We’ve previously reported on meatpackers and other industries importing Somali Muslims for the cheap labor only to have problems with the prayer breaks that they must take during the workday. This is a bit of Karma for these globalist meatpacking companies who want cheap labor but now are being forced to pay the workers they fired.
One of the problems with the prayer issue is that it causes disruptions in production and can be a safety issue. The trend in accommodations for Muslim practices is rising since the refugee resettlement agencies have actively settled thousands of Somali Muslims across America for companies like Cargill who want the cheap labor (see below).
From the Greeley Tribune:
DENVER — A big U.S. meatpacker has agreed to pay $1.5 million to 138 Somali-American Muslim workers who were fired from their jobs at a Colorado plant after they were refused prayer breaks, a federal anti-discrimination agency said Friday.
Cargill Meat Solutions, a division of Minnesota-based agribusiness company Cargill Corp., also agreed to train managers and hourly workers in accommodating Muslim employees’ prayer breaks at its Fort Morgan beef processing plant, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said.
Wichita, Kansas-based Cargill denies wrongdoing but agreed to settle to avoid further litigation, the federal agency said. The dispute dates back to the firings of the workers in late 2016 after management rescinded policies allowing Muslim employees to take short breaks for prayer:
The Denver Post reported on the three day walkout by the Muslim employees:
Cargill provides a “reflection room” at the plant where observant Muslim workers are allowed to pray, something that has been available since 2009. Hussein said depending on the season, the workers pray at different times of the day, typically taking five to 10 minutes away from their work. The time was carved out of a 15-minute break period or from the workers’ unpaid 30-minute lunch breaks.
Many of the workers banded together and decided to walk off the job in an attempt to sway plant managers to reinstate the prayer policy. “They feel missing their prayer is worse than losing their job,” Hussein said. “It’s like losing a blessing from God.” On Dec. 23, Cargill fired the holdouts who had not returned to work, citing a company policy that employees who do not show up for work or call in for three consecutive days will be let go.
In 2017, the agency found that the workers had been harassed and discriminated against for protesting the unannounced policy change that denied them opportunities for obligatory prayer. Hundreds of Somali-Americans work at the plant in Fort Morgan, about 50 miles southeast of Greeley.
The Denver Post reported on the influx of Somali Muslims to Fort Morgan, Colorado in 2016:
For the last decade, Somali refugees have flocked to this conservative farm town on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. They’ve started a small halal mini-market and a restaurant, sent their children to schools and worked at a meat processing plant.
As much as Fort Morgan’s small-town feel reminds many of their rural villages back home, some say they will feel like outsiders until they get what has so far eluded them: a permanent mosque. They are renting two small rooms for a makeshift version, for now.
They say they’ve tried to buy property to build a mosque but believe no one wants to sell to them.
“If we can own a mosque here, we will be more a part of the community,” said Abdinasser Ahmed, a local Somali leader and public school teacher who fled war-torn Mogadishu in 2003, arrived in Fort Morgan in 2009 to work at the plant and is now a U.S. citizen.
Rural Colorado’s white population is declining, and minorities are transforming the region’s culture and economy
