Religious Employees Research Articles

Corporations, Compelled Speech, and the Common Good

Most of the current literature on the subject of corporations and compelled speech focuses almost entirely on the extent to which corporations are or should be regulated by laws that compel them to conduct themselves in a certain way. In this paper, I explore the mostly uncharted territory of situations in which corporations compel the speech of their own employees through policies which require employees to speak or act in a way that may be contrary to the form of life prescribed by their faith. I argue that philosophical defences against corporate compelled speech for religious employees on the basis that religious belief sits within a generally inviolate private sphere of autonomy are misguided because they do not take sufficient account of the nature of corporations as moral agents which can legitimately pursue moral and political ends in the public sphere. I argue that corporations necessarily rely on a conception of the common good when they do this. The permissibility of corporate compelled speech therefore comes down to whether or not it is conducive to the common good.

The Regulation of Religion by Secular Work Practice: Exploring Muslim Employees’ Performance of Religious Practice

Adopting a practice lens, this study contributes to debates on the reproduction of religious inequalities in the workplace by going beyond the literature's dominant focus on the role of discourse in the regulation of employees’ religion. Drawing on interviews with Muslim employees in Belgium, this study offers a practice-based theorization of religious inequality at work, focusing on the role of the rhythms, objects, spaces, and bodies of work practice in the regulation of religion and on religious employees’ different performances directly negotiating these aspects of work practice. Based on this practice-based understanding, we identify contributions to several debates on religion at work. First, we show the role of work practice in imposing a secular order that selectively embraces cultural and religious practices that have historically dominated the Global North. Second, we add to studies on Muslim employees by showing how solely focusing on Islamophobic discourses and discursive practices overlooks the interplay between these discourses and work practice in the regulation of religion and Muslim employees’ negotiation of the rhythms, objects, spaces, and bodies of work practice. Third, contributing to debates on (in)visibility, we expose that the (in)visibility of religion is shaped by its relation to work practice and that religious employees can negotiate work practice through invisibly performing religious practice. Fourth, adding to our understanding of the inclusion of religious employees, we emphasize the importance of the flexibility of work practice and the role of other employees in enabling religious employees to better align work and religious practice.

Observance by religious employees of the requirements for appearance and business etiquette established by the employer

In Russia, labor disputes are increasingly arising over the fundamental admissibility of employees observing the norms of the religion they profess, ethical teachings and the possibilities for obliging employers not to interfere with their observance by creating appropriate conditions for the use of labor. Law enforcement practice, in the absence of clear guidelines in the legislation, “disguises” such disagreements as disputes about dismissal for violation of labor laws, ignoring their true discriminatory nature. The article analyzes in detail one of the sections of the designated problem of reconciliation of labor and religion - the observance by religious workers of the requirements for the appearance and rules of business etiquette at the employer. Considering the problem, the author starts from the three main religious needs of the employee, which he seeks to satisfy in a controversial situation of contradiction between the employer's requirements and religious norms. Drawing extensively on materials from foreign practice and analyzing Russian legislation, the author comes to the following conclusions. The ability of an employee to satisfy a need such as the wearing of religious clothing, symbols, or other external manifestation of religious commitment will depend on what regulation is established by the employer in this regard. It also gives an assessment of the so-called policy of religious neutrality, established at the local level. As for the need for an employee to verbally express his religiosity and views, the employer has the right to prohibit such actions if they cause inconvenience to other employees or customers, threaten to lose customers, the image of the employer, and also to prevent proselytism in the team of employees. Finally, an employee for religious reasons may express a desire to refrain from participating in the employer's corporate events: coercion by the employer to the contrary clearly constitutes indirect discrimination.

INTEGRITAS PENGHULU DALAM PELAYANAN NIKAH: Memotret Pelayanan Publik Pada Kantor Urusan Agama Kecamatan Sebagai Bentuk Reformasi Birokrasi

Abstract: The bureaucratic reform program has opened new public colors in Indonesia. Various government agencies have been conducting reforms in various sectors that have been a weak point for public services. One of them is public service to the ministry of religious affairs. The religious ministry continues to work on wedding services at the district office of religious affairs (KUA). The district office of religious affairs, has been tidying up to the changes that become the necessity of bureaucratic reform. One of the fundamental changes is a new form of wedding service. Today the implementation of public services is still faced with conditions that have not been in accordance with the needs and changes in various areas of life in society. Various cases such as illegal charges and gratification indicate the lack of integrity that some of the Penghulu in district office of religious affairs. Therefore, it takes the role of various elements to continue to coaching in building the integrity of district office of religious affairs employees, especially on Penghulu.

Configuring the Third Space: Perceptions of Religious Accommodation in Offshore Service Centers

Every religion requires its participants to engage in certain patterns of behavior, and managers have to deal with religious employees' demands to accommodate these behaviors. This study focuses on the sensitive nexus where religion and demands of the global market intersect--and potentially challenge cross-national business practices--by examining strategies for accommodating religious requests in four Tunisian call centers that provide services to European clients. Our data and analysis, based on semi-structured interviews and non-participatory observation, focus on employees’ perceptions of management policies and practices related to religion, policies that are often designed to mask employees’ actual identities as non-European Muslims. Our analysis draws on Identity Regulation Theory (IRT), inasmuch as our data reveal that religious expression is a key element of many employees’ indigenous identities, and on the postcolonial theory of the “third space” to capture the power dynamics at play in the interactions between employees embedded in a former colony and European clients embedded in societies that colonized Tunisia and much of Africa. Using a qualitative, comparative case-study approach, we describe and compare a variety of religion-related strategies used by managements of the four call centers and the kinds of resistance to those strategies that employees deploy in order to assert their religious identities.

Religious Accommodation in the Age of Whole-Self Employment

For decades, litigants and legislators alike have attempted unsuccessfully to overturn Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, the 1977 Supreme Court decision holding an employer does not have to provide a religious accommodation to an employee if the accommodation would impose more than de minimis cost on the employer. This effectively gutted Title VII’s religious accommodation requirement by enabling employers to avoid accommodating employees for almost any reason at all. This Article does not advocate for a change in the law, as others have, but instead proposes a new way forward. It makes the case that employers should voluntarily provide religious accommodations beyond what the law requires. This is because we now live in the age of whole-self employment, wherein employees are no longer content to check their personal lives at the workplace door, but instead expect to be able to bring their entire selves—including their religious beliefs and practices—with them to work. Accommodation facilitates whole-self employment by allowing religious employees to express a fundamental dimension of themselves in the workplace. Empirical research overwhelmingly confirms employees who are allowed to express their authentic selves at work are happier, harder working, and more loyal to their employers. Research also shows that a content workforce is a productive workforce. Thus, employers should approach religious accommodations not as a burden but as an investment—an opportunity to allow employees to display a part of themselves that will make them better workers. While employers would incur upfront costs in voluntarily accommodating employees, the potential return on this investment justifies its expense.

STUDI EMPIRIS : PERAN IKLIM KERJA KREATIF DAN KESESUAIN TUJUAN TERHADAP PEMENUHAN KONTRAK PSIKOLOGIS SERTA DAMPAKNYA PADA KINERJA RELIGIUS

The creation of a positive climate must be carried out by an organization to support the development of the creativity of people who are members of the organization. The creation of a climate that supports creativity, especially in improving the performance of individuals and organizations / companies, of course, must bring about a match between goals between individuals and organizations. The organization must also pay attention to the rights of its members in addition to demanding full obligations. Fulfillment and violation of psychological contracts will have an impact on individual performance in general where the majority of Indonesia's population has a religious side that is still high.
 Religious performance is a hope and belief that what we do has a religious value. Thus the organization must be able to build and provide complete facilities in supporting the religious side of the members of the organization. The focus of this writing is how the creative work climate and goal congruence for the fulfillment of psychological contracts and their impact on religious performance. This writing uses relevant literature studies.
 This research is expected to be empirical study capable of presenting a picture of the creative work climate and Goal Congruence able to give effect to the fulfillment of psychological contracts and their impact on improving the performance of Religious employees.

The Role of Ethics in Understand the Relationship between Religious Employees and Corruption

The Role of Ethics in Understand the Relationship between Religious Employees and Corruption

Discrimination in employment, religious symbols and the “actual knowledge” of the employer

The Title VII of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. section 2000e, et seq., as amended (“Title VII”), prohibits employers with at least 15 employees (including private sector, state, and local government employers), as well as employment agencies, unions, and federal government agencies, from discriminating in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It also prohibits retaliation against persons who complain of discrimination or participate in an Equal Employment Opportunity investigation. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing federal laws that prohibit workplace discrimination and it has intervened by the federal body to prevent religious discrimination by corporations which seem to be breaching the law by discriminating against their employees. In EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch 575 U.S. ____ (2015), the US Supreme Court held that a religious practice of an employee should be accommodated if it does not cause “undue hardship.” The Court then formulated the principle that applicant does not have to show that the employer had “actual knowledge” of the applicant’s need for accommodation. Instead, the Court held that “an applicant need only show that his need for an accommodation was a motivating factor in the employer’s decision.” This has given the scope to a Chapter VII definition that stops short of strict liability but binds the employer to facilitate the employee where religious symbols are concerned. This article reviews the recent case law on discrimination in the work place and the disparate treatment test interpreted by the Supreme Court in the framework of employment law for religious employees and argues that the employer’s actual knowledge requirement depends upon the circumstances of each case.

PENGEMBANGAN SPIRITUAL RELIGIUS DAN KINERJA PEGAWAI PEMERINTAH KOTAMADYA JAKARTA BARAT

This study aims to describe the spiritual development of religious employees in the West Jakarta Municipal Government. The focus of the study is the performance of employees after following the spiritual development, as well as the implications of this development for the model of religious spiritual development of employees. This research is a qualitative descriptive research with the approach of Islamic Psychology which combines between reason and faith. With the framework of spiritual intelligence indicator according to Zohar and Marshall modified with atheistic perspective, this research finds that: (1) Spiritual spiritual development of employees carried out by the West Jakarta Municipal Government is done in the framework of the realization of workplace spirituality, which is done through the formation of spiritual culture ) stated in its programs; (2) In general, West Jakarta Municipal Government employees have sufficient performance to provide public services, especially for those who have experienced the process of spiritual development. Nine indicators of spiritual intelligence can be used as a benchmark for their performance, although there are still indicators that have not been fully fulfilled; and (3) The spiritual development of religious employees by the West Jakarta Municipal Government has theoretical implications for the model of religious spiritual development of employees.

BEKERJA PADA ORGANISASI YANG TIDAK SEHAT: PELUANG ATAU KUTUKAN BAGI KARYAWAN?

ABSTRACTObjective of this paper is to explain behavior alternatives for employees ,'ho have job dissatisfaction. When accomplishing job task, the religious employees will certainly practice one of their code of belief that working is a kind of religious service. They work vigorously as if tomorrow will he the end of the world. When their organization is going to collapse, the religious employees experience cognitive dissonance (hopes and realities are unsynchronized). They have difficulties in practicing that working is a kind of religious service.There are four behavior alternatives in order to lessening cognitive dissonance i.e. exit or leaving organization (active destructive), neglect (passive destructive), loyal (passive constructive), and voice (active constructive). The voice alternative is the most appropriate behavior for the religious employees, but it less likely to give maximal improvement either for employees or organization.The suggested alternative in this essay is the adapted negotiation alternative which employees have to change and improve themselves. Through improving themselves, they have opportunity either to perform high quality job accomplishment or supporting friends to accomplish their tasks. The adapted negotiation is applying religious service that giving firstly, then we will receive abundance i.e. having creative ability in job accomplishment, ability to act positively in chaos situation, and having good mental health. Changing ourselves is really difficult. However there are precious words which could be our guidance that the crucial factor in achieving success is not the obstacle existence but our unconstructive attitude in facing that obstacle.Key words: Job dissatisfaction, religious service, adapted negotiation

Work Life Balance in Relation to Well-Being of Religious and Non-Religious Employees

“Work life balance “is a person’s control over the conditions in their workplace. The concept of work-family (life) balance has emerged from the acknowledgement that an individual’s work-life and personal/family life may exert conflicting demands on each other. A balance between work and life is supposed to exist when there is a proper functioning at work and at home with a minimum of role conflict. “Well-being refers to how people evaluate their lives. According to Diener (1997), these evaluations may be in the form of cognitions or in the form of affect. The cognitive part is an information based appraisal of one’s life that is when a person gives conscious evaluative judgments about one’s satisfaction with life as a whole. The affective part is a hedonic evaluation guided by emotions and feelings such as frequency with which people experience pleasant/unpleasant moods in reaction to their lives..Thus the purpose of the research was to explore the relation between work life balance and well-being among employees. Samples were selected through random sampling. 40 employees of different sectors working in Qatar participated in the research. Work life balance scale developed by Hayman(2005) and well-being scale developed by Nishi Zawa (1996). For statistical analysis Pearson correlation was used. Result showed that correlation between work life balance and well-being among non-religious employees was found to be negative and there was positive relation between work life balance and well-being among religious employees.

Religiousness in times of job insecurity: job demand or resource?

Purpose– Departing from the job demands resources model, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether religion, defined as strength of religious faith, can be viewed as resource or as demand. More specifically, the authors addressed the question as to how job insecurity and religion interact in predicting burnout and change-oriented behavior.Design/methodology/approach– The authors conducted moderated structural equation modeling on survey data from a sample of 238 employees confronted with organizational change.Findings– Results were largely consistent with the “religion as a demand” hypothesis: religion exacerbated rather than buffered the negative effects of job insecurity, so that the adverse impact of job insecurity was stronger for highly religious employees than for employees with low levels of religiousness. Religious employees appear to experience more strain when faced with the possibility of job loss.Originality/value– The results of this study challenge and extend existing knowledge on the role of religion in coping with life stressors. The dominant view has been that religion is beneficial in coping with major stressors. The results of this study, however, suggest otherwise: religion had an exacerbating rather than a buffering effect on the relationship between job insecurity and outcomes.

THE GOD “DILUTION”? RELIGION, DISCRIMINATION AND THE CASE FOR REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION

AbstractAnti-discrimination complaints by religious employees have constructed seemingly intractable conflicts. The United Kingdom courts have resolved these disputes by diluting individual religious liberty, particularly when determining questions of disadvantage and proportionality under indirect discrimination. This article explores an alternative UK anti-discrimination claim route for religious employees, namely an employer duty of reasonable accommodation. A comparative analysis outlines the corresponding Canadian duty. This model is applied to UK employment cases featuring indirect religious discrimination, specifically those claims which formed the recent applications inEweida and Others v UK. It is suggested that adoption of the Canadian model be considered: its nuanced approach to proportionality is particularly instructive. Whilst such a UK duty could prove controversial, it would cohere with both normative theory in law and religion and conceptual understanding of anti-discrimination law. Moreover, reasonable accommodation's individualised focus should be acclaimed; it need not compromise collective notions of religious liberty.

Accommodating religious claims in the Dutch workplace

This article analyses religious claims in the workplace arising from tensions related to religious diversity in the Netherlands. On the basis of interviews with leaders in the religious, political and public sectors, we look at the perception of such tensions and discuss the feasibility of accommodating them. Our study distinguishes between the individual cluster (private and public sectors) and the collective cluster. In the former our respondents argue that individual religious employees in the private sector are not under pressure; rather, there is strong support for these individuals to act in accordance with their religious beliefs. When it concerns public employment, however, religious civil servants do seem to be under pressure in the Netherlands; secular respondents argue that civil servants are part of the state apparatus and therefore have no right to make direct or indirect distinctions on the basis of their personal beliefs. In the collective cluster, we found that associational freedoms for religious organizations and faith-based organizations have also come under secularist pressure; non-discrimination is often invoked as the supreme principle, trumping associational autonomy. These observations suggest a shift in the Dutch tradition of governing religious diversity and portend its significant impact on the position of religious employees in the Netherlands.

Religion and religious discrimination in the French workplace

The visibility of religious identities in workplaces has become a recurrent topic of certain public debates and tensions in France. It is generally the visibility of Muslim identities and practices of Islam that are at the centre of these tensions. This article shows in the context of French republican laïcité that religious issues are considered as private issues that should not play out openly in the workplace, which is considered to have a more public character. With a focus on the French labour law framework and religious discrimination issues, interviews with elected politicians, religious leaders, unionists, representatives of civil society organisations and legal experts show that religious discrimination in the French workplace is a more complex phenomenon than it seems. Discrimination of religious employees, in a direct or indirect manner, happens more often than is officially reported in France. Many respondents suggested that a great deal of religious discrimination is, at best, reframed as ethnicity-based or gender-based discrimination. The article also discusses some recent examples of businesses that treat the issue of religious diversity in the French workplace in a more pragmatic manner, opening up more possibilities for reasonable accommodation.

Religious Conduct and the Immutability Requirement: Title VII’s Failure to Protect Religious Employees in the Workplace

This article examines how the federal courts have used the requirement of immutability to limit an employee’s right to religious accommodation in the workplace under § 701(j) of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Section 701(j) explicitly mandates reasonable accommodation of an employee’s religious beliefs and observances if accommodation can be made without undue hardship to the employer. The mutable/immutable distinction should therefore not be an issue in the religious accommodation cases since accommodation is mandated by statute regardless of whether religion is an immutable trait. However, a careful reading of the case law and examination of the rhetoric used by the federal courts illustrates that judges often implicitly find that religion is little more than an issue of personal choice and therefore not entitled to protection under § 701(j).

Love Thy Neighbor: Should Religious Accommodations that Negatively Affect Coworkers’ Shift Preferences Constitute an Undue Hardship on the Employer Under Title VII?

In applying Title VII, courts are often confronted with religious accommodations that would negatively affect other employees and are asked to decide whether such an accommodation amounts to an undue hardship on the employer. This Note explores the conflict among circuit courts concerning the scope of an employer’s duty to accommodate religious employees when doing so would negatively affect coworkers’ scheduling preferences, outside context of a collective bargaining agreement. This conflict turns on whether courts consider any negative impact on coworkers impermissible preferential treatment, or whether they require more severe impact on coworkers' rights be demonstrated. This Note argues that preferential treatment of the religious employee exists only when imposition on coworkers creates an economic burden on the employer or requires coworkers to take on additional, physically hazardous tasks.

Islam among the Chuvashes and its Role in the Change of Chuvash Ethnicity

The Chuvashes are descendants of Volga-Bulgarians who were the first people to accept Islam as the official state religion in Turkish history. Although some of them have kept alive the traditional beliefs and practices to the present day, they are regarded as a Christian Turkish community today. Because of this there is an exceptional place for Chuvashes from the point of view of the history of religions and the history of Turkish culture in the Turkish world. Since Chuvashes started to accept Islam, Chuvashes living in rural areas accepted Islam superficially and Islam was not defining in their moral conduct. But Chuvashes who accepted Islam later on became imams, muezzins, teachers in madrasahs and the other religious employees. Many Chuvashes were influenced by Tatars who were strong representatives of Islam in the Volga-Urals region. This caused Chuvashes to define themselves as Tatars. In the meantime, the Muslim Chuvashes have been identified as Tatars in written sources. Chuvashes who have maintained traditional religious beliefs were also influenced by the Islamic culture. This influence can be seen in their rites, religious practices and terminologies. In this article, the relation of Chuvashes with Islam and their changing ethnic identity in the form of Tatarization is examined and analyzed in their historical context.

Association of self-reported religiosity and mortality in industrial employees: the CORDIS study

This study examined the association between self-reported religiosity and mortality in industrial employees, while controlling for workplace and socioeconomic factors. Subjects were 3638 Jewish Israeli males who participated in a 12-year follow-up study. During this period 253 deaths were recorded. The prevalence of negative workplace and sociodemographic factors: lower education, non-European origin, heavy physical work, blue-collar jobs and adverse job and environmental conditions, was highest among religious employees, and lower in traditional and nonreligious employees in descending order. Using Cox's proportionate hazard model an age by religiosity interaction on mortality was uncovered. In younger employees (age <55 years) religiosity was associated with lower adjusted mortality, after controlling for negative workplace and sociodemographic factors. Compared with nonreligious employees, the hazard ratios for the religious and traditional employees were: 0.64 ( p=0.016) and 0.39 ( p=0.118), respectively. In older employees (age ⩾55 years), religiosity was associated with higher adjusted mortality. The corresponding hazards ratios were 1.69 ( p=0.011) and 1.08 ( p=0.004), even after controlling for the above possible confounding variables. It was concluded that religiosity had a protective effect on mortality in younger employees, but the reverse was true for older employees. This opposite trend could not be explained by negative sociodemographic and workplace conditions. The possibility of involvement of yet another potent factor of social isolation was discussed.