Muslim workers sacked by US meat plant

Muslim workers say their employers routinely used sexual harassment, physical abuse and threats of termination to keep them on the production line.

JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant Muslim employees gather at Lincoln Park in Greeley, Colorado, after walking out.

DENVER, COLORADO // Muslim workers sacked by a US slaughterhouse after they were barred from kneeling in prayer say their employers routinely used sexual harassment, physical abuse and threats of termination to keep them on the production line. "I have been working in this country since I was 16," says Graen Isse, who was informed this week that his job at the JBS Swift & Co. plant in Greeley, Colorado, had been terminated. "I have never faced anything like this." The sprawling slaughterhouse, located about 100km north of the state capital, Denver, has sacked more than 100 Muslim employees who walked off the job today after their employers refused to allow them to break their Ramadan fast with prayer, food and water. Simmering tensions between Hispanic immigrants, mainly from Mexico, and Muslim factory workers, most of them Somalis, erupted during Islam's holy month when the Muslim employees asked management to shift the break time on the afternoon shift to sunset. Iftar and its accompanying prayers occur at about 7.15pm in Colorado, or halfway through the late shift at the Greeley factory, one of the largest beef-processing plants in the United States. Muslim employees said they begin their daily fast at 4.30am, some 14 hours earlier. A statement from Swift said managers had agreed with union officials to shift the break earlier by more than an hour to accommodate the fasting workers. "On Friday many employees walked off of the job without proper authorization," the Swift statement said. "This action is a direct violation of our collective bargaining agreement." It was not the first time Swift ran into trouble with Muslim production line employees. In July 2007, Somali workers at the company's plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, charged that they faced harassment when they tried to perform evening prayers. Three workers were fired when they walked off the production line without permission. Employees at the Greeley plant said they knew of similar problems at Swift slaughterhouses in Texas and Kentucky. Tamara Smid, a spokeswoman for Swift, said of the 220 Greeley employees suspended for leaving the production line, 120 had returned to work and 100 had lost their jobs. Isse, who attended the negotiations as a representative for Muslim workers at the plant, dismissed the Swift statement as a fabrication. He said management agreed to shift the daily shift break to 8.30pm, more than an hour after iftar. "There was never agreement on when we would hold the break," he said. "They said they would hold the break at 8.30. We said, fine, but we are obligated to pray at 7.15. Can we at least pray then? Can we at least drink water? They said no, and so we walked out." Farhia Abdi, who like Isse lost her job, said she and other women had their breasts fondled as they prayed in the plant's locker rooms. She claimed male employees had been kicked while they knelt in prayer. "It is part of our religion that you can't talk or move while you pray," said Abdi, who worked in Quality Assurance in her three months on the job with Swift. Like Isse, Abdi had worked in other US firms, including major retailers like Macey's and Target Superstores. "I always told my employers, 'I am Muslim and I pray five times a day.' No one ever had a problem with that, and I never even had to ask permission." US law protects freedom of religion, and orders US firms to accommodate their employer's faith where possible. But legal experts say Ramadan poses complex challenges for massive processing plants like the one in Greeley, because it's not simple to shift break times for 3,000 employees, and productivity falls when hundreds of workers suddenly leave the production line. Abdi and Isse claimed their attackers were mainly Mexican immigrants and described the two ethnic groups as battling over scarce jobs at the plant. "This is mainly down to misunderstanding," said Isse. "First we had an agreement and they told us we can have a break at 7.30. Then the Mexicans got together and said we don't want a break at that time." Local news reports described scuffles between Somali and Mexican workers outside the plant on Tuesday, and both Isse and Abdi said police and city officials had been called in to try and settle nerves. Neither said they planned to fight for their jobs at Swift, but had praise for city officials who they said treated them fairly. "I am staying in Greeley," said Isse, who previously worked as a paralegal. "But I wouldn't want to try a job with Swift again." [e-mail]