A practicing Muslim who works for the city’s Department of Homeless Services has filed a grievance against the agency for refusing to allow him off on Fridays — the Muslim holy day.
Jesse Pender, a community assistant at the Bellevue Men’s Shelter, claims the agency violated city policy requiring employers to give workers time off for religious observances, documents show.
Pender, who recently changed his name to Abdul-Wahhab Ibrahim, had a Sunday-through-Thursday schedule before he left DHS to take a job with another city agency in January 2015.
But when he returned a month later, the agency forced him to work Fridays.
An agency spokesman said, “DHS’s policy is to offer employees schedules that accommodate their religious beliefs.”