Posted on 08/01/2008 5:00:23 PM PDT by americanophile
SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. -- Some workers at a local plant will no longer to be able to take their Labor Day holiday because of religious reasons.
Workers at the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day but will instead be granted the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.
According to a news release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a new five-year contract at the plant included the change to accommodate Muslim workers at the plant. Tyson's director of media relations Gary Mickelson said the contract includes eight paid holidays -- the same number as the old contract.
Eid al-Fitr -- which falls on Oct. 1 this year -- marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.
Union leaders said implementing the holiday was important for the nearly 700 Muslims, many of them Somalis, who work at the plant that employs a total of 1,200 people.
Nineteen-year plant veteran William Pentecost doesn’t agree with the decision.
"I don’t think it's right. I really don't think it's right," he said.
Tyson company spokeswoman Libby Lawson said by phone that, "This isn't a religious accommodation, this is a contractual agreement. The majority asked for it."
The change didn’t bother some workers.
"I think it's fine. I don’t have any problem with it. There's a whole bunch of them here, so they've got to do something for them," said worker John Smith.
"It shouldn't happen. I mean, I think, we're in America, you're in America, I think that they should go with our holidays," Pentecost said.
Channel 4's Cynthia Williams could not reach any of the plant’s Muslim workers, because Channel 4 News' crew was not permitted on the property.
Former employee and Shelbyville resident Anthony Proctor said he thinks what's happening is wrong.
He said he helped build a special Muslim prayer room that's located inside the plant and that no other Tyson facility has been that accommodating for any other religion.
"If we want to go pray, we don’t have one for Christians," he said.
Tyson is headquartered in Arkansas.
Lawson said they consider religious accommodations on a case-by-case basis. She said that so far, no one has asked for any other type of religious prayer room.
No one at the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union’s regional office answered phone calls placed by Williams on Friday.
A representative in New York said that no one there knew specifics about the new contract with the workers, but a person in research told Williams that holidays aren't usually replaced and are more likely to be added on.
The decision will only apply to workers at the plant who are union members. All other employees at the plant will still have their normal Labor Day holiday.
I quit buying Tyson long ago. It's Pilgrims Pride for me.
Tell their Media Relations chief what you think:
Gary Mickelson, Media Relations
gary.mickelson@tyson.com
(479) 290-6111 (206) 220-6871
Time to strike "Tyson" from my list.
Patriots: 0
We had ed il fitur (?) as a holiday when I was a kid twenty years ago.
I guess MA was ahead of the curve with the kneepads!
If this is true, I just ate my last piece of Tyson chicken.
Don’t buy Tyson chicken.
Don’t buy fast-food chicken, either/
Butcher your own, if you can.
If you live in the country, there are plenty enough folk who butcher their own and you can buy from them.
In fact, there are a lot of folks going into the small-farm poultry business around where I live.
Pay the extra $0.50 a pound. It’s worth it.
My wife knows I won’t let Tyson into our home. She finds other things to by.
I explained it to her like this. The owners hated everything you believe in, and have tried to destroy those things as best they could.
Don’t fund someone who wants to destroy your beliefs.
Same here.
.50 a pound? Oh my consumer confidence is being shaken.
Exactly. And those of us who don’t oppose it and loudly, we’ll get what we deserve, just like the Brits did for being either too apathetic or too cowed by the PC police to speak up.
Wow. Just, Wow.
It’s all Foster Farms out here in the West...I didn’t know Tyson’s owners were so bad, fill me in!
“If this is true, I just ate my last piece of Tyson chicken.
Same here.”
I haven’t eaten Tyson since 1991 when I found out how tied up they are with the Clintons. I even got one NW distributor to stop carrying Tyson. In their pocket books is the only way to change this.
Fascinating how a union throws “their” holiday (Labor Day) overboard for something like this.
Alright,We grow for Pride.Chicken,the other “White Meat”.
“Union leaders said implementing the holiday was important for the nearly 700 Muslims, many of them Somalis, who work at the plant that employs a total of 1,200 people.”
700 out of 1,200 are Somalis? This is what they call diversity? That’s a takeover. I’m surprised LaRaza will put up with this.
What passes for “chicken” nowadays is woefully lacking from the real thing a generation ago.
LOL!
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