It was Liz Anderson’s habit to wish everyone a blessed day — until her bosses ordered her to stop spreading her faith-tinged brand of sunshine.
USF Logistics of Indianapolis reprimanded the office worker this summer for continuing to offer the blessing after she was repeatedly instructed to knock it off.
She’s stopped now because she knows another transgression could result in more severe punishment, including dismissal. It says so right in the written reprimand she received from her bosses, who took the action after a client at software giant Microsoft Corp. objected to Anderson’s religious greeting.
So Anderson is complying, but not happily.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with it,” said Anderson, a devout Christian and member of Phillips Temple CME Church in Indianapolis.
“There’s nothing that religious about what I say. It’s just my way of saying, `have a nice day.’ “
Anderson’s dilemma is increasingly more common in the American workplace, where even innocuous religious practices can cause a ruckus.
Since 1992, the number of religious discrimination complaints filed annually with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has increased nearly 29 percent, to 1,786 in 1998.
Religious groups cite instances in which Muslim women were prohibited from wearing their religious head coverings to work, Jews were forbidden to wear yarmulkes and Christians were forced to work Christmas Day even though other employees had volunteered to fill in for them.
They say these things are happening because a federal law adopted in 1964 gives employers great leeway in denying religious practices that might cause a company “undue hardship.”
So groups as diverse as the National Council of Churches, the American Jewish Committee and the National Sikh Center are supporting legislation to restore protections for religious freedom at work.
“What is attempting to be addressed here are things as simple as a worker bowing his head and saying a simple prayer in the lunch room or reading Scripture during their break time,” said former U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican who helped lead the fight for the Religious Workplace Freedom Act during his final two years in office.
It didn’t pass, but Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), is continuing the fight this year. Even if it becomes law, he said, he doubts the legislation would address Anderson’s situation.
He said the proposal is aimed primarily at requiring employers to provide time off for the religious observances of workers of all faiths — when it is financially feasible. The provision would apply to companies with 15 or more workers.
However, the proposal also would expand workplace accommodations for the “religious practices” of employees. Advocates say that provision could apply to religious garb or maybe even a routine religious expression such as “God bless you” or “Have a blessed day.”
Regardless, Coats said, Anderson’s case is an “absurd situation” that appears to offer little grounds for disciplinary action.
“It seems to me that most people receiving a courteous greeting like that are going to think very highly of the company it came from,” Coats said.
“I guess the alternative would be to tell them to have a miserable day.”
Doug Christensen, president and CEO of Illinois-based USF Logistics, said not everyone feels comfortable receiving such greetings.
He defended his company, saying it had a long-standing policy of prohibiting religious or political speech in business correspondence.
“We are dealing with a variety of people and we don’t want to be in the position of offending anyone,” he said.
In this instance, though, it wasn’t just any client who spotted the “blessed day” e-mail greeting from Anderson. It was an employee of Microsoft Corp. — one of America’s richest companies, which uses USF Logistics to coordinate its shipping and warehousing needs.
The employee — Mark LaRussa of Washington — complained to USF’s Indianapolis warehouse boss about Anderson’s greeting on June 9, according to a written reprimand issued by her supervisors.
On the same day, USF supervisor Chuck Tolley instructed Anderson to stop using unnecessary religious or political phrases in business correspondence, the reprimand says.
Twice in the following two weeks, Anderson says, she continued to use the phrases “have a blessed day” or “have a blessed week” in the weekly shipping reports she e-mailed to Microsoft and others.
Again, LaRussa objected, Anderson says. And on June 23, she received a written reprimand that said if she continued to send religious greetings in her correspondence with Microsoft she would face disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
“Microsoft is very adamant in the fact that all documents be presented in a professional manner and additional religious, personal and political statements are not welcomed,” the written reprimand says.
Microsoft, the Washington-based computer software giant, confirmed it has a policy forbidding its computer systems from being used as political or religious forums. However, it issued a statement saying that it did not find Anderson’s e-mail egregious enough to constitute an offense.
Microsoft spokeswoman Nicole Miller said LaRussa “overreacted and we will discuss that with him.” LaRussa did not return phone calls seeking comment, nor did Tolley, Anderson’s supervisor.
Apparently without knowing Microsoft’s true feelings, Tolley in late June issued a wider prohibition on personal speech. His memo instructed USF employees to refrain from using religious, personal or political statements in dealings with any client or co-worker.
“This includes our manner of speaking verbally, written or replies via e-mail,” the memo states.
Though he said he doesn’t know enough about Anderson’s situation to comment, Kerry said he generally believes businesses are obliged to issue guidelines regarding the content of business correspondence in order to protect relationships with clients.
Workplace attorneys agree that USF probably was justified in prohibiting religious speech in correspondence to Microsoft because one of its employees had objected.
However, they say the company might have overstepped its bounds when it expanded the prohibition to all forms of speech in the workplace.
Dianna Johnston, an attorney with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C., said employers increase their exposure to discrimination complaints when issuing such broad policies on the basis of a single complaint.
At the very least, USF probably could have spared itself public scrutiny had it worked with Anderson to try to reach an amicable compromise, said Kevin Betz, an Indianapolis workplace attorney.
Increasingly, though, workers are becoming willing to take such disputes public because they are learning that employers don’t necessarily have the final say.
