A Flight Attendant’s Thoughts on the Charee Stanley Case
Sarah Steegar September 15, 2015
An unidentifiable flight attendant o rrestaurant server offering a refreshing beverage. Focus on the drink.
The Charee Stanley story is going to drag on for a while, judging by her recent appearance on The View. She and her lawyer have said that if the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) doesn’t rule in her favor within six months, they’ll be taking the case all the way to the federal court. So, here we go.
For anyone unfamiliar with Stanley’s story: she’s the flight attendant for ExpressJet who converted to Islam and determined she can no longer serve alcohol according to her religion. I thought you might be interested to know what other flight attendants think of the situation.
This requires the obvious disclaimer that I can’t speak for all flight attendants. Few were comfortable publicly stating their opinion, and I can understand why. However, based on the discussions I have had and followed on the topic, what I’m about to say seems like the prevailing sentiment among us. Still, the opinions in this article are ultimately my own. There’s also the pesky business of me not being a lawyer, so.
The complaint states:
“ExpressJet made a religious concession” which they “revoked” even though it was “reasonable accommodation” and did not “cause any undue hardship upon ExpressJet.”
Each of these elements has yet to be proven, but as a flight attendant specifically, my frustration is that she and her case totally ignore the player most burdened by her demand — her colleagues.
The suggestion devised to ease the rub between Stanley’s preferred choice of work and her new religion — to work out an agreement with her colleagues — was devised with her individual manager. That’s not an official company directive that her colleagues are obligated to comply with. A casual solution is very commendable… until it doesn’t work anymore. That seems inevitable since nobody had actually addressed whether her colleagues were okay with performing her duty.
ExpressJet flight attendant Charee Stanley
It’s true that flight attendants help each other out for personal reasons all the time, but those are favors, not obligations. Any flight attendant who has been in the air a while has had a trip where they were not at peak performance. “My back is a bit sore today, would you mind doing meals and let me do drinks?” is an example of what you might hear. However, no flight attendant should go to work if they’ll need to depend on colleagues for fulfillment of her duties. It is not okay to just assume that your colleagues will do part of your job for you. While few crews would refuse an occasional request, expecting it — and on a permanent basis — is a different matter.
It is possible Stanley’s coworkers didn’t actually mind serving her alcohol orders. It’s also possible they didn’t complain before now because they were just putting up with it and didn’t want turn anyone in to management. They won’t be permitted to tell us either way, but once someone does step up and say the solution decided between Stanley and her manager isn’t working for everyone, ExpressJet has pick a side. The airline’s choice was not surprising; it’s responsible for all employees, not just the one wanting to opt out of a daily job duty.
There’s one other reason why a personal deal between colleagues was unlikely to work in the long run. ExpressJet has several aircraft that only staff one flight attendant. Who would serve alcohol on those flights? Does it not become an undue burden on ExpressJet if it’s denied alcohol sales because the flight attendant isn’t performing their duty?
There are other aspects of Stanley’s complaint that we could debate all day (e.g. her argument that she “has a right to make a living” or the fact that many Muslim-owned and operated carriers serve alcohol) but those arguments aren’t specifically tied to my position as flight attendant, and that’s what you’re here to read.
You may have expected to hear more about the political considerations of the complaint. I haven’t skirted those issues to deny their role in this case, it’s just that Stanley is giving plenty of attention and thought to those aspects already. To her colleagues, whom she’ll rely upon to do the parts of her job she doesn’t want to, I’m afraid she hasn’t given quite so much.
[Photos: iStock, CNN]
WHY is she still wanting to work for ExpressJet, a company which obviously endorses the sale and consumption of alcohol? To me this is no different than claim it's against your religion to be nude publicly, but work at a strip club as a cocktail waitress or other clothed position at a strip club. (I'm assuming waitresses at a strip club wear clothing.) Either way, you're endorsing / enabling a company to do things which are against your religion. Both the Qur'an and Bible have strong words to describe someone who thinks like this, and they're not positive. I've put my money where my mouth is on this one -- I resigned from a company where the general manager was having affairs with multiple staffers, on company time, on company property, and no one seemed to be doing anything about it. It was a fairly decent-sized company, >1,000 employees. I guess HR kicked my resignation letter over to one of the owners and ultimately the GM was fired, I was re-hired and promoted, and had the utmost respect from the owners for the next ~8 years that I was there. Likewise, I won't invest in stocks of companies which do things I disagree with. I could have made a s**tload of money investing in some of these companies, but I'd rather sleep well with a clear conscious at night.
I find it ridiculous when her attorney says that the airline had worked out an arrangement with her. Anyone who has ever done any people management knows that it's very common for managers to try to work around issues mutually. That's exactly what her manager did. This is not an arrangement, it's a favor. There is a lesson to be learnt for every manager here, never ever make long term arrangements to accommodate anyone's religious beliefs, at least not unless someone higher (like VP Etc) is willing to make that a policy or a written exception. Shame on her and her attorney for Creating trouble for the manager who was nice, helpful and accommodating.
As the writer of the article implies, there is room for reasonable accommodation at the personal level. If Charee wants to begin every flight by asking her colleague to handle all alcohol requests and that colleague says 'ok', then that's fine. But Charee cannot insist that this be made company policy or not handle alcohol if that colleagues says "actually, I'd rather not do that".
This is the private-sector version of the Kentucky county clerk who won't issue same-sex marriage licenses because of religious beliefs. To me Cheree's position is just as untenable. What if another FA decreed she would not help evacuate the aircraft in an emergency because she interprets mishaps as God's will, and she wants to go meet God? The job requirements for a flight attendant are plain as day and if an employee can't follow them, the onus is on him/her to find another gig that doesn't infringe on his/her personal agenda. The onus is NOT on the company or coworkers to compensate. Cheree might as well decide she wants to be a firefighter, but not pick up a hose because she's worried about the water shortage. She ought to get out of everyone's way and go run an ice cream stand.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful assessment from an FA's perspective.