No employer shall refuse to make all reasonable efforts to accommodate the religious beliefs, observances and practices of employees or prospective employees unless the employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate an employee's or prospective employee's religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business.
Reasonable efforts to accommodate include, but are not limited to allowing an employee: (i) to take a day of paid leave or vacation, where applicable under the employee's employment agreement; or (ii) to be excused from work without pay and without discipline or other penalty; or (iii) to elect to take the day off with pay in order to practice the employee's religious beliefs, and to make up the lost work time at a time and date consistent with the operational need of the employer's business. Any employee who elects such deferred work shall be compensated at the employee's regular rate of pay, regardless of the time and date at which the work is made up. The employer may require that any employee who plans to exercise option (iii) of this subsection provide the employer with notice of the employee's intention to do so, no less than five days prior to the date of absence.
(Prior code § 199-5; Added Coun. J. 12-21-88, p. 23526; Amend Coun. J. 4-27-22, p. 46382, § 11)