While issues of religious freedom and religious discrimination have predominantly arisen in European debates pertaining to multiculturalism, integration, migration or, more recently, national security and terrorism, they have also become central in the field of employment. There are many ways in which one’s religion and employment may intersect. Particular undertakings may or may not have a specific ethos and claim to be based on religious beliefs – or, conversely, on commitments to neutrality. Specific job posts may entail activities that collide with religious rules – from the handling of forbidden or ‘impure’ foods or beverages to the performing of acts that are condemned by certain religions. Rules that are internal to work organizations (such as dress codes) may entail restrictions on workers’ religious freedom and choice of dress (diverse forms of head coverings, Jewish Tsitsits…). In fact, questions relating to the wearing of religious clothing and dress at work have occupied centre stage in several countries; and recently, the Court of Justice of the European Union has delivered two Grand Chamber rulings on the extent to which employment decisions affecting veiled female workers amounted to (or did not amount to) religious discrimination.3 This contribution looks at a narrower and trickier question – one that does not necessarily pertain to the visibility of religion in public spheres (including the workplace) but focuses on the legal status of religious holidays in employment in European law. Does religious freedom include, in some form or another, a right to be absent from work for religious rituals and celebrations, or as a result of religious prescriptions? Is an employer’s refusal to grant such requests to be read as a form of religious discrimination? In trying to answer these questions and others, this paper looks at the rules that delineate the organization of working time by examining the legal status of religious holidays in the workplace. In the first place, emphasis is put on how deeply socially and culturally embedded the social organization of time is, and how reluctant European legal orders remain to consider that indirect forms of discrimination may stem from choices such as a predominant rule of Sunday rest or official annual calendars. This socio-cultural embeddedness of the organization of social time tends to be further consolidated by economic rights. For instance, employers’ right to conduct a business or freedom of contract tend to trump considerations stemming either from the identity or dignity claims of individual workers to obtain the accommodation of their religious beliefs in the workplace or from the principle of non-discrimination based on religion. Antidiscrimination law certainly provides workers with some levels of protection, as the overarching recognition of a right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of religion in * Professor of Law, University Paris Nanterre – Director of the centre for research and study of fundamental rights (CREDOF – Centre de recherches et d’études sur les droits fondamentaux – Centre de théorie et analyse du droit). 1 Alidadi, K. (2017), Religion, Equality and Employment in Europe: the Case for Reasonable Accommodation, Bloomsberg. 2 Howard, E. (2017), Religious clothing and symbols in employment. A legal analyses of the situation in the EU Member States, European Network of Legal Experts in gender equality and non-discrimination. 3 Hennette Vauchez, S. (2017), ‘Equality and the Market: the Unhappy Fate of religious discrimination in Europe’, European Constitutional Law Review, vol. 13, p. 744. 64 EUROPEAN EQUALITY LAW REVIEW – Issue 2 / 2018 employment protects workers from adverse decisions based on their religion. To that extent, it is true as a matter of principle that employers are not allowed to deny requests for religious holidays on the sole grounds that such requests are religiously motivated. In fact, nothing prevents employers from accommodating such requests and implemented religious-friendly policies in that respect. However, it remains the case that workers do not have a right to be granted religious holidays, as such decisions remain essentially in the purview of employers’ appreciation of the needs of their undertakings. After first underlying the ways in which the organization of time in any given society may convey unwanted forms of oppression and domination that weigh disproportionality on members of religious minorities (1), the paper seeks to take stock of the main legal points of reference on this particular issue – at the level of the Council of Europe (2), of the European Union (3), as well as at the national level – with a focus on Austria, France and Spain (4). Overall, the paper seeks to unearth the ambivalent status of religious holidays in employment, by arguing that, for the most part, secular re-readings of ‘tradition’, on the one hand, and the legal protection awarded to employers’ rights and legitimacy to assess the necessary organization of working time in their undertakings, on the other hand, have marginalized any notion of a (worker’s) right to religious holidays. Workers may be strongly (at least formally) protected against religious discrimination; but this is not paramount to saying that they enjoy a right to religious holidays. This, of course, does not mean that employers are barred from accommodating their employees’ religions in various ways -including by adapting working time to religious holidays; but when they do, it is a matter of choice and policy for them – not a legal requirement.