WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a discrimination lawsuit against supermarket chain Food Lion, saying it fired a Jehovah’s Witness who requested certain days off for his religion.
The complaint was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court. A company spokeswoman said she hadn’t seen the lawsuit.
According to the complaint, Victaurius L. Bailey was hired at a Food Lion in Winston-Salem in June 2011. Bailey is a minister and an elder, and as such needed Sundays and Thursdays off.
Bailey’s manager accommodated him. But when he was transferred to a store in Kernersville, the manager there said he wasn’t going to be able to give him Sundays off. The complaint said Bailey was then fired.
The EEOC is seeking back pay, and compensatory and punitive damages.
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