Religious Discrimination

£26,000 compensation for not working on Passover

A Jewish employee who was sacked after he failed to attend work on the religious festival of Passover has won his claim for indirect discrimination and been awarded over £26,000. Where did the employer go wrong?

Law firm employee

Mr Bialick (B), who is an Orthodox Jew, was employed as a litigation executive at NNE Law (N). B strictly observes the Jewish holidays, including Passover when no work is permitted.

In February 2020 B requested holiday from 7 to 17 April 2020 so he could observe Passover, which was on 8 and 9 April. N approved his request.

Covid complications

On 26 March 2020, B became unwell. The NHS advised him to immediately self-isolate in accordance with the COVID guidelines at the time. B’s isolation notes went up to 8 April.

On 8 April 2020 B received a letter from N which stated that it could no longer authorise his holiday from 7 to 17 April “due to company policy”.

Letter from employer

The letter further stated that B was expected to return to work on 9 April; that day being Passover which he was not permitted to work on. The company policy N had referred to stated that its employees could take no more than two weeks absence from work at any time.

This meant that if an employee had been unable to attend work prior to a booked holiday, e.g. due to sickness absence, they were required to cancel their holiday and work instead.

B emailed N immediately highlighting that his approved holiday was for a religious festival and asked that this was honoured.

Religious observance

He also pointed out that he was breaking his religious observance simply by replying to them on 8 April. B then received a letter dated 9 April dismissing him with immediate effect for “choosing not to come into work” . N had made no attempt to contact B.

B claimed indirect discrimination and the tribunal has now ruled in his favour, finding that N’s policy of requiring staff to cancel holidays put its employees who observe non-Christian religious holidays at a disadvantage Click here for the ruling

Indirect discrimination

Indirect discrimination occurs where an employer applies a seemingly neutral rule to all staff which, in practice, is less fair to those employees who have a protected characteristic, e.g. religious belief, disability, race or sex, under the Equality Act 2010 .

However, an employer can successfully defend an indirect discrimination claim if there is a clear business case for the rule. That said, in this case, N could not show why the two-week rule was necessary or how it met its business needs. N was awarded over £26,000.

Tip. If you can demonstrate that the disadvantage suffered by your employee(s) in following a workplace rule is both balanced and wholly necessary to run your business successfully an indirect discrimination claim will fail.

The employer applied a seemingly neutral rule which had the effect of putting employees who observed non-Christian religious holidays at a disadvantage. Plus, it couldn’t demonstrate why this rule was needed. To defend an indirect discrimination claim, you must be able to show that a rule is both balanced and necessary to run your business.