Workforce Bulletin

On February 21, 2023, the Seattle City Council passed a first of its kind ordinance that amends Seattle’s existing anti-discrimination laws to prohibit caste discrimination. The ordinance, CB 120511, prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals based on caste with respect to “hiring, tenure, promotion, terms, conditions, wages or privileges of employment, or with respect to any matter related to employment.” The amendment also bans discrimination based on caste with respect to public accommodations. Seattle employers should take note of the new amendment and update their policies to include caste as a protected category.

My colleague Nathaniel M. Glasser recently authored Epstein Becker Green’s Take 5 newsletter.   In this edition of Take 5, Nathaniel highlights five areas of enforcement that U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) continues to tout publicly and aggressively pursue.

1. Religious Discrimination and Accommodation—EEOC Is Victorious in New U.S. Supreme Court Ruling
2. Transgender Protections Under Title VII—EEOC Relies on Expanded Sex Discrimination Theories
3. Systemic Investigations and Litigation—EEOC Gives Priority to Enforcement Initiative

On June 1, 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court revived a religious discrimination claim against Abercrombie & Fitch (“Abercrombie”) after the fashion retailer denied employment to a Muslim woman because the headscarf, or hijab, worn as part of her religious observance violated the company’s dress code.  EEOC v, Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 2015 U.S. LEXIS 3718 (June 1, 2015). In overturning summary judgment granted in favor of Abercrombie, the Court held that Title VII does not require proof that the employer had actual knowledge of the individual’s need for religious ...

While by most accounts the current term of the Supreme Court is generally uninteresting, lacking anything that the popular media deem to be a blockbuster (the media’s choice being same-sex marriage or Affordable Care Act cases), the docket is heavily weighted towards labor and employment cases and a few that potentially affect retail employers in particular. They are as follows.

The Court already has heard argument in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, No. 13-433, which concerns whether the Portal-to-Portal Act, which amends the Fair Labor Standards Act, requires ...

By Amy Messigian

After settling two religious discrimination suits with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) last month, clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch scored a big win this week in another religious discrimination case before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal, which found that the EEOC did not prove its failure to accommodate claim for a Muslim job applicant denied hire by an Abercrombie store in Oklahoma because she wore a hijab (a religious headscarf), reversing a lower court.

Ordering judgment for Abercrombie, the Tenth Circuit found that the EEOC ...

By Amy Messigian

On September 8, 2012, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the Workplace Religious Freedom Act into law.  The law, which becomes effective on January 1, 2013, amends the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (the “Act”) to include a religious dress practice or a religious grooming practice as a belief or observance covered under the Act’s protections against religious discrimination.

The new law also specifies that it is not reasonable to segregate an employee from the public or other employees as an accommodation of the individual’s religious ...

by: Lauri F. Rasnick and Margaret C. Thering*

Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964 (“Title VII”) not only prohibits employers from discriminating against employees or prospective employees because of their religion, but it also requires employers to “reasonably accommodate” the religious practices of employees provided that such reasonable accommodations do not cause the employer “undue hardship.”  According to the EEOC Compliance Manual, reasonable accommodations may include, among others, scheduling changes, voluntary shift swaps, lateral transfers, and ...

by Susan Gross Sholinsky, Dean L. Silverberg, Steven M. Swirsky, and Jennifer A. Goldman

New York City employers take note: under the New York City Human Rights Law (“NYCHRL”), it is now considerably more difficult for employers to establish “undue hardship” in the context of denying an employee’s request for a reasonable accommodation due to his or her religious observance or practice. While previously silent on the issue, the NYCHRL now includes a definition of the term “undue hardship,” as follows: “an accommodation requiring significant expense or ...