Vol. 80/No. 4 February 1, 2016
Colorado meatpackers fight for prayer breaks
AND JACQUIE HENDERSON
At least one other manufacturer, Ariens Company in Wisconsin, has followed Cargill’s example and banned Muslim workers’ prayer breaks.
In response to protests and national media attention, Cargill announced Jan. 8 it will allow any employee “terminated for attendance violations or job abandonment to be considered for potential rehiring” after 30 days. Previously the company required a 180-day wait.
“The company changed the hiring policy but not the prayer policy, so things are still the same,” said Mohamed Ahmed, who took part in the protest. Ahmed worked in the fabrication department with the fired workers.
The Fort Morgan plant is the largest employer in the area with 2,100 workers. Before the walkout some 600 Somalis were employed there.
“It is OK to pray this week,” Ahmed Mohamed, who is still working on the kill floor, said managers told workers on his line. “But starting Jan. 15 there will be no more prayer breaks.”
“I am Muslim and the guy next to me is not. If he had to go to the bathroom I would do his job as well as mine to cover him, and when I needed to go for prayers, he would cover me,” said Yusuf Abdi Mohamed, a 10-year veteran in the plant. “For 10 years we have been praying and production on the line has never been a problem.”
While that has been long-standing practice, Cargill’s formal policy says, “Accommodation requests are made to work area supervision and granted based on production.” It also notes that prayer breaks are not part of the union contract with Teamsters Local 455.
Cargill did not return calls by the Militant requesting further comment.
“While we welcome the changes to the termination rehire process because our clients want to return to work and support their families, this does not resolve the prayer accommodation denial and the ambiguity of the current policy on prayer,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations Jan. 8. The group has been negotiating on behalf of the Muslim workers.
“I would not discount Muslim-phobia,” Khadar Ducaale, who works for the school district and has been helping fired workers with unemployment claims and bills that are piling up, told us when we asked why the company had changed its policy. “It is like what happened to the Japanese in World War II and to African-Americans.”
“The company told the media that we all wanted to go to prayer at the same time but that’s not true,” Abdi Mohamed told the Militant Jan. 10 at the mosque in Fort Morgan.
“If someone needs to go to the bathroom that’s no problem but to pray is now a problem,” said Imam Said Ali at the mosque. He worked in the plant and was fired for joining the protest. “In my opinion they want to divide people into two groups — one that is with the company and one against.”
“Workers are going to lose a lot if the company hires them back. They will lose all their vacation and their medical card for six months,” the imam said. And, of course, the company “did not make any accommodation for prayer.”
“The way the company is treating people gives other companies ideas,” Abdi Mohamed said. “It encourages other companies to do the same thing. We have to stay solid on this.”
“This not good for the people or for the country,” he said. “We should always be united as Muslims and non-Muslims living together as one.”
Ariens Company, which makes snow blowers and lawn mowers at its plant in Brillion, Wisconsin, told workers Jan. 14 that it had decided to bar prayer breaks, saying it “does not allow for unscheduled breaks in production.” Somali workers told WBAY-TV that when they protested, the bosses handed them papers to apply for unemployment.
The company previously had allowed the 53 Muslims who work there to take two five-minute prayer breaks a day. The new rule is “absolutely discriminatory,” worker Adan Hurr told the TV station.
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