Kaiser Permanente Settles Religious Discrimination Charges With the EEOC Over Vaccine Mandate Policy

LOS ANGELES - Kaiser Permanente, a national health insurance and healthcare company headquartered in Oakland, California, resolved 12 charges of discrimination filed with multiple offices at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for $358,000 and injunctive relief, the federal agency announced today.

The EEOC charges of discrimination alleged that Kaiser denied employees religious accommodations to the company's vaccine mandate policy. The EEOC investigated the allegations and found reasonable cause to believe that Kaiser violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it questioned the sincerity of employees' religious beliefs and failed to provide religious accommodations as appropriate to employees at various locations in several states.

Without admitting liability, Kaiser entered into conciliation agreements with the EEOC. The company confirmed completion of equal employment opportunity training on reasonable religious accommodations and installed processes to address reasonable religious accommodations made by employees in accordance with federal law. The EEOC will monitor compliance for the agreements' one-year term.

"We commend Kaiser for enacting corrective measures that will have a lasting impact on workers seeking religious accommodations in the workplace," said Christine Park-Gonzalez, director of the EEOC's Los Angeles District. "Federal law requires that employers provide reasonable religious accommodations unless it poses an undue hardship that is substantial in the overall context of the employer's business, and the EEOC will continue to enforce that all-important statue."

For more information on religious discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/religious-discrimination .

The EEOC's Los Angeles District includes central and southern California, southern Nevada, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Wake Island, and the Northern Mariana Islands, with offices in Los Angeles, Fresno, Las Vegas, San Diego and Honolulu.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government's employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov .