In “The arbitration of religious practice grievances” (1984) 39(2) Arbitration Journal 3, IB Helburn and John R Hill the authors reviewed 31 arbitration awards where arbitrators had to consider management responses to employee religious practices. I remember being disappointed that this was effectively a consideration of an aspect of employment law, rather than the difficult area of arbitration by religious organisations and individuals working within a religious framework. My mistake rather than the authors!
The cases reviewed largely fall into the categories of clashes between work obligations and manifestation of religion that you would expect – as the authors note, discrimination because of beliefs held simpliciter is not usually at issue. The exception to this was a quite substantial number of cases the authors categorise as “Unauthorised leaves of absence for ministers”. in one of the cases noted, the employee was suspended for excessive absences when he preached at funerals of members of his church. This got me thinking about how far we should give added weight to a religious “officials” interests over that of other members of their community. We could see the individual burden on a minister as being greater, but also see it as a burden on the (non-employee) religious community. Should this be given weight in assessing the proportionality or reasonableness of the restriction?
Peter Edge's Law Blog. 