"By Allah, they made us handle bacon!"
Posted on 07/23/2007 8:22:29 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
OMAHA, Neb. — Supervisors at a meatpacking plant have fired or harassed dozens of Somali Muslim employees for trying to pray at sunset, violating civil rights laws, the workers and their advocates say...
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has drafted a complaint to be filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...
Jama Mohamed, 28, said he was fired in June for leaving a production line to pray. Supervisors would not allow him a break, he said.
"Some of them took the (prayer) mat from me; they started shouting, they started telling me to stop it, and one of them grabbed me by the collar of my shirt," Mohamed said through an interpreter...
Mohamed Rage, chairman of the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization, said Swift had fired at least two dozen workers for praying since May.
Donald Selzer, an attorney for Greeley, Colo.-based Swift, said only three Somali workers were fired for reasons relating to the issue, and that it was for walking off the line without permission, not for praying.
Unscheduled breaks can force unplanned shutdowns of lines, Selzer said....But on the other hand, the only situations that I've been made aware of are people that walk off the job without permission, and that's a different kind of an issue."...
Swift rejected a suggestion by the Council on American-Islamic Relations to allow the Somalis who work evenings to leave in smaller shifts to avoid disrupting lines, said Rima Kapitan, an attorney with the group...
"We're perfectly happy to try to pursue that angle so that we don't have this conflict," Selzer said. "But given the people who are on the second shift — many of whom prefer to be there — this sort of presents the operational realities."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“...harassed dozens of Somali Muslim employees for trying to pray at sunset, violating civil rights laws, the workers and their advocates say...”
Do religious rights trump free enterprise rights, or do only muslim rights trump free enterprise rights?
The bigger question is. Why are we letting these savages near our food?
Who cares? Let them leave and go some place else.
Why do I find that sentence humorous?
What's next? Applying to work at a ham packing plant and expect a paycheck for doing nothing because handling the merchandise is against one's religion?
Give me a break!
Yes, they were imported by Clinton.
Want to stop this crapola fast? EVERY worker on the meatpacking line( every worker EVERYWHERE Muslims pull this) should walk away from their work to pray according to their own religion. Whip out the rosaries, start testifying for Jesus, have Buddhists meditate, whatever religious ‘moment’ one can think of.
It’s everyone or no one.Gonna bend over for one ‘religion’, others have to be accomodated too.
Considering the impact of Muslims working in our food industry is frightening. Here we are worried about contaminated food sources and we have people who believe in an ‘enemy’ ideaology working at the source of our food?
Madness-suicidal madness!
Yes, I long ago crossed all Swift products off of my shopping list for just this reason. I don’t want to eat anything these barbarians have handled, because God knows what their hygienic practices are. Whenever I learn than a producer has come to depend on Muslim workers, I just say no.
“Oh, and guess what fellas. That “Meat” you were packing- it ain’t beef!”;))
Dear muzzies,
You are in America, here we work when our employers want us too. If we don’t work and take multiple little breaks throughout the day, we get fired. Now learn to live with it or go back to somalia.
VPINTHEAK
That's definitely the answer. Even if I'm the HR Mgr or the Dept. Mgr hiring for these openings and all I have are Americans with bad employment history or a Muslim, I'll take the bad employment history any day of the week and work with them on being a better employee. In the end you save all the attorney fees associated with the prayer Bullsh*t fiasco...
I guarantee they are infiltrating the work place only to create themselves as a victim.
Why relocate the plant when you can just relocate the cheap labor?
People like myself with a past felony record (in my case drunk driving) can’t even load baggage on an airplane. You just never know when I might flip out and decide I want to kill a planeload of people. [/sarc]
Meanwhile the airlines hire illegals and foreigners that they have know way of knowing the history of. It’s looking like the food industry has decided to take the safe bet of hiring unknowns and hoping for the best.
Good! Hope to see alot more of it!
Are you sure?
Your tax dollars are paying their wages. Has something to do with "training refugees".
Swift bills the Federal Government for giving the Somalies jobs.
It has cut down on the number of illegals employed by the meatpackers in Omaha, they couldn't bill the feds for those wages, just stick the taxpayers with the medical bill. Somalies are even cheaper than Mexicans as far as Swift is concerned.
Wait until the new line of sausage products come into production. Talk about complaining.
(j) The term ``religion'' includes all aspects of religious observance and
practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is
unable to reasonably accommodate to an employee's or prospective
employee's religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the
conduct of the employer's business.
Now I am no rocket scientist but it would appear to me forcing a company to change its break times daily would be an undo hardship as would unscheduled walk offs from the line by the employees without permission.
Oh and what about the employment agreed each employee signed where he had read an understood that they are allowed breaks at set times each day?
I also wonder what happened to their demands for washing time before prayers?
These guys need to shut up and get back to work.
“The bigger question is. Why are we letting these savages near our food?”
We have a WINNER !!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.