Posted on 09/19/2008 1:20:26 PM PDT by AuntB
GRAND ISLAND —
About 50 to 80 Muslims quit at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant Thursday night.
Dan Hoppes, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local No. 22, said the matter stems from the recent debate over break time for the purpose of prayer during the holy month of Ramadan.
"There were some Muslim people who wanted to get the rest of the people to back them to moving their (dinner) break to an earlier time, and when that did not happen, the rest of the people went back to work and those people protesting got loud and boisterous. It wasn't a physical altercation at all," Hoppes said.
But there was fear that it might get physical, so the police were called into the Swift plant about 9 p.m.
"By the time the police got there, it was settled down, and several of them went ahead and quit or left the plant," Hoppes said. "They were told either go back to work or leave.
"Some of them chose to leave -- to quit," Hoppes said.
The workers who quit were from B shift -- the evening shift that typically works from 3 to 11:30 p.m.
About 500 Somalian workers had staged a similar prayer protest on Monday and Tuesday. An earlier dinner break time was negotiated with the Muslims, Swift and the union, but that was then rescinded after the majority of other Swift workers counterprotested on Wednesday and Thursday.
Things seemed to be back to normal at the plant today, Hoppes said.
"The morning shift started (Friday) morning -- I think they are full, and the B shift, if they are short that many people, it will be a little slower, but they are planning (to run) just like regular," he said.
A call to Swift's corporate headquarters in Greeley, Colo., was not returned.
Thanks to cripplecreek, and his comment is right on: "The Swift plant is a microcosm of the coming America, balkanization and all."
This one tells it all. There's a little culture war going on at the Swift meat packing plant in Grand Island, USA . The newly imported Somali Muslims have DEMANDED and gotten special hours, privilege to practice their religion and culture in the workplace. The rest of the workers lose hours, etc. to please these new refugees and this makes them unhappy. And WHO is the MOST unhappy among them?
ILLEGAL HISPANIC ALIENS!
You have to admit one thing. At least they will stand and fight for what they want, whether they deserve it or not. Most of us won't fight for what is ours. We could learn a lesson from them.
The entire article is a HOOT! It boggles the mind. And the worst of it, is the Swift Company, knowingly hiring illegal workers. Buy from companies that don't exploit workers and leave US Citizens jobless!
Here are the highlights.
http://www.theindependent.com/news/x1213267511/Striking-and-misinformation-at-Swift-night-fight-breaks-out
GRAND ISLAND —Day four of strikes at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Grand Island opened with a majority of A-shift workers (6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) walking off the job Thursday in a continued counterprotest -- and ended with police called to a reported riot in the Swift cafeteria.
Reports Thursday night from workers at the scene indicated that a fight broke out between about 20 to 30 Somalian and Hispanic workers, but that the scuffle was under control in less than half an hour. A police team was called to Swift about 9 p.m. and entered the building. Shortly after, a group of Somalian workers were seen exiting Swift from north side doors and heading toward the parking lots.
Veronica Yebra said the numbers were down because most protesting A-shift workers were being blocked from leaving the plant building after clocking in.
"They are in the cafeteria," Yebra said. "The green hats (management) and supervisors are blocking the doors."
B-shift protester Jose Amya said he and fellow strikers on Wednesday were threatened by Swift management.
"They told the illegal immigrants they don't have the right to express their opinion," Amya said. "A superintendent told people who don't have documents that they don't have a right to express their opinion or they will be fired."
Amya said he knows there are undocumented workers at the plant and so do company officials. Swift was raided on Dec. 12, 2006, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who arrested 252 Swift workers. Thirty-three were charged with using false documents to get a job at Swift.
Amya said striking B-shift workers Wednesday were also told that 300 scabs -- workers willing to cross a picket line -- from Texas and Florida would be brought in if the workers didn't return to their lines.
"They told us everybody outside the building will be fired," Yebra said from outside the plant Thursday morning.
Human resources spokeswoman Mary Chmelka approached the Swift fence and spoke to B-shift protesters gathered outside the plant on Thursday.
"I suggest you get a representative from every culture," she said, issuing an invitation to a 2 p.m. Thursday sit-down meeting.
Hoppes said no such meeting occurred because counterprotesters refused to meet.
But the counterprotesters did have some demands.
Donato Medina held a hand-written list in Spanish.
It included pay for days on strike, a raise, having equal break times, equal consideration for promotions (longer-term Hispanics allege being bypassed by Somalian workers), having an on-site Health Department representative to tend to workplace injuries, cleaning bathrooms strewn with water and paper, acquiring more parking so shift workers can be on time and being treated with respect as a human being instead of being treated like a machine.
Sudanese protester Gatluak Wuol from the B shift wanted to distinguish his culture as being different from the Muslims from Somalia.
"We have a different religion. I'm Christian," Wuol said. "We support this (the counterprotest) because we need equal rights."
"We respect where they come from -- I'm from someplace else and have a different religion," Hispanic protester Juan Guebara said. "We want equal opportunity to everything. Everybody needs to be together."
"I'm not upset with the Somalians," Yebra said. "It's the company -- the decision. They gave in so easy. We have Hispanics and Vietnamese and Laotians. It affects all of us, and we want the same opportunity for everyone."
"I don't know what happened," Hoppes said. "I think we have problems between races.”
Doesn’t Swift make pork products? Oh the hypocrisy!
Thanks for the post!!
“”I suggest you get a representative from every culture,” she said, issuing an invitation to a 2 p.m. Thursday sit-down meeting.”
Grab yer barfbag ping!
Good. We don’t need to put up with this nonsense.
Now if they’ll just move back to Somalia, America will have that many fewer terrorists.
My thoughts exactly!
I wonder when a Radovan Karadzic will rise from the shadows and become an American political and social leader.
I would check that food very closely for any foreign material (pun not really intended)
Now I REALLY DON’T want to see how that sausage is made ...
Agreed. Generally-speaking, Muslims are miserable, antagonistic, anti-American, boorish, insufferable alleged human-beings. They are welcome to leave America permanently.
Kind of like Liberals / dhimmicrats.
Good! And don't let the door hit ya where the good Allah split ya!
Reading this stuff makes me ill. What part of this was that wonderful future we looked forward to in the 1970s?
Today we allow our nation to be overrun. We allow nationals from other nations to dictate our workplace rules. We grant loans to people who can’t possibly service them. We watch as our lending institutions melt down jeopardizing our whole nation. One of our presidential candidates actually suggests we should gift mortgages to those who can’t pay for them. Our president introduces trillion dollar plans to bail out the unthinkable. And I’m not convinced he has much choice.
Honestly folks, we’re in jeopardy of losing our nation here. The days of some folks saying, “Oh it’s no big deal.” are over. These things add up to a very big deal.
This is where we have come through indifference. Will continued indifference bring us something better over the next forty years? Ah, no!!!
It’s time to tell people on both sides of the isle, the gig is up. America first or hit the road. This isn’t Mexico, Saudi Arabia, France, the E.U. or the U.N. It’s the U.S.A., and it’s time we started acting like it.
Others may have a different experience of course.
Could be Swift accommodated the Somalis because they do their work AND they are here legally.
This just highlights a problem illegal aliens have ~ no right to negotiate with management.
That's great!
80 down; 420 to go...
Small steps are good...
I might be reading too much into this, but I’m thinking there were 10 to 30 instigators who went through on their threats to quit. They expected the rest of the Somalis to join then, but only 30 to 50 did.
I’m guessing on the numbers, but if I’m correct in concept, they aren’t far off.
“This is where we have come through indifference. Will continued indifference bring us something better over the next forty years? Ah, no!!!”
Well, DoughtyOne, none of these arriving groups are indifferent are they? And that’s why we’re losing.
I don’t know how to change it. Reminds me of an old song...
“You see it your way, I see it my way...
But we both see it slipping away...”
I'm not boycotting Swift, but a reasonable man would avoid the products in the near future.
My actual first thought was "Roll Them Up!"
I lived in Nebraska from 1965 to 1989 and visit Omaha often and had no idea Grand Island was like that.
As long as we nominate people on our side that haven’t a clue what you and I are talking about, it isn’t going to change, I can guarantee you. That’s why I’m still not going to be voting for John. I won’t help usher in what he is going to be doing. There’s a general mindset that allows all of this to happen, and there is nobody on the horizon, unless Sarah pans out to be the one, that will even acknowledge it. Will she? Will her values survive McCain’s fist four years? Will the numbskull primary voters who gave us McCain, give us Sarah in 2012? Good luck...
Taking a look at what is taking place today, I ask if Sarah would even be handed off a nation capable of being rescued in 2012, even if the primary voters did pull their heads out.
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