employ an individual whose religious beliefs are a permanent bar to his observance of regular shift schedules. Management has no right, of course, to concern itself with the beliefs themselves, but it has every right to insist that in the long run its work schedules shall be fulfilled and its Shop Rules uniformly applied. The Union argues that if any one thing could ever be considered a reasonable cause for absence that thing should be the religious tenets of a sincere and devout believer such as H. There is an obvious distinction, however, between causes for absence which operate only occasionally, such as illness in the family, a need to take care of special and pressing business or a desire to observe occasional religious holidays, and causes which operate permanently and result in regularly recurring absences on specified days during the week. The standards of reasonableness which might have applied had H.’s absences been exceptional could not apply when those absences became the permanent and unvarying rule. On the second issue, likewise, Management is in principle correct. The Umpire has previously indicated that by being lenient with an employee over a short or long period of time Management does not lose its right in its discretion to become strict. Management’s wisdom in suddenly imposing its rules against H. when the end of the war was approaching and return to a 40-hour week could be readily envisioned, may seem questionable. There can be no doubt, however, of its right to do so. The evidence is clear that with regard to other employees of the Seventh Day Adventist faith Management had uniformly imposed its attendance rule. In all fairness the Umpire cannot hold that it should have discriminated in favor of H. It is admitted by Management that H. is a good workman and a valued employee. It is to be hoped that with the return of these plants to a 40-hour week some means may be found of reemploying him on some basis similar to that on which he worked during the years prior to the war. From Management’s attitude and expressions at the hearing the Umpire is confident that if that can be done his long seniority can also be restored. For the reasons stated above, however, the Umpire cannot find that Management exceeded its rights in discharging him and must accordingly dismiss his grievance.
Decision: The grievance is dismissed. Signed, Ralph T. Seward UMPIRE October 16, 1945. |