Muslims draft complaint against Swift meatpacking plant
AP/Omaha World Herald ^ | 7/23/2007
omaha.com
Tension came to a head at a Grand Island meatpacking plant in June, when Jama Mohamed said his desire for 10 minutes to pray at sunset was met with shouting.
After he left the production line and began praying, Mohamed said, supervisors took his prayer mat, pulled him up by his collar and sent him crying to a lead supervisor, who fired him.
"I told him, 'Look, I know I am in America and I know in America there is a freedom of religion for everybody to practice their religion. . . . And as long as you fulfill that — as long as you let me pray — I will always work for you,'" Mohamed, 28, said last week through an interpreter.
"And he said, 'No, that's not acceptable — your prayers are not acceptable here. You're here to work, not pray.'"
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has drafted a complaint to federal officials that is awaiting the signatures of dozens of Muslim Somali workers who say they were fired or harassed by supervisors at a Grand Island meatpacking plant for trying to pray at sunset.
The complaint, to be filed with federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission officials, compiles testimony from at least 44 workers who say they quit or were either fired or verbally and physically harassed over the prayers.
The complaint alleges that breaktime rules at the Swift & Co. plant violate civil rights laws by not allowing workers to leave production lines to pray at sundown.
The sunset prayer, known as the maghrib, is the fourth of five daily prayers required of all Muslims.
A Minneapolis attorney for the Greeley, Colo.-based Swift said unscheduled breaks can force unplanned shutdowns of lines.
"That is a significant number of employees, and there is not much of a way to accommodate that consistent with keeping the production online," Donald Selzer said.
The complaint reprises concerns that boiled over in May, when 120 Somali workers abruptly quit when they were not allowed to pray at sundown. About 70 of them returned to the plant a week later, but union officials worried the issue would resurface as sundown inched later each day through the spring.
Later sunsets run past evening breaks meant to keep workers from long stretches on production lines.
"For three days it was all good and we were praying — there was no hassle, no interference, nothing at all," Ali Schire said through an interpreter. Schire, 30, said he was among the 70 who quit and later returned.
"All of a sudden after three days . . . they were suspending people, they were firing people," Schire said. "Some of the people even had to give up praying at all for fear of being fired."
Mohamed Rage, chairman of the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization, said: "They are treating (the Somalis) like criminals now — anyone who prays is a criminal."
Schire said a supervisor took his gloves, uniform and other working equipment as he prayed and threw it in the trash the day he was fired.
Rage said at least two dozen workers have been fired since May by Swift for praying. Swift disputes that number.
Selzer said three Somali workers were fired for walking off the line without permission, not for praying.
"These people are absolutely entitled to pray, and they should not be interfered with for doing so," Selzer said. "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."
Dan Hoppes, president of Local 22 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said he sees regular lists of those fired from the plant. Nothing in those lists raised his suspicions, he said, but he said the plant — which employs about 3,000 people in all and about 150 Somalis — generally has high turnover.
Hoppes said prayer breaks are not part of the contract, but he said he plans to revisit the issue with plant officials when the contract is renegotiated in 2010.
Rima Kapitan, a Chicago-based staff attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Swift has been "unwilling to work with us to create a solution where the workers can pray."
Kapitan said Swift rejected her group's suggestion to allow the Somalis who work evenings to leave in small shifts to avoid disrupting lines. The prayer must be done within a 45-minute window surrounding sunset, according to Muslim prayer rules.
Selzer and Hoppes said the company suggested phasing evening workers to shifts earlier in the day that don't interrupt prayer times.
"We're perfectly happy to try to pursue that angle so that we don't have this conflict," Selzer said, but noted many people prefer the second shift.
Somali workers also complain that other workers are granted bathroom or smoking breaks and say prayer time should be granted in the same way.
Mohamed said it is important for Muslims to pray within scheduled times and not to postpone prayers or say them early.
"I would never forgive myself and God would not forgive me if I do not pray on time because I want to earn some money," he said. |
