How Transportation Employers Can Handle Religious Accommodation Requests

For trucking employers, requests for time off for religious observance can raise difficult staffing and scheduling questions. Before concluding that an accommodation would create an undue hardship, employers need to examine whether it can work.

That was a key topic when Vanessa Matsis-McCready, Associate General Counsel and Vice President of HR Services at Engage PEO, joined the October 13, 2026 episode of "On the Move with Dan Ronan" on SiriusXM Road Dog Trucking Radio.

Vanessa said religious discrimination has been a "very big enforcement push" for the EEOC.

What Vanessa covered:

• Use the same process every time. Vanessa recommends a form for religious accommodation requests under Title VII, similar to an interactive process form under disability laws. The form documents that the request is a religious accommodation request and starts the back-and-forth with the employee. She also noted that "there's a difference between somebody who might be celebrating a holiday secularly and somebody who has a sincerely held religious belief." The employee with the sincerely held belief may get the day off when the other does not.
• Check your union contract. "The collective bargaining agreement will sometimes trump an accommodation request," she said. Seniority may give more senior employees the time off first, whether their reasons are religious or secular.
• Don't research the religion. Under EEOC guidance, a sincerely held belief doesn't have to belong to an organized religion. The employer's question is whether this person holds the belief sincerely, regardless of what an organized religion might say. Managers should refer requests to HR rather than search online. If they type the question into an AI chat tool, "that is now going to be a discoverable document," and "it is not going to support your position very well."
• Don't assume you can't accommodate. An undue hardship means an accommodation would be too expensive or too impractical for the business. That depends on the employee's role, the day requested, the coverage you have and the size of the organization. A driver who wants to attend services may not need the day off. "It could be a reasonable accommodation to allow that person to deviate from the route to go to a service that is on their way," she said, perhaps during a lunch break or another break period.

Her warning: "If you think you're about to deny an accommodation without having spoken to an HR person and gone through this whole analysis, then you will most likely end up in front of the EEOC within six months."

Listen to the full conversation:

Part 1 (10 min): Balancing holiday requests in a 24/7 industry, union seniority rules and the EEOC's enforcement focus

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Part 2 (10 min): Two common employer mistakes, the employee's role and finding middle ground


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