January 01, 2016 06:48 PM UTC

Fort Morgan's Cargill Plant Fires 150 Muslim Employees in Dispute over Religious Freedom

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• by: kwtree

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

On December 23, 2015, Cargill Meat Solutions Plant in Fort Morgan fired 150 mostly Somali Muslim employees after forbidding Islamic prayers at work, saying, “If you want to pray, go home”. The employees are not eligible to be rehired for six months.

The meat processors, some of whom had worked at the plant for 10 years, had been allowed, under long-standing policy, to take five minutes to pray during their own unpaid lunch and break times, in a “reflection room” provided by the plant. This policy, in place since 2009,  allowed its employees the freedom to pray at work, and allowed the company to produce meat products profitably and on time. Six hundred of the 2100 workers at Cargill’s Fort Morgan plant are Somali Muslims.

Then, suddenly, according to CAIR’s Hussein, Cargill cracked down and stopped allowing Muslim prayer at work. Members of other faiths, presumably, are still allowed to use the company “reflection room” to pray during break time.

A simple miscommunication may have caused the problem, aggravated by Somali/English language barriers; only two at a time from any one meat processing “table” were allowed to go to prayer at a time, so as not to slow down the line. According to CAIR’s Mr. Hussein, interviewed on KSTP, a new shift supervisor told workers  that they could no longer leave the line to pray, so they missed prayer that day. When they went to management to complain, they were told, “If you want to pray, go home.” Eleven workers walked out, and others walked out in support the next day. Around 200 stayed home that week, and about 150 of those who left have been fired. (Reports vary – from 150-190  workers have actually been terminated.) Lance Hernandez, reporting on the Denver Channel, said that Cargill is having trouble filling shifts since the walkout and subsequent worker firings. The workers reportedly are eager to come back to work, and CAIR is negotiating with the plant to make that happen.

Now, Fort Morgan’s meat plant prayer dispute has become the right wing’s newest meme to pump up anti-Islamic fears about “Sharia Law” in action. Across the nation and the world, people with political agendas are focusing on Fort Morgan.

Background

Like many observant Muslims, the Cargill workers pray several times a day. Meat plants in the Greeley and Fort Morgan area rely on Somali refugee workers to keep production lines rolling -a common hiring practice in towns where refugees settle.

Regardless of the worker’s religious affiliations,  Federal law protects workers from religious discrimination. Union agreements typically do not allow employers to specify what employees may or may not do on their own unpaid time.  The meat processors are represented by the Teamsters Union, which  negotiated on behalf of the employees, but was unable to resolve the dispute. Unions in America have not been consistent about going to bat for the religious rights of Muslim members. Jaylani Hussein of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has stepped in to negotiate for the fired workers.

Meanwhile, Muslim-hating right-wing sites, such as Breitbart, are losing their minds about this, calling it “The Islamification of America”, and “Sharia Law in the workplace.” They claim that the workers are asking for special privileges, instead of the normal right any employee would have to spend his /her down time in any way that doesn’t harm the company’s mission.

The timing of the policy change forbidding Muslim prayer at work is suspicious, coming as it does in the midst of a wave of hate crimes, political candidates and leaders proposing extremist anti-Muslim policies, or terrifying tweets about nonexistent threats from ISIL.

This is not the first time the issue of religious accomodation in the workplace has come up in northern Colorado. In Greeley during 2008-2009, the JB Swift meatpacking plant also faced lawsuits over its religious discrimination practices. The EEOC lawsuit on behalf of Somali JB Swift  workers was still being litigated in 2015.

In the absence of strong union support, CAIR is negotiating for the Cargill workers. Hopefully, they will be reinstated soon. If Greeley’s experience is any guide, Cargill can avoid a long and expensive religious discrimination lawsuit by the simple expedient of reinstating the pray-on-your-own-time policy which had been so successful for the last seven years.

UPDATE 1/2/16: Cargill said in a twitter conversation today that they had gone to a mosque to ask all workers to return, but that “some abandoned their jobs”. The remaining 200 who walked out are still not able to be rehired for 6 months, although that time frame is being negotiated.  Cargill is exaggerating the number of Muslim workers who remain at the Fort Morgan plant,  and representing the conflict as one in which only the employees are at fault.  The Teamsters offices in both Fort Morgan and Denver have declined to meet with the CAIR represenatives for the meat workers, according to Mr. Hussein.

Sources:

CAIR Newsletter press release: Jaylani Hussein, Jennifer Wicks, 12/31/15

Fort Morgan Times, Stephanie Alderton, 12/22/15

Denver Post, Jesse Paul, 12/31/15

Breitbart, Pamela Geller, 12/31/15

Photo credit: ABC 7 News video still, reposted in Daily Mail article , Regina Graham, 1/2/16

Denver Channel, Lance Hernandez, 1/1/2016

Mother Jones, Edwin Rios, Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes on the Rise

Jaylani Hussein, interviewed on KSTP, youtube video 1/1/16

Twitter exchange with Cargill 1/2/15

Telephone conversation with Jaylani Hussein 1/2/15