Meat plants seem a breeding ground for culture clashes

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1208&u_sid=10438723

Published Sunday September 21, 2008
Meat plants seem a breeding ground for culture clashes
BY CHRISTOPHER BURBACH
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Central Nebraska has become the latest stage for an unfolding American drama. Tensions over Muslim workers' request for prayer time erupted into worker walkouts, protests, counterprotests, a brief plant shutdown and employee firings at a meatpacking plant in Grand Island.

The events last week at a JBS Swift & Co. plant echoed a controversy earlier this month at a Swift plant in Greeley, Colo. Each revolved around requests from Muslim workers, most of them Somali refugees, for break time to pray and, during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, to break their daily fast shortly after sunset.

It is a drama that has played out in other places, too. It has played out in different ways and at different venues, but often in meatpacking plants, where many Somali refugees work.

The Grand Island story is still evolving. Hundreds of Muslim workers, mostly Somalis, walked off the job last Monday, alleging they weren't being allowed to pray and break their daily fast.


Emotions were raw last week among workers at the JBS Swift meatpacking plant in Grand Island, Neb., where culture clashes erupted.


The controversy is a complicated one involving religion, culture clashes, refugee resettlement, immigration, union contracts and factory demands in an increasingly diverse American work force.

"As we become more religiously diverse, we're seeing more and more of these kinds of issues that have been happening in other countries," said Collin Mangrum, a Creighton University law professor who last summer taught in Israel about workplace diversity. "We're not as used to it here."

The Grand Island plant and United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 22 announced a compromise that would allow Muslims to take breaks to pray and eat shortly after sunset.

FULL story at link.

[VAliberal]

1. I would have to say tough

to the Somali Muslim workers.

They need a living wage. They need health benefits, pension plans, time off to care for sick relatives or a new child, maternity leave. They deserve safe working conditions. They deserve normal down time, breaks, etc.

In my world, they would be working a three or four day week at six hours a day.

But - their demands center around religious dogma. In so far as they are trying to have the plant at which they work and their fellow non-Islamic workers - cater to their peculiar religious demands - tough shit. I would have and don't have any more sympathy for Baptists or Hindus or Scientologists.

Religion that bleeds over into ideology like Christian fundamentalism or strict Islam has to be resisted.

[shireen]

2. they're not asking for much

- just some time off during the workday for prayer.
- shifting their hours so they get off early during Ramadan.

The factory should have enough flexibility to accommodate those modest request.

Praying 5 times a day and fasting during Ramadan is NOT strict or fundamentalist Islam. It's normal practice for all observant Muslims.

[Name removed]

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