Bearing Witness

The right not to work is upheld

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares.

--Isaiah 2:4

To Eddie Thomas, a Jehovah's Witness, his new job seemed "a grave contradiction." He had been a steelworker in East Chicago, Ind. But in 1975 his employer, the Blaw-Knox Foundry & Machinery Co., eliminated his job and transferred him to an assembly line turning out tank turrets. Jehovah's Witnesses are not strict pacifists, but they believe in taking up arms only in a holy war for Jehovah. Since the firm had no nonmilitary jobs to offer, Thomas felt obliged to quit. Until he could find other work, to support his wife and four children he applied to the state for unemployment benefits. A review board denied him a stipend, ruling that he had left his job "without good cause." Thomas took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, and last week, after a five-year fight, he was vindicated.

By an 8-to-l vote, the high court ruled that Indiana's action violated the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. Forcing a worker to forgo a government benefit when he has acted on his religious principles is unconstitutionally "coercive," wrote Chief Justice Warren Burger. "While the compulsion may be indirect, the infringement upon free exercise is nonetheless substantial." The precedent cited by the majority was a 1963 case that upheld a Seventh-day Adventist's right to unemployment benefits after she left a job that began requiring work on Saturday, her Sabbath.

Since one of Thomas' co-workers was a Jehovah's Witness who stayed on the job, reasoning that tank making was too indirect a form of taking up arms to be immoral, the court could have concluded that Thomas took advantage of the situation. Instead, the Justices defended Thomas' broad view. "In this sensitive area," wrote Burger, "it is not within the judicial function and judicial competence to inquire whether the petitioner or his fellow worker more correctly perceived the commands of their common faith."

As a result of the court's action, Thomas, 41, who now works for U.S. Steel, becomes eligible for $1,055 in benefits for the seven months he was out of work. The money will come in handy, since his family has expanded to eight children, but he insisted that the principle was the main issue: "I wanted to focus attention on individuals who are hurt when a company tells them to do something else. They can put you anywhere they want. Sometimes you can't work at a new job with a clear conscience."

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