The manager, Gordon Fields, a Seventh-day Adventist, filed a suit last month in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleging Wal-Mart reversed its earlier agreement to allow him to take Friday nights and Saturdays off.
Instead, a new human resources manager said Fields could not take that time off. If he wished to have the Sabbath off, Fields would have to be demoted, the suit alleges. Field’s lawyer, Jennifer Prior, said an attempt to come to a solution with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission failed. The EEOC then gave Fields a right to sue letter.
“I’m surprised that Wal-Mart wasn’t willing to work something out at the EEOC level considering we have documentation that he alerted his supervisors of the issues regarding his religious accommodation,” Prior said. Wan-Mart had not responded to request for comment.