HARRISBURG, Pa. (RNS) After being hired as a driver for UPS Freight, Nieland Bynoe, a Rastafarian, attended an orientation meeting last year and was told that he would have to shave his beard and cut off his dreadlocks to comply with the company’s grooming policy.
Bynoe, of Harrisburg, told company officials the next day that he was prohibited by his religion from doing what the company asked and requested a reasonable accommodation, but the company immediately fired him, according to a recent lawsuit filed on his behalf by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
UPS Freight officials did not return repeated calls for comment.
A federal judge is being asked to settle this dispute, and some experts said such cases are becoming more common as the country’s work force becomes more diverse.
The EEOC investigated 2,880 religious discrimination complaints in 2007, a record high and an increase of 13 percent from the previous year.
According to a manual the EEOC published this summer, employers must “reasonably accommodate” workers’ and applicants’ sincerely held religious beliefs unless doing so would impose an undue hardship, such as lowering efficiency or decreasing safety. The guidance is based on part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the EEOC.
Some people have said “undue hardship” is a vague standard that might have been purposely written that way, said Michael J. Crocenzi, an employment lawyer with Goldberg Katzman in Harrisburg.
“That’s the conundrum, because if you start coming out with a list of rules, it would be a very, very long list,” Crocenzi said. “And what may be an undue hardship for a smaller company may not be an undue hardship for a larger one. … You have to take these situations on a case by case standpoint. These are difficult cases.”
But Terrence Cook, a supervisory lawyer for the EEOC, said the law is clear. Employers have trouble when they don’t have competent human resources personnel or legal counsel to help them with specific situations, Cook said.
Human resources “is an area that is simply ignored, particularly by smaller employers, but in this day and age, that’s a bad practice,” Cook said. “But in the UPS Freight case, a company of that size should have no question about the law. They probably have more lawyers than we do.”
By Carrie Cassidy
Copyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
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posted October 15, 2008 at 7:45 pm
A grooming policy is a grooming policy you’ve got to comply if you want to work for the company, what next should we change the grooming codes for the military?
posted October 16, 2008 at 9:56 am
In many cases I think that both the employee and the employer know what to expect of each other. In this case, however, I don’t think the plaintiff’s “dreads” would create neither a hazard nor a hardship. If he can do the job, give him the job. Too much emphasis on control belies other problems in an organization. UPS has enough other standards for their employees that this seems very superficial and unnecessary.
posted October 17, 2008 at 12:28 pm
If indeed his hair style and beard were a problem with him getting in and out of the truck to deliver packages that could be a reason to ask him to change it. However how are his beard and dreadlocks going to do that? Seems a bit unreasonable to me to demand he get rid of them. Also it seems that the company can’t interpret their own rules!
posted October 19, 2008 at 7:40 pm
“Personal appearance is probably important to a company who deals with sending out representatives to face to face encounters with their customers. I could see a company requiring a certain level of grooming if that could factor in its productivity. Certainly long hair could be required to be cut and if the dreads fall into that category they would be a deal breaker in a hiring review. I would say to force them to hire someone who could potentially affect their productivity or cause them to lose clients would be unfair, after all they consider invest, and plan carefully how to keep themselves in business. It’s like you could force them to hire someone with a bone in their nose because it is their religious practice.
posted October 27, 2008 at 8:10 pm
The cutting of ones hair and beard should bever be a reqiurement to get a job, no matter what the position is! Further more those who try to force a Rasta to cut there dread locks must be warned in advance, that they are making demands to the living God himself, because Rasta’s believe that God lives in all of us! A Rasta’s dreads are a measure of there study and knowledge of the one and only true living God! So my advice to those within society who wish to crush and opress the Rasta, is to open there heart and turn to Jesus Christ for the answer. It is not too late to change your ways corporate America! All God fearing men must change there ways and give all thanks and priase to Jah Rastafari!