Vol. 80/No. 18 May 9, 2016
Cargill fires workers, challenges jobless pay
Ducaale volunteers his time every weekend to help other Somali workers negotiate with landlords and bill collectors and in other ways. He has been busy since Dec. 23 when Cargill Meat Solutions fired nearly 150 Muslim workers here. The firings were in retaliation for workers walking off the job after the company changed its long-standing practice of allowing them to take breaks to pray.
Workers are now being called for telephone interviews by state unemployment officials, Ducaale told the Militant April 24. These are “interrogations, really,” he said, that “can take four or five hours with a translator, the company lawyer and a lawyer from CAIR,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is representing the workers. They are repeatedly asked the same or similar questions regarding their firings and “are very worried they will have to pay back the unemployment payments,” he said.
On March 7, lawyers representing about 130 workers filed complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging Cargill Meat Solutions with religious discrimination.
A similar lawsuit is being pursued against JBS USA, which operates a packinghouse in Greeley. It charges that “JBS engaged in wide-scale religious discrimination” when they fired more than 100 Muslim workers in 2008 for not reporting to work after the company refused them a prayer break at sundown for Ramadan.
In another development, members of Teamsters Local 455, which represents Cargill meatpackers in Fort Morgan, rejected a company contract proposal April 15 by 98 percent. The union press release stated the company “not only offered the more than 1,700 workers inadequate wage increases, but drastically slashed healthcare benefits while increasing the cost. Access to affordable, quality healthcare is critical for those that work in an industry that the Occupational Safety & Health Administration reports has an injury and illness rate 2.5 times higher than the national average.” Cargill and the union are scheduled to reopen negotiations May 12, overseen by a federal mediator.
Related articles:
Verizon strikers stand up to attacks on their unions
Workers rally, answer bosses’ propaganda
Workers discuss how to take on steel job cuts in UK and world
‘Teamster Politics’: lessons of 1930s battles for fighters today
Verizon strike is fight for all workers!
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