The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area - Tuesday

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed suit against Winston-Salem Dining Concepts over alleged religious discrimination against an employee.

The suit claims that Winston-Salem Dining Concepts, which does business as Copeland's of New Orleans, fired a Mormon employee who refused to work on a Sunday.

Reuben Daniels Jr., director of the EEOC's Charlotte District office, said employers are obligated to respect an individual employee's sincerely held religious beliefs.

"In cases like these, it is always in the employer's interest to meet an employee halfway and come up with an arrangement acceptable to both," Daniels said.

An employee at Copeland's of New Orleans directed questions to the company's Charlotte-based attorney, who was not immediately available to comment.

Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
Monday, October 15, 2007

A land management company affiliated with the Mormon church has purchased 227 acres of land between Laie and Malaekahana to build affordable housing for workers.

Hawaii Reserves Inc., a private, for-profit company affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, paid $4 million for the land. The seller was KRC Golf, LLC.

R. Eric Beaver, president and chief executive officer of Hawaii Reserves, said the additional acreage will allow the company to connect Malaekahana and Laie with roads and bike paths that run mauka of Kamehameha Highway. The land will also be used for parks and recreational facilities, he said.

Hawaii Reserves is aiming to make most of the homes affordable to households earning 140 percent or less of the area's median income. The Mormon church's Hawaii headquarters and Brigham Young University-Hawaii are in Laie.