A class action lawsuit has been filed in federal district court in Manhattan on behalf of Orthodox Jewish nurses and nurses of other faiths who cannot obtain employment at New York University Medical Center because of their Sabbath observance, according to Sidney Kwestel, president of the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA). The suit is being brought by COLPA attorneys Jacob Suslovich, Simon Klein, Leon J. Kimmel and Dennis Rapps.
In the complaint which was filed last week, it was charged that the Medical Center has an inflexible employment policy which requires all registered nurses to work periodically on Saturdays and that they therefore refuse to hire observant Jews for those positions. The complaint alleges that the hospital refuses to consider any arrangement or accommodation which would permit Sabbath observers to be employed as registered nurses while permitting the observance of their Sabbath.
The complaint charges that the hospital’s employment policies regarding Sabbath observers violate the United States Civil Rights Act and the regulations of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Both enactments require that employers make reasonable accommodation to the religious observance of employes.
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