generally handle that grievance the same as they would handle any other grievance.

Chair NORTON: No, I mean in the affirmative sense where an observor comes on. Is the employee likely to work through his union and is the union likely to become involved as an affirmative matter to try to get the accommodation, or does the employee tend to work directly with management?

Mr. SADOVE: I think it occurs both ways, quite frankly, and it depends somewhat on the relationship of that employee with the steward and with the union and with his own managing supervisor, which route he takes, and that is not different than you encounter in other types of problems that you run into with the employee.

Chair NORTON: Is this matter in any way covered in the collective bargaining agreement?

Mr. SADOVE: The only way it is covered in the collective bargaining agreement is the standard phrase that indicates that the union agrees to comply with the company on the national policy of nondiscriminating and providing fair and equal employment opportunity.

Chair NORTON: Commissioner Leach?

Commissioner LEACH: You were here earlier when the representatives of the Seventh Day Adventists were testifying.

What did you think of their suggestions? And first of all, might I ask if perhaps they have been already applied by Con Edison?

Mr. SADOVE: Well many of them, I think, have been applied, and I think Ms. Oliver referred to the fact that we have made accommodations such as suggested by some of those who preceded her.

Most of those suggestions, as I listened, I think we could live with. You already get an interpretation and a judgment on the degree of difficulty in accommodating. There is an example if you are on a rotating shift in a small group that rotates, and you are asked there to have an accommodation so the individual doesn't work on a weekend, and it adversely affects the bulk of the employees, you have a problem there, if the employees themselves cannot agree to, swap a Saturday or Sunday. I think in most cases you could get that type of agreement, but I could also see instances where you couldn't, and I think you would have a very difficult thing to just jam down the throats of the total group, a burden of taking additional weekend work.

I have not experienced that type of difficulty. In general I believe we could live with most of those. You would have to clearly define, I think, what is an undue burden, and that's where you get into the judgment thing and the trouble. One employer's view of what is an undue burden is not necessarily that of another employer.

Whether you recognize it or not.

Commissioner LEACH: I think you do appreciate the significance of the Hardison decision and the degree of burden and so forth involved in this.

Mr. SADOVE: I do.

Commissioner LEACH: I might ask this. You speak of this as being a practice or a procedure of Con Edison, i.e., to accommodate the religious needs of employee. Is this a written practice that appears in literature and so forth that has been broadcast to employees, so to speak?

Mr. SADOVE: Not as precise frankly as we have stated here in precise terms. But it has been my experience that the ability to file a complaint about any kind of work practice or any kind of discriminatory practice is a thing that is well known throughout the company, and I see no hesitation, and I must say in credit to the unions that represent the employees, that they are quick to take the employee's grievance and to come forward and to somewhat put the burden on the company to resolve that issue.

Commissioner LEACH: I didn't mean so much that practice as the ways in which Con Ed might accommodate really as a business practice the religious needs of its employees, as being more of a personnel practice on the part of the company.

Mr. SADOVE: You will not find anything in the written affirmative action program or the personnel procedures that says you as a department head will attempt to help the employee swap shifts, words of that type.

But by practice that is far more effectively communicated than it would be by a directive, which is issued and put aside and not looked at, maybe except when someone wants to grieve the issue.

And I think it is the practice and the knowledge that they can complain and the knowledge that we can accommodate. And these things rise very quickly, as a matter of fact, one of the incidents involving the black Muslims, that she referred to there. When that issue came up very quickly through the company, the fact that my organization stepped in and moved those employees into another job became known through the company immediately.

They then had some difficulty with the new job and the shift and we then moved them to clarify that. That word goes through the company very quickly, and you don't need a TV communication or written communication to get it across.

Chair NORTON: Any sense of the number of people with special religious needs working for Con Edison at this time?

Mr. SADOVE: I do not have it in my head; I know this. If you walk at 4 Irving Place for instance, if you walk through there, I doubt if you could

ride an elevator or walk the halls for five minutes, that you would not see the Yarmulke.

In my own organization I have managers at significant level who were permitted to depart early on Friday and would come in early on Saturday morning during the winter months, and work for me personally, and there was no problem.

There are certain jobs though, I must admit, that early departure can pose a problem. Because if you have a job that requires lateral communications throughout the day with someone, and that is a continuing communication, you have to try to find ways to overcome it. I think generally you can.

Chair NORTON: Is it intended to be a no cost item for Con Ed?

Mr. SADOVE: I don't know of any really significant cost which I can associate with accommodation that we have made. I will say this, that in some of the reach out programs, such as reaching out in the Hasidic community, I can say that we're the benefactor by getting, I found, very intelligent, very well motivated employees.

Chair NORTON: So that even though there was an outreach program, that affected religious observers, and even though there are a fairly significant number, as witness your testimony concerning the presence of Yarmulke, you are testifying that this has not been a cost or other burden on the company?

Mr. SADOVE: No, No, I do think though I would be less than honest if I did not say that our size gives us some ability to be flexible and to accommodate. It may be harder for the smaller company.

I have to also indicate, as Ms. Oliver has indicated, that if you get into the fixed post type of job, and if I start putting any significant numbers in there, that there could be problems, but there are ways, I say, to try to direct them in to other positions of equal opportunity.

Chair NORTON: Thank you very much. This has been very useful testimony for us.

Commissioner LEACH: Go ahead. I would now like to call as our next witness Mr. Max Bransdorfer, president of Cheshbonot and associated with Laventhal & Horwath.

I would also like to welcome Mr. Shimon Galitzner who is a manager with Arthur Young & Company.

Mr. BRANSDORFER: Good afternoon. My name is Max Bransdorfer and I am here to testify really on two different aspects on what I am doing and how it relates to these hearings. I am a Sabbath observer, and I've been working with the firm of Laventhal & Horwath which is one of the major firms in the United States since I graduated college eight years ago. I am currently a manager on the audit staff. The New York

office size is about 150 professionals; nationwide we are in excess of 2,000 professionals.

The accounting industry, as I am sure you are aware of, has numerous deadlines, numerous requirements, and I have always been successful in fulfilling my religious requirements and simultaneously fulfilling the employer's requirements in terms of meeting deadlines and fulfilling whatever project was ongoing at any specific point in time. Secondly, I am the president of an organization called Cheshbonot. This organization was formed by about a dozen people about four years ago as a sort of self-help group for Orthodox accountants.

We have grown to 225 members at this time. We hold meetings four times a year. The general membership meets in areas of taxation, pension plans, accounting, auditing, etc.

Our membership is throughout the accounting industry: public accounting, large corporations, publicly held corporations and Federal, State and City Governments.

In line with this I am also head of our placement committee and at any meeting I know I will be approached by at least a dozen people seeking jobs in terms of graduating college and wanting some guidance in how to take the interviews, or people that are in accounting that have lost their jobs for one reason or another. You get a lot of stories as to why people perceive who is in a job, and in numerous cases the question of being Orthodox comes into play.

The two major areas are one in the interview process where somebody thinks the interview is going fantastically and may even be in the second and third interview and even be with a senior partner or senior personnel man when he indicates that he observes Sabbath, and everything goes downhill from there and that is the end of the story. He never gets employed at this company.

Another way is where he does not indicate that he is a Sabbath observer at the time of initial employment which could be let's say, in the spring, so he doesn't have a problem until the Fridays get short and until the holidays come around in September, time. Where at that time he indicates that this is the situation and suddenly he doesn't have a career there anymore; he has no future potential; no schedules can be shifted around. He has got to be at an inventory on Saturday and if he can't be there then come in on Sunday . . . type of situation.

So I've tried to help out these people as much as I can and our organization in terms of helping place these people, in terms of just counselling them on how to approach the question in an interview and how to handle themselves, not to say that I am sorry, but I am a Sabbath observer and I will try to make up whatever I can for it. But to say that these are facts of life. People in your organization, if he knows

of someone in that organization, or in other organizations of similar scope and size, have been successful in this attempt. I am young, I'm aggressive, I'm smart. It is not going to pose a problem for me; it shouldn't pose a problem for you. I know what my responsibilities will be, and I will be able to handle those responsibilities, and being a Sabbath observor should not interfere at all. When you approach an interview and say that "I'm sorry" you're already on the defensive and you already have a problem.

I think that is about all I have to say.

Mr. GALITZNER: Mr. Leach and Mrs. Norton, I am an Orthodox Jew. I am an accountant and a manager in the tax department of Arthur Young & Company which is one of the national big eight accounting firms. I've been with Arthur Young for the last 9 years.

My department is comprised of 15 accountants of whom five are in the managing group. I participate in the hiring process for accountants in my entire office and the personnel department at Arthur Young frequently refers religiously observant job applicants to me when the applicants raise questions about accommodation of their religious needs during the pre-employment stage.

Because of the nature of the accounting profession, Arthur Young & Company frequently requires its professional staff to be available for work on Friday nights and Saturdays during all seasons of the year. Nevertheless, Arthur Young & Company has found no difficulty in arranging the assignments of its accountants so that religious employees are not obliged to violate their faith.

I encourage prospective employees to state their religious observances at the pre-employment interview.

I do so because I have confidence, based on my own experience, and the experience of associates of mine, that the fact of religious observance and the need for the time off will not adversely affect the decision to hire.

Instead this information will permit the company to make assignments which will not conflict with the employee's religious needs.

Nevertheless, the matter of religion will not be raised by the interviewer and will not be discussed unless brought up by the applicant.

When an employee encounters a religious conflict, the personnel office, having knowledge of the employee's religious needs, will, and has, supported the employee and directed his supervisor to accommodate those religious requirements.

Notwithstanding its frequent need for weekend work, I believe that the company permits time off for religious observance simply because the firm believes it is the right thing to do, and because with sufficient