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The
Workplace Religious Freedom Act
(WRFA) was originally introduced into congress in 1997.
It failed to be passed. Since its initial
introduction, the WRFA has been reintroduced multiple
times in congress and never was able to pass. The
problem is that the WRFA attempts to define
the term "undue hardship" in
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The broad language
of this act would allow employers many loopholes.
Under the wording of the act, an employer could deny you
the right to attend your weekly religious services if:
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(A) the
identifiable cost of the accommodation, including the
costs of loss of productivity and of retraining or
hiring employees or transferring employees from 1
facility to another;
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(B) the overall
financial resources and size of the employer involved,
relative to the number of its employees; and
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(C) for an
employer with multiple facilities, the geographic
separateness or administrative or fiscal relationship
of the facilities.'.
The act could also
jeopardize the health and safety of some individuals by
allowing healthcare workers to refuse to provide
information and services due to their beliefs.
Police officers could also refuse to protect people and
buildings if they had a moral objection to the
assignment.
Another possible
negative impact of this act is the risk of minority
faiths being proselytized from the dominant religious
groups in the workplace. Rather than protecting
individual's rights and freedoms, the act would allow
some people to force their ideas on others.
The National Sabbath
Protection Act (NSPA) would protect both employee and
employer. In this act, the individual employee
would have the guarantee of being able to worship once a
week freely. The
employer is guaranteed that a only maximum of 24
consecutive hours of the employee's work week is lost.
Rather than speaking in broad terms like the WRFA, the NSPA speaks plainly and
simply, leaving no room for loopholes. By focusing
on weekly worship only,
other issues will not jeopardize the passing of of this
important act.
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