Setting ‘Prophet Margins’

For most of his life, wearing his yarmulke has not been an issue.

Every morning at 7, Baruch Cohen attends temple down the street from his home. Whenever he appears in court or meets with a client, a black yarmulke is atop his head.

For Cohen, wearing the Jewish skullcap is as natural as wearing a shirt. The yarmulke, he said, is a constant reminder that “there’s a God above.”

The 35-year-old Los Angeles bankruptcy lawyer said he is descended from 80 generations of rabbis and is fervent about his religious convictions. But as a student at Southwestern Law School, his resolve was challenged.

In his final year, he was granted a job interview that was “light-years ahead” of his class ranking, Cohen said. “Everyone said: ‘Don’t wear the yarmulke. It will ruin your chances.’ ”

After much soul-searching, he consulted with his rabbi and received special dispensation to remove the skullcap.

At the interview, he was greeted by a lawyer with a black velvet yarmulke perched neatly on his head, traditional locks tucked out of sight, whose first question was, “Where is your yarmulke?” Cohen said. “I felt like a betrayer.”

Since then, he has refused to compromise in observing his Jewish traditions.

As cashiers, board members, janitors and junior partners openly seek balance and purpose in their lives, the business world is becoming less a sanctuary of the secular, according to human resource officers, employees and demographers.

With on-the-job spirituality apparently on the rise, workers seem to be saying there is no distinction between the self and the soul once their shifts begin. Their commitment to their ideologies, religious or otherwise, is full time.

“Lots of people find out that having it all means far more than having something shiny and new parked in the garage,” said Richard Bunce, coordinator for Mobilization for the Human Family, a Claremont-based ecumenical nonprofit organization that works with churches to encourage interaction with the community.

This burgeoning awareness of spirituality--or the search for meaning and understanding, as Bunce defines it--”seems a healthy antidote to the materialism that was so strong in the ‘80s and still is everywhere to be seen.” He added that expressing spirituality at work allows people “to be human in the presence of others” and can help build trust among employees.

As business organizations adapt to demographic shifts and diversify their work forces, many employers and employees are encountering challenges in establishing suitable “prophet margins” at work.

From a Jehovah’s Witness waitress in Maryland refusing to sing a birthday song because it conflicted with her beliefs to a Roman Catholic in Iowa maintaining that her convictions required her to wear a graphic anti-abortion button, new complications involving spiritual expression have been seeping into the American workplace.

Although most employers have considered, and to some degree planned for, accommodating issues of race, gender and accessibility for the disabled, they haven’t prepared for this spiritual renaissance, said Barry Lawrence, spokesman for the Society of Human Resource Management in Alexandria, Va.

Employment lawyer Jonathan Segal agreed. “The average employer hasn’t thought through how they are going to handle [spiritual diversity],” said Segal, who represents businesses for the law firm Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen in Philadelphia.

Most employers are familiar with laws prohibiting religious discrimination; however, many do not understand that the law also requires that they accommodate religious employees as long as doing so does not place an undue hardship on the business.

“These two [discrimination and reasonable accommodation] often come together in ways employers don’t anticipate,” Segal said.

“If an employer is very flexible generally, then reasonable accommodation will be broader,” he said. That is to say, if an employer has a liberal policy about family issues or allows smokers to take two or three cigarette breaks throughout the day, then that employer should be as accommodating when it comes to spiritual matters.

“Where it becomes more complicated is when someone’s religious views or observances become apparent to others,” Segal said.

He cited a situation at a service company in the Northeast involving an employee who practiced Wicca, or witchcraft. On her breaks, she was casting spells in the employee lounge, and co-workers said they were uncomfortable. She responded that she was uncomfortable with co-workers reading the Bible at work.

“This becomes an issue of favoring one religion over another,” he said. “General discomfort is not a good enough reason.” He said he believes the service company has resolved the conflict, since he hasn’t heard anything further about it.

“It’s harder for companies when it goes into how someone looks or how someone dresses,” Segal said.

In a survey of nearly 750 human resource professionals conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management, only 13% said their companies accommodated religious attire.

Numerous Muslim women around the country encounter problems on the job when they try to adhere to Islamic rules on modest dress, primarily wearing loose clothing and covering their heads with a hijab, or scarf, said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington.

One such encounter occurred at a Boston Market restaurant in Sacramento. Carrie Mishue, 19, said she converted to Islam a few months ago. When she returned to work, instead of having her blond braids covered by the baseball cap she wore as part of her uniform, she wore a sheer white scarf wrapped around her head and neck, as prescribed by Islamic law.

Although she had alerted co-workers to her impending conversion, she said management apparently wasn’t prepared for the change in her appearance. Mishue said her supervisor told her he couldn’t allow her to wear the scarf.

Two days later, her manager called her into the office and said that since she had signed the employee handbook, she had agreed to meet all the requirements of the job, including meeting uniform standards.

“I was teary-eyed because I thought I’d lose my job,” Mishue said.

The manager gave her the day off to discuss her options with people at the mosque, who put her in touch with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The council communicated on her behalf with Boston Market representatives, who later informed Mishue she could return to work and wear her hijab. And because Muslims are required to pray five times daily, she said her manager also allows her to leave her post when she needs to pray.

Kelly Duke, a shift supervisor at the restaurant, said Mishue’s religious practices aren’t an issue among co-workers. But she said customers sometimes ask whether it is a bandage. “She’s always good with customers,” Duke said. “If we lost her because of religion, that would’ve been a shame.”

Similarly, Genell As-Siddiq, who converted to Islam about five months ago, was told she could not wear her hijab and untuck her shirt to cover her backside. As-Siddiq, who has taken the name Jameela, is a warehouse worker at Cox Enterprise’s plant in Pensacola, Fla. She too was told that wearing her hijab violated the company dress code.

The company suspended her with pay for three days until a representative of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration approved her uniform modifications.

Char Vanderpoel, human resources director at Cox, refused to comment, citing the company’s confidentiality policy. But in a three-paragraph memo, Vanderpoel notified As-Siddiq that the company had agreed to provide her with three uniform coats and to allow her to wear her hijab.

“Since I told them about the prayers, they told me everything was settled. They work with me on that,” As-Siddiq said.

“A few people in the company ask me [questions]. . . . I can only thank Allah that nobody has been critical. A lot of people don’t bother to ask, but they don’t treat me any different.”

Her husband, Abdur-Raheem, however, said he has had some difficulties in his own workplace--the U.S. Air Force. The 32-year-old technical sergeant at Fort Walton Beach, Fla., said that after 13 years, he has decided to leave the service.

“I had to start procedures to file for conscientious objector” discharge, he said. “It has nothing to do with my work relationships.” When it comes to military policies, he said, he does not have the option of ignoring those that conflict with his beliefs.

Recently, Abdur-Raheem As-Siddiq said, he was threatened with court-martial for refusing, because of Islam’s position on modesty, to take a drug test in the presence of a superior officer. Finally, military legal representatives and an Islamic organization came up with two options: have a superior pat him down and turn his back as Abdur-Raheem filled the cup, or have his physician conduct the urinalysis. He chose the latter.

Spirituality, though, is not limited to religious convictions. And problems are not restricted to accommodating religious doctrines, attire and prayer.

In the summer of 1996, a bus driver for the Orange County Transportation Authority was fired for refusing to distribute free-hamburger coupons to riders. He said it conflicted with his belief as a devout vegetarian that animals should not be killed or eaten. The bus authority fired Bruce Anderson for insubordination and disobeying a direct order from his supervisor.

Anderson had refused to participate in the authority’s joint promotion with Carl’s Jr., said John Standiford, an OCTA spokesman.

Anderson’s attorney, Gloria Allred, filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as well as a lawsuit against the OCTA.

“The driver really didn’t bring [the conflict with his beliefs] to our attention until the day of the promotion,” Standiford said, adding that employees had known of the event well ahead of time. If anyone had brought such a potential conflict to the agency’s attention, he said, “‘I’m sure we would try to accommodate them.”

However, the EEOC ruled that Anderson had been unfairly terminated. The commission said that because Anderson’s “strongly held moral and ethical beliefs” were held with the conviction of traditional religious views, the bus authority had violated his federally protected civil rights by failing to reasonably accommodate him.

Nonetheless, the OCTA admitted no wrongdoing. And although Anderson had initially demanded his job back, he settled the case for $50,000 and later moved to Northern California.

“There was no reason for him to have to choose between his job and his beliefs,” Allred said. “I think values need to be respected as long as employees can do their jobs. These are not feudal times.”

To accommodate employees’ observance of religious holidays, they can put in for vacation or a personal day off ahead of time, said Marlene Heyser, the bus authority’s director of human resources and risk management.

But altering schedules to accommodate an OCTA employee’s beliefs could pose problems because the union has negotiated a seniority system that guarantees shift preference, Heyser said. Drivers, however, can swap assignments.

“It does take a little bit of planning,” she said.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees and applicants because of their religion, requires that efforts be made to reasonably accommodate employees’ beliefs unless it causes undue hardship.

Last July, Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.) sponsored the bipartisan Workplace Religious Freedom Act to clarify Title VII.

And in August, President Clinton issued an executive order defining the parameters of religious freedom in the federal workplace. These guidelines allow employees to keep religious texts on their desks and to proselytize as long as it is to a willing recipient.

These mandates supplement the 1st Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The business world primarily functions on the Christian calendar, a Monday-through-Friday workweek with Sunday as the recognized day of worship.

Gilda Preston, a purchasing manager at Marriott Desert Springs in Palm Desert, said that while her employer has been cooperative in accommodating her scheduling needs as a Seventh-day Adventist, observing her religion has affected her career.

“It has hindered me in some ways because I have had to step away from some positions.”

Preston doesn’t work on the Sabbath, from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. When she was a candidate to become general manager of one of Marriott’s Courtyard hotels, she said she was told: “ ‘Nope. You’d have to be there on Saturday.’ ”

Despite the potential for lost opportunities, she said she has always been upfront with her employer.

“It’s not a good thing to get the job and say, ‘Oh, by the way . . . ‘ “

Attorney Cohen, who observes the Jewish Sabbath, agreed on the importance of being considerate without compromising beliefs. “A religious practitioner must think in advance,” Cohen said. “You can’t use your [religious expression] as a sword to browbeat them into submission.”

Every year, he sends a calendar marked with Jewish holidays to all of the judges he appears before so that it’s not a major issue when he must reschedule a court appearance.

According to his beliefs, men are not to touch women other than their wives, Cohen said. To avoid embarrassing situations with those unfamiliar with Orthodox Judaism, he makes his hands unavailable, holding a cup in one and a saucer in the other.

Instead of shaking hands, he said, he simply bows slightly.

The complexities of business today go beyond balancing budgets and strategic planning. Expressing spirituality on the job can result in rites colliding with wrongs.

To avoid trouble, Segal said, consistency and consideration are key in any business. “The law doesn’t say it has to be one [particular] accommodation, just reasonable.”