Dispute over Ramadan spurs layoffs

GREELEY, Colo. – A meatpacking company Wednesday laid off about 100 Muslim immigrant workers who walked off the job last week in protest of the firm’s refusal to give them time to pray during the monthlong holiday of Ramadan.

When the holiday began Sept. 1, workers said supervisors informally gave them time to break their mandatory daylong fast at sundown. But non-Muslim employees protested, and on Friday, JBS Swift & Co. officials refused to give workers the time needed to pray and eat.

About 400 workers left the company’s meatpacking plant, which dominates this city of 90,000. By Tuesday, 250 had not returned and Swift warned that those who didn’t come back faced immediate termination.

“This action is a direct violation of our collective bargaining agreement,” Swift said in a statement released late Wednesday afternoon.

Greeley police were called as angry workers who had arrived for the 3:15 p.m. shift were given their notices of termination.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, which represents workers at the plant, said it would fight the firings.

“The workers weren’t given enough notice to get back to their jobs,” said union spokesman Manny Gonzales. “We don’t feel this was a terminable offense to begin with.”

The Muslim workers, mainly Somali immigrants, have recently flocked to the plant, replacing many of the 262 workers, mostly Latinos, who were detained as illegal immigrants following a federal raid in late 2006. Many of the Muslim employees who walked off their jobs last week have only been in Greeley a few months.