This action is taking place in Washington State

Two friends of mine who are Telemarketers today found out their company has decided to support President Bush for re-election. They are both avid Kerry supporters. As a result they were first told they could either call persuading people to vote for Bush, or leave. There boss after overwhelming disapproval from his employees has changed that too they can leave during the time that those calls are being made without pay. Forcing them to choose between paying their bills, or going against their beliefs. I do understand that at times in all jobs we must do things that we do not like, however this is holding their beliefs against them. I am wondering if anyone has gone through this, or has any advice in this matter. I will be contacting both this states Office of Civil Rights, and an attourney to help them in this matter. However any other advice or support would be greatly appreciated.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that your friends will get very far in pursuing this matter. An employer has the authority to direct his/her employees to do whatever he wants done, so long as it is legal and he/she is not being discriminatory on the basis of age, disability, national origin, pregnancy, race, religion or gender. Disagreeing with the political beliefs of an employer is not a protected status.

The employer could go as far as terminate the employees, if he/she wanted. The basis of termination would be insubordination...violating an direct order. However, it sounds like this employer is more reasonable.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you for your response. after searching out Wasington states cival and human rights agencies I have discovered that you are correct and currently there is little they can do. It can be deemed descrimination in that only those with views opposing President Bush would be affected by this action. On the federal level, and state level, there is little or nothing that can be done. However for any in the Seattle area should you come accros this same issue the city of Seattle also protects from descrimination based on political Ideology http://www.cityofseattle.net/civilrights/howtoocr.htm

Thanks for your support, even though there is little we can do now. I guess I will get to test out this new legislation by writing to ask for improvements in descrimination definitions, and Polotical ideology being added both on a state and national level.

Were your colleagues backing Kerry for religious reasons (such as his standpoint on purely religious issues)? and, if so, can this be plugged into religious discrimination??? Just curious.

Even if it was against the employee's religious beliefs, what can be done? Not much unless the business had other telemarketing opportunities. At that point, the employees could request to be moved to that other responsibilies. The employer would need to accommodate the employees or face a complaint that the employees could file with the EEOC.

But, let's say that the business does not have any other telemarketing business. The employees could file a complaint based on religion. However, will that cause the EEOC to force the business to turn away the political telemarketing? No...probably not.

To put it into another perspective, let's say that a business provides a service, perhaps security guard work. The only job that the business has is providing guard services for a convention center. The convention center business shrinks to the point it is only booked on Sundays for the next year. So, the security guard business only needs employees on Sundays. One of the employees of the security guard cannot work on Sundays, due to religious reasons. How far does the security guard business need to go to accommodate the religious need? Would they have to give an employee the next year off? No...not unless that is their practice for other employees who cannot work on Sundays. To prevent a claim of religious discrimination, an employer must treat persons of various religious beliefs the same. The law does not require that the employer give up its only customer in order to give people needing Sunday off the time off that they need. Does that help explain the situation?