What's 'reasonable accommodation' of workers' beliefs?

It was a modern manipulation of time -- the end of daylight savings this fall -- that created a problem with ancient Muslim prayers at an Arden Hills electronics manufacturer.

For Ibrahim Roble and his Muslim co-workers at Celestica, the clocks' "falling back" Oct. 30 brought darkness an hour earlier and pulled their sunset prayer -- the fourth of five every day -- into their work hours.

Roble says the group came up with a suggestion to allow them to add that prayer at work without costing the company any time.

The company says it came up with a better plan that asked for a little flexibility from both sides.

But the national Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington said the company plan is not good enough, and it might be filing a series of religious discrimination complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Welcome to the Melting Pot of the 21st Century.

The law on this -- both state and federal -- is pretty simple, enforcers say: Employers must accommodate employees' religious beliefs, as long as the requests are reasonable and do not create a hardship for the company.

The questions, always, are what's reasonable and what's a hardship?

Roble, a native of Somalia and a 10-year employee, said the sunset prayer flap was just the culmination of four months' friction with the company, owned since 2004 by Toronto-based Celestica.

This is Roble's story: He worked 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays through Sundays building circuit boards.

Oct. 30 brought Roble two big problems. He was among the Muslim employees who saved their half-hour lunch break until 5 p.m., to break their all-day fast together the last day of the Muslim holiday Ramadan. The company did not approve that.

That was also the day that sunset dropped back from about 6 p.m. -- during his personal time -- to about 5 p.m. -- company time.

The Muslims on Roble's shift told the company they want to split their 15-minute afternoon break into two pieces, using half for their afternoon prayers and the other half for their sunset prayers.

The company denied that request, he said.

He and six others were suspended indefinitely without pay the next week. Nine temporary employees also were fired for defying the company's prayer time rules, he said. CAIR said 26 temporary or permanent employees have been fired or suspended so far.

There's a 10-minute window for the sunset prayer, Roble said, "and in our faith if you don't pray at the right time you are not complying with the faith."

They're not asking for any favors, or any extra time off, said Roble, who is married and has three children.

"We work in discreet stations, no assembly line. That would be zero hardship to the company, I would say," Roble said. "The company was forcing us to choose either our financial stability or our faith."

Celestica spokesperson Lisa Muenkel described the plant's work differently: "The manufacturing operation is a progressive line, with workstations or steps or processes that need to be done to build a product.

"To be a highly efficient, manufacturing environment, when you have 500 employees, if everyone started taking 10 minutes off when they wanted, the process would definitely break down," said Muenkel, in Rochester, Minn.

In Arden Hills, Celestica added a second prayer area and extended break times by 10 minutes a day to help their Muslim employees combine breaks with prayers, she said. The company also made Friday lunch times more flexible to meet particular prayer needs, she said.

"We have a lot of different employees from a lot of different cultures," Muenkel said. Celestica employs 45,000 worldwide. "We felt like we had done everything we reasonably could without jeopardizing business and customer needs."

Celestica can and should do more, said Arsalan Iftikhar, national legal director at CAIR.

"The problem is that Muslim prayer times come at certain times," Iftikhar said. "If my prayer time is at 5 o'clock, and you extend my 3:30 break by 10 minutes, that doesn't really do me any good."

CAIR recently negotiated prayer times for Muslim employees at a Dell computer plant in Nashville, Tenn., he said.

"Dell will give them break times that coincide with their prayer times, and everyone is happy," he said.

The religious accommodation complaints that come to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights are now almost exclusively by Muslim immigrants, enforcement supervisor Gary Gorman said.

The way it's playing out at Celestica is not uncommon, Gorman said: Employees ask for one kind of accommodation and employers offer something else.

At that point, it becomes the employees' obligation to explain why the offer isn't reasonable, Gorman said.

"It's difficult for employees who have been offered accommodation, but not the accommodation of their choice, to succeed in litigation," he said. "When we have found probable cause [in their favor] it's usually when employers have ignored requests or made no attempt."

For example, he said, courts have determined that employers are not obligated to make changes that then inconvenience co-workers.

What if he got a case, as in Celestica, when employees weren't asking for any extra time off, just to shift their time off for prayers?

"We'd ask the business, 'Why couldn't they do that?' " Gorman said. "If it would not interfere with other things, then why couldn't they do that? The employer may have a sound business reason, and it may not."

Most of the religion problems Janice Downing sees in workplaces involve Muslim prayer times, too. But it's not the Muslims who are upset, said Downing, CEO of Fredrikson Human Resources and Consulting in Minneapolis.

"It's usually the other employees thinking, 'How come they get special favors?' " she said.

Even that is rare, she said, and when it comes up employers just have to be ready to explain the law.