Mennonite in Supreme Court Case?

[ken_sylvania]

It is in their employee contracts. It is also an employee-owned organization that is bleeding money and this is part of cutting costs and keeping insurance rates lower. Something has to give. You either cut costs (and this is a cost cutting measure to keep expensive ERs and ER docs from dealing with stuff like an endless stream of kids with pink eye or rashes) or you raise revenues which means raising insurance rates on everyone in the system. My wife can grudgingly understand why it makes sense from a health care service perspective to maintain weekend urgent care clinics. But she would object if the burden was not shared equitably.

Does the employee contract say that mandatory overtime is at the discretion of the organization, or that mandatory overtime will be distributed equitably among the employees? It is interesting to me that employees would not object to mandatory overtime that helps fund a million-dollar payday for some already rich CEO, but if they would object to mandatory overtime to allow another employee to work a preferred schedule.

[RZehr]

I'm actually curious to see where all this goes. I absolutely support the law that requires religious accommodations when they are reasonable. Such as allowing people to wear head coverings, hijabs, turbans, etc. on the job. Or allowing people to pray on their breaks. And I think employers should be flexible for everyone to the extent that is reasonable.

There are some laws in some places that exempt Amish and Sikhs from having to wear hard hats. Other places there are not. Which do you think is best, exemption for these people or not?

In Oregon there is an exemption for Mennonites from having to wear bicycle helmets.

[ken_sylvania]

I'm actually curious to see where all this goes. I absolutely support the law that requires religious accommodations when they are reasonable. Such as allowing people to wear head coverings, hijabs, turbans, etc. on the job. Or allowing people to pray on their breaks. And I think employers should be flexible for everyone to the extent that is reasonable.

There are some laws in some places that exempt Amish and Sikhs from having to wear hard hats. Other places there are not. Which do you think is best, exemption for these people or not?

In Oregon there is an exemption for Mennonites from having to wear bicycle helmets.

And Pennsylvania allows Mennonite preachers to enter the PA Turnpike on Sundays without paying toll!

[Ken]

I'm actually curious to see where all this goes. I absolutely support the law that requires religious accommodations when they are reasonable. Such as allowing people to wear head coverings, hijabs, turbans, etc. on the job. Or allowing people to pray on their breaks. And I think employers should be flexible for everyone to the extent that is reasonable.

There are some laws in some places that exempt Amish and Sikhs from having to wear hard hats. Other places there are not. Which do you think is best, exemption for these people or not?

In Oregon there is an exemption for Mennonites from having to wear bicycle helmets.

Do any of those exemptions put an unreasonable burden on other employees? If so, how?

I think the current legal test is just fine and works. If the religious accommodation doesn't place an undue burden on the employer or other employees then allow it.

In the case of employees who refuse to wear hard hats. Maybe have them sign a waiver relieving their employer, insurance company, and workman's comp of any liability for head injuries that result from their choice. With choices come responsibility as well. And that would ensure that no one else faces an undue burden from that choice.

[Ken]

It is in their employee contracts. It is also an employee-owned organization that is bleeding money and this is part of cutting costs and keeping insurance rates lower. Something has to give. You either cut costs (and this is a cost cutting measure to keep expensive ERs and ER docs from dealing with stuff like an endless stream of kids with pink eye or rashes) or you raise revenues which means raising insurance rates on everyone in the system. My wife can grudgingly understand why it makes sense from a health care service perspective to maintain weekend urgent care clinics. But she would object if the burden was not shared equitably.

Does the employee contract say that mandatory overtime is at the discretion of the organization, or that mandatory overtime will be distributed equitably among the employees? It is interesting to me that employees would not object to mandatory overtime that helps fund a million-dollar payday for some already rich CEO, but if they would object to mandatory overtime to allow another employee to work a preferred schedule.

nurses have union and negotiate work rules with the organization including how things like mandatory overtime shifts are allocated. They are many pages long. Doctors don't have a union and their contract allows for call and overtime work as necessary. The employer is probably dealing with 3 or 4 different sets of employees at once. The CEO's pay doesn't change either way so that is a moot point.

[HondurasKeiser]

I'm actually curious to see where all this goes. I absolutely support the law that requires religious accommodations when they are reasonable. Such as allowing people to wear head coverings, hijabs, turbans, etc. on the job. Or allowing people to pray on their breaks. And I think employers should be flexible for everyone to the extent that is reasonable. If someone who doesn't want to work Sundays or any other day can find people to take their shifts voluntarily then great. All is well. That is how things have always worked.

But I think they are asking for trouble if they create a rule for religious accommodation that burdens other employees. That is going to be a complete non-starter in most workplaces.

Take my wife's employer which is a large medical chain that has multiple hospitals and clinics throughout the region. They have decided to set up weekend urgent care walk-in clinics at about half of their regional clinics. The idea is to save money by diverting a lot of their weekend less-than-emergency care away from their hospital ERs to clinics scattered about the region where it is cheaper and easier to treat. That means they have to staff them with doctors, nurses, PAs, and intake clerks, and other professionals. They have chosen not to hire any NEW staff to work weekend urgent care clinics, they are just dumping that burden on existing staff. The can do that because possible mandatory overtime is part of their employment contracts.

So they first open up the schedule to any volunteers who want to get overtime hours and they do get some people who are happy to moonlight on weekends, even both days, nurses, doctors, etc. who just want the overtime. After that they staff up the rest of the urgent care clinics by putting everyone else on an assigned rotation in which you have mandatory clinic about once a month. If you don't want it you can try to find someone else to take your shift and doctors trade shifts back and forth when they have conflicts. My wife absolutely despises doing weekend urgent care clinics because she is already working 60 hours/week minimum at her regular clinic. On full clinic days she usually arrives at work about 6 am and is often there until 7-8 at night.

If suddenly there were a bunch of staff who decided that they couldn't work weekends for religious reasons and that meant my wife had to work two or three weekends per month instead of one she would be enraged. And there would probably be an employee revolt. That simply isn't reasonable because it puts the burden of someone else's religious observances on her. Few people actually want to be there on weekends. And they certainly aren't going to want to work MORE weekends just to cover for co-workers who claim a religious reason not so show up for their assigned shifts.

That is more or less the exact scenario with this case in front of the Supreme Court.

In the case you present, why exactly should your wife have to bear the burden of the employer's pursuit of cost-cutting and additional profits? Why shouldn't the employer have to employ more people rather than force their existing workers to work even more overtime just so the shareholders (if any) and the CEO can get richer?

It is in their employee contracts. It is also an employee-owned organization that is bleeding money and this is part of cutting costs and keeping insurance rates lower. Something has to give. You either cut costs (and this is a cost cutting measure to keep expensive ERs and ER docs from dealing with stuff like an endless stream of kids with pink eye or rashes) or you raise revenues which means raising insurance rates on everyone in the system. My wife can grudgingly understand why it makes sense from a health care service perspective to maintain weekend urgent care clinics. But she would object if the burden was not shared equitably.

I suppose I never took you for being on the side of business/management……you always struck me as a labor/worker man.

[Ken]

I suppose I never took you for being on the side of business/management……you always struck me as a labor/worker man.

I looked it up. This is the actual labor contract for mandatory weekend work negotiated by the nurses and employer. I have no problem with them negotiating this type of agreement with the employer. And all new nurses who are hired sign this contract. Seems fair to me.

Asking everyone else to work more weekends because certain workers exempt themselves from working Sundays? That not only violates the agreement they signed when they were hired, but will annoy everyone else who ALL have other things they'd rather be doing on Sunday or else they would have volunteered to work weekends in the first place.



The case before the supreme court was discussed today on NPR which I listened to on the way home. Apparently the Post Office that Groff worked at only had 3 employees in his category which meant when he stopped working Sundays they both had their Sunday hours increased by 50%. One ended up transferring and one filed a grievance so yes, they were not happy about the extra burden placed on them to accommodate Groff.

[ken_sylvania]

It is in their employee contracts. It is also an employee-owned organization that is bleeding money and this is part of cutting costs and keeping insurance rates lower. Something has to give. You either cut costs (and this is a cost cutting measure to keep expensive ERs and ER docs from dealing with stuff like an endless stream of kids with pink eye or rashes) or you raise revenues which means raising insurance rates on everyone in the system. My wife can grudgingly understand why it makes sense from a health care service perspective to maintain weekend urgent care clinics. But she would object if the burden was not shared equitably.

Does the employee contract say that mandatory overtime is at the discretion of the organization, or that mandatory overtime will be distributed equitably among the employees? It is interesting to me that employees would not object to mandatory overtime that helps fund a million-dollar payday for some already rich CEO, but if they would object to mandatory overtime to allow another employee to work a preferred schedule.

nurses have union and negotiate work rules with the organization including how things like mandatory overtime shifts are allocated. They are many pages long. Doctors don't have a union and their contract allows for call and overtime work as necessary. The employer is probably dealing with 3 or 4 different sets of employees at once. The CEO's pay doesn't change either way so that is a moot point.

Really? CEO pay isn't affected by profitability or lack thereof? You expect me to believe that this medical organization is bleeding money, and the CEO's job and compensation will not be in any way affected by whether he is able to restore profitability?

[Ken]

Does the employee contract say that mandatory overtime is at the discretion of the organization, or that mandatory overtime will be distributed equitably among the employees? It is interesting to me that employees would not object to mandatory overtime that helps fund a million-dollar payday for some already rich CEO, but if they would object to mandatory overtime to allow another employee to work a preferred schedule.

nurses have union and negotiate work rules with the organization including how things like mandatory overtime shifts are allocated. They are many pages long. Doctors don't have a union and their contract allows for call and overtime work as necessary. The employer is probably dealing with 3 or 4 different sets of employees at once. The CEO's pay doesn't change either way so that is a moot point.

Really? CEO pay isn't affected by profitability or lack thereof? You expect me to believe that this medical organization is bleeding money, and the CEO's job and compensation will not be in any way affected by whether he is able to restore profitability?

Yes, it isn't a for-profit organization. It is a large doctor's group and the CEO is another doctor appointed from within the organization as are the rest of the management team. They have fixed salaries. They are going through pandemic-related restructuring like everyplace else and have probably cut revenues too much in the interest of expanding market share and now need to bring costs down. They aren't going bankrupt or anything, but to need to streamline their operations and figure out how to cut costs. Diverting weekend urgent care away from hospitals and to regional clinics is part of that and makes perfect sense. Most urgent care visits are for trivial things and don't require a massively expensive ER stocked with lots of highly-paid specialists and expensive equipment.

[ken_sylvania]

nurses have union and negotiate work rules with the organization including how things like mandatory overtime shifts are allocated. They are many pages long. Doctors don't have a union and their contract allows for call and overtime work as necessary. The employer is probably dealing with 3 or 4 different sets of employees at once. The CEO's pay doesn't change either way so that is a moot point.

Really? CEO pay isn't affected by profitability or lack thereof? You expect me to believe that this medical organization is bleeding money, and the CEO's job and compensation will not be in any way affected by whether he is able to restore profitability?

Yes, it isn't a for-profit organization. It is a large doctor's group and the CEO is another doctor appointed from within the organization as are the rest of the management team. They have fixed salaries. They are going through pandemic-related restructuring like everyplace else and have probably cut revenues too much in the interest of expanding market share and now need to bring costs down. They aren't going bankrupt or anything, but to need to streamline their operations and figure out how to cut costs. Diverting weekend urgent care away from hospitals and to regional clinics is part of that and makes perfect sense. Most urgent care visits are for trivial things and don't require a massively expensive ER stocked with lots of highly-paid specialists and expensive equipment.

I guess they are being quite successful at their mission of being not-for-profit. I'm awfully curious, though, how a not-for-profit organization is employee owned. I thought that typically an employee-owned corporation is designed so the profits go to the employee-owners.