No Unemployment Benefits After Religious Dispute

A worker who refilised to wear a name tag bearing a religious “mission statement’ lost the right to collect unemployment benefits after the court found that he had quit his job and that he had no clear religious beliefs that were violated in the workplace.

The worker had been employed for almost two years at a small heating and air conditioning company. The company’s owner included a spiritual mission statement in the employee handbook and on a name tag that all employees were required to wear. The name tag displayed the employee’s name, photo, and company logo on the front; on the back, the name tag included a mission statement stating that the company was not just a business but a ministry and that the company was run in a way “pleasing to the Lord.’

After working for the company for almost two years, the employee decided to cover the back of his name tag with duct tape, later explaining that he felt the company owner was ‘always pushing his religion. When the owner noticed the duct tape, he told the employee to remove it or he would lose his job. The employee left the workplace and filed for unemployment. In the subsequent litigation, the court focused on two issues. First, the court analyzed whether the employee had been fired or had quit. Because the employer had created an option, conditioning the retention of the job on the employee’s removing the duct tape, the court found that the owner had not fired the employee. Instead, the court noted, the employer had given the employee the choice to keep his job by removing the duct tape. But because the employee then simply chose to leave the workplace, it was determined that he had quit his job. When workplace disputes arise, an employee is not considered to have been fired if the employer has given the employee a choice. Statements from employers such as “if you don’t like it, there’s the door” or “shape up or ship out” are not considered firings. When an employee is given the alternative to follow workplace rules or be fired, the courts focus closely on the employee’s response. Generally, in order for the termination to be considered a firing, an employer must have clearly and unequivocally fired the employee.

Next, the court focused on the religious issues. The court noted that while the employee claimed that his religious freedom and religious beliefs had been violated at work, the employee never identified his own religious beliefs and never explained just what he found offensive or burden some in the name tag mission statement or in the workplace environment.

In defending his name tag mission statement, the business owner pointed out that the company employed workers of many faiths and that while he advanced Christian beliefs, his Jewish employees and nonreligious employees had no objections to the atmosphere at the workplace or to the content of the name tag statement.

Small businesses have broad leeway in introducing religious values in the workplace. While government agencies must respect constitutional principles of the separation of church and state, private employers may advance religious goals, provided they do so openly, without coercion, and without discriminating against employees of different faiths.