Nearly 200 Muslim workers fired in Colorado after walkout over prayer dispute

Seriously?

 

Actually, I'm pretty sure they do have a responsibility to provide reasonable accommodation, or they'll be sued for religious discrimination.

But, all of this stuff seems like just a lot of melodrama. The union and CAIR is negotiating with management over accommodation. The company has provided something; the workers say it is inadequate. The walkout was staged to gain leverage in a negotiation. The mass firing was staged to gain leverage too. There will eventually be a settlement or a lawsuit. In any case, I don't see why I should care about any of it.

 

It's not a debate if you aren't willing to debate.

And if you are referring to me, I don't believe in fairy tales.

 

I'm not even sure that's true (specifically for religious practices), but I was talking about going above reasonable, standard, requirements... I side with the private company to not be required to go above any of those.

 

People can practice whatever religion they want, but if it's taking away from their work duties the company has every right to terminate their employment. There should be no religious observance (of any faith) in the typical workplace, period.

People should pray to their fictional gods on their own time.

 

I agree that the company should not and does not have a requirement to accommodate at all costs. They are required to do what they reasonably can do. But, you'd have to be really down in the details to understand if the accommodation they've provided is adequate and whether the demands of the Somalis are reasonable. If it is the case that the company only wants a couple of people to pray at a time, cycling through 190 people (though maybe they are in 3 shifts, so it's only ~63 Muslims on a given shift) 2 to 3 people at a time doesn't sound like much of an accommodation. Having everyone pray at the same time would probably stop production, which is probably not reasonable. The lawyers have to settle on something in between these 2 extremes.

 

Glancing through the thread I think most people are saying that the employees who walked out are in the wrong. As I stated earlier business are required to provide reasonable accommodation and it sounds like Cargill met the letter of the law. If that's not good enough for the employees then they have no legal basis to compel Cargill to give them their jobs or do anything else.

It depends what is the context of the debate. If you are debating whether Evolution is a scientifically valid theory then falling back on faith isn't relevant unless there is some sort of science behind that faith belief. If the debate is whether whether when we die we go to some place in the sky with streets of gold and angels with harps then evidence isn't going to really help, or be necessary, in such an argument. You're probably best off not engaging in that type of debate.

I'm not a fan of Cargill but I don't see this as being a power trip by management to squash union actions or really part of an anti-Muslim movement. Cargill hired these people, probably as part of a program to settle refugees, so they trusted them enough to give them jobs initially. It sounds like they met the law by making accommodation but the employees wanted more out Cargill and decided to walk-out. Since that clearly harms their business Cargill has the right to fire them and hire new workers. If they find these workers are difficult to replace then there will be a negotiation to bring them back. Beyond that I don't see anything more.

 

I don't know the details here but I see two immediate problems.
1- a room large enough to hold more people
2- multiple people taking break at the same time can stop a factory line

If I'm an employer, why should I incur the cost to build a "prayer" room? That's not reasonable. I can be nice and do it, but it's not reasonable for me to incur that cost.

Same token, why should I stop factory lines? I can hire additional overhead to cover, but that's cost isn't reasonable.

 

The meat packing industry is a terrible one to work in.

There is a reason that Cargill fired Somali's, because very few people want the job.

You are even seeing fewer Hispanics taking the jobs, and many blacks stopped taking these sort of jobs decades ago.

So I have little sympathy for Cargill, although we all support them to some extent demanding cheap food and overlooking horrible working conditions.

Having said that, Cargill should not have to give their employees time to pray multiple times a day. If they want to pray during their lunch break, so be it.

If the Somali's do not like it, then they can move back to Somalia or find employment that is flexible enough to allow for praying.

The REAL issue should be the general working conditions in these places. Early in my law career I had to visit these places and speak to the employees and managers.... just a bad situation all the way around.