Image of Muslim employees praying from CBS News story
The employees, who worked at a Cargill meatpacking plant in Colorado, were fired when they stopped coming to work after they and their employer could not come to an agreement on prayer-time.
According to a company spokesperson, the dispute was over simultaneous prayer; the company claims it allows employees to pray, but that they refused to let 11 workers pray simultaneously because it would be disruptive to the work schedule and business needs. In 2009, Cargill set aside prayer areas for their workers.
The Council on American Islamic Relations is working to find a compromise that would allow the workers to be re-hired, but Cargill is already replacing some of the employees.
This is not the first time that American companies have had conflicts with Muslim workers over daily praying; the Huffington Post wrote about this in 2011, noting that many Islamic scholars said it was OK to shift praying around a work schedule if needed.
It’s widely accepted that Americans spend more time at work than we have historically, and more than the citizens of any other nation. Is this conflict purely a matter of religious differences, or simply an early warning for a broader conflict over the amount of time we all spend at work?
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Have any Episcopalians asked for time for Morning, Noontime, and Evening Prayers as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer? Oh, they haven’t? Maybe they should for equality and their own souls’ sake.
If these peole were Christians — there would be all kinds of outrage and FOX news hysteria.
If these people were Christians they’d be expected to get back to work including on Sunday, unless they could prove they were Mormons or Seventh Day. I can’t help but think that work pressure is part of the reason the church is shrinking and/or becoming something only the rich and upper middle class do. More and more jobs require working on Sunday. Some groups have an easier time getting companies to rearrange the schedule for them. It’s easier for a Jew, Mormon, or Seventh Day member to get their Sabbath off than many other Christians for Sunday because some Christians agree to work on Sunday so going to church isn’t seen as a strict rule like a Sikh turban, or Muslim prayer. And if it’s not a hard rule, it’s easier for businesses to force workers to comply. Like British Airways banning cross necklaces or pins because they aren’t required of all Christians, Sunday isn’t a strict observance for all so businesses often just state during the hiring process that working Sunday is required, leaving the applicant to accept or not take the job.
What would happen if more Christians demanded the time to worship as Muslims do? Then again, what would our country club churches do if a bunch of lower class workers actually showed up?
Chris: You ask an interesting question (“What would happen if more Christians demanded the time to worship as Muslims do?”). I’ve often wondered what would happen if non-smokers requested the accommodations that smokers always took for granted. Anecdotally, I’ve worked at companies where smokers got as much as 1 hour! a day to spend on their habit, in addition to the same lunch & bathroom breaks that other employees received.
Most firms I’ve looked at in researching the issue of prayer times offer less than 30 minutes per day to their Muslim employees. Knowing how much time firms give for smoking, I suspect that most firms would happily give Christians 20-30 minutes a day to pray, so long as it didn’t stack with smoking time.
I wonder if there are companies that offer both paid smoking breaks AND prayer breaks?
I don’t know that many companies actually require Sunday shifts–entire towns go quiet on Sundays (even in New England, where I’m from & have lived the majority of my life). It only got more dramatic when I moved to southwest Virginia–the touristy town I lived in had 1 (one!) restaurant that was open between 8 and 2 pm for brunch/breakfast, and a single coffee shop. Nearly everything else, including retail, was closed on one long stretch of main street. It was a total shocker.
Finally, though, I think it’s interesting to equate Christianity and Sunday with Muslim daily prayer, because arguably, Christians are the ones who eliminated the assumption that Sunday was a day off. The lawmakers & company owners who set this tone and expectation were Christians, and I think it’s somewhat unfair to demand that people who aren’t part of our dominant culture have the same lowered expectation for spiritual lives that we’ve created. Any serious comparison on these issues has to take into account that Christians decided to make these changes for ourselves; how many Muslim politicians & company owners were part of making these decisions? That’s the problem with a dominant culture; it’s very hard to extricate it from the people in charge & the decisions they make.