We Agree? Maybe?

NPR has a story around a premise that may not shock you: Americans have a hard time agreeing with each other. But, being the head-in-the-clouds optimist my friends and coworkers know me to be, I’ve skipped to the end of the article, where it mentions some things we actually do agree on.

Here are a few areas of national accord:

  • More than 90 percent of Americans believe in God or in some form of universal power, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
  • More than 90 percent of Americans believe that future generations should be prepared for the ramifications of living in a global society, according to a 2007 report by NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
  • More than 90 percent are proud of the members of the U.S. military who served in Iraq, a CNN/ORC International poll finds.
  • More than 90 percent of Americans agree that the development of good math skills is essential to success in life, an Ogilvy PR survey revealed in 2010
  • So God, globalism, troop support and math — these are things all Americans can agree on.

"We have several other issues on which 80 percent of Americans agree, such as, I believe, giving tax credits to manufacturers to bring back jobs from overseas," Newport says.

And when he is asked if Gallup has found any one salient issue that really brings all Americans together, Newport says there is one: More than 90 percent of Americans believe it was right to kill Osama bin Laden.

Don’t Commit Business Sin of Being Uninformed About Religion Laws

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employers must reasonably accommodate the religious observances of its employees unless doing so would cause an undue hardship. But what does it mean to "reasonably accommodate" an employee? For that matter, what exactly is an "undue hardship?"

In one instance, a union agreement only allowed a teacher to take three paid absences per year for religious observances. However, the teacher’s religion required him to use approximately six per year, and he was forbidden from using personal days for additional religious observances. His employer then allowed him to take unpaid days off to fulfill his religious obligations. Do you think the Supreme Court found this to be a reasonable accommodation? The answer lies on page 23 of the Indiana Chamber’s Religion in the Workplace, which was written by a team of attorneys from the Indiana-based law firm Ogletree Deakins.