COLORADO workers laid off because they rebelled because of the prohibition of prayer at work
About 190 workers, mostly from Somalia, were released from a factory in Colorado, USA, having demonstrated because they were not allowed to perform the prayer, and prayer, during unpaid breaks.
Workers at the factory for the packaging and distribution of meat "Cargill Meat Solutions' Fort Morgan previously had the right to prayer in small groups, but the management has decided to impose a ban on the practice.
About 200 of them subsequently went on strike, and most were fired, despite some in the factory work and ten years.
"They were told that if they want to perform the prayer, to go home. It's disappointing," said Jaylani Hussein, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Now workers need to wait six months before to be allowed to re-apply for a job at the firm, and Hussein hopes that the talks with the management fail to remove the ban.
However, the workers will not give up the right to spread the work.
"They find that the non-performing of prayer worse than the loss of a job. It's like losing a blessing from God," said Hussein.
Journalists Denver Post had failed to make contact with the leadership of the company, but the Director of Communications Mike Martin last week said that the workers of all religions can use the space for prayer, and that the policy of the company has not changed. However, he said that workers with production line may enter only one or two, in order to avoid a slowdown in production.
The company found itself in the spotlight and 2011 when the supervisor workers, who went to perform the prayer, said he would be fired if he did not repeat on the production line.
By law in the US in 1964, employers may not prohibit workers' reasonable requirement for the practice of religion, if it does not cause too many problems. "
- 5 Jan, 2016
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