For an employee seeking relief from an employer’s policy due to its interference with a religious belief or practice, it is first essential that the employee give the employer prior notice that he needs accommodation for religious reasons. As the Chalmers case discussed in the text indicates, it is fatal to an employee’s religious discrimination claim to protest an employer’s failure to accommodate the employee’s religion if the employee has not put the employer on prior notice that there is a need for accommodation, and given the employer a reasonable amount of time to attempt to make an accommodation. Second, the employee should attempt to determine for himself how the employer can accommodate his religious belief or practice without violating terms of a collective bargaining agreement, causing significant costs to the employer, or forcing other employees to act contrary to their desires to accommodate him. If the employee can figure out such a possible accommodation, he should then communicate it to the employer. This places the burden on the employer to explain why the suggested accommodation constitutes an undue hardship. Finally, an employee seeking accommodation must demonstrate some degree of flexibility. The Supreme Court has held that employees must be reasonable in considering accommodation alternatives, asserting that only an accommodation that fully allows the employee to practice his religion may appeal to the employee’s religious convictions. However, the results of court cases demonstrate that inflexibility of an employee concerning how his employer must accommodate him, in the face of flexible, good faith efforts by the employer, has seldom led to favorable results for the employee.
