Magazine Retracting Tip Offered on Employees’ Religious Practices

Inc. magazine has decided to retract an article that suggested how a company could avoid hiring workers who take time off for religious holidays.

The article first appeared last year, but it received attention after being reprinted by New York Telephone Co. and sent to nearly 200,000 small businesses.

New York Telephone apologized for the article Monday, after it was publicized by New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn).

The article was entitled “Questions You’d Love to Ask a Job Prospect — But Can’t.”

Bob LaPointe, vice president of Inc., said the article was “intended to point out questions that appear to be innocent” in a job interview, “but are against the law.”

One such question, said the article, was “Will you be taking time off from work to observe Passover?”

The article said that the question was valid because it is job-related, but inappropriate. Instead, it advised employers to ask, “Will the times of your religious observance conflict with the regular work periods at this company?”

Bad advice, say Marc Stern of the American Jewish Congress and other legal experts.

Under New York state law and federal employment guidelines, employers can only ask about taking off for religious observance after they have offered the prospect a job.

That makes it much easier for employees to sue if they are then denied the job, forcing employers to prove they cannot accommodate the religious observance.

In fact, employers who asked the question suggested by Inc. and New York Telephone could find themselves paying damages in New York state.

LaPointe said the next issue of the Small Business Adviser newsletter mailed out by New York Telephone will contain a retraction, most likely in the form of a letter from the editor.

LaPointe said the error “really hurts.” But he and New York Telephone firmly denied Hikind’s charge that the article constituted a “deliberate attempt” to instruct business owners “to circumvent the law in order to practice discrimination.

“Basically, the entire article was intended to help prevent discrimination based on religion, race, age, nationality or health,” he said.

But Diane Steinman, executive director of the New York chapter of the American Jewish Committee, said she wanted to see a number of assurances in the retraction.

“The retraction has to make it clear that the intention was never to assist companies in discriminating without being liable under the law,” she said.

“We, quite frankly, had expected more of such an important company,” she added, referring to New York Telephone.