Jewish Holidays

[Guest helfrichts]

My employer gives all the other employees the Jewish holidays off, but not me ( I'm christian). I am salaried, but so is one of the employees receiving the days off. Is this legal and if not where do I find info about such??

[Guest Mel Berman]

This practice does not seem "kosher" to me. It seems to me that all employees should get the same number of days off for "religious" purposes, regardless of their religion and regardless of how they observe their religion. I am not an expert in the regulations and laws governing such personnel practices, so I'm just giving you my gut feeling of what seems fair.

[Guest melaniehaley]

I am also having the same problem. I have received a complaint that the Jewish personell receive preferential treatment and receive all Jewish Holidays off, as well as Christian/Catholic holidays. These benefits are not shared with the Non Jewish employees. This means, the Jewish employees get 18 paid holidays and we get 7 or 8. Isn't this considered Religious discrimination? Is this illegal, can we face lawsuits?

[mroberts]

This is what floating holidays are for. If you give your employees 3 or 4 days per year, then it's up to them to schedule them so they can reflect their religious ideology.

While I'm not an expert in legal advice in this area, it doesn't seem like it would be illegal - just a bad employment practice since some employees are going to feel gipped.

[Guest melaniehaley]

Currently we do not have floating holidays. Is this religious descrimination? Can I take Jewish holidays as paid? If it is company wide? And I am not Jewish?

[BFree]

Why don't you ask what you can take or not take before getting into an confrontational situation?

Ask to take off All Saints Day, the Assumption of Mary or 12th day of Christmas and see what the response is. Maybe St. Patrick's Day or Good Friday if you don't currently get those off from work.

Maybe you should say that you're interested in Judaism and the ramifications of conversion (I think that could be an honest enough statement) and that you would like the days off yourself.

Then reassess your job situation.