US MUSLIMS SACKED FOR PRAYING AT WORK
Ohio, 18 Jumadil Awwal 1434/31 March 2013 (MINA) – A US Muslim advocacy group has filed federal complaints against an American company for sacking eighteen Muslim workers for performing prayers at work.
“They wouldn’t even discuss any type of accommodation,” Jennifer Nimer, legal director for the Ohio branch of the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, toldColumbia Dispatch, according to OnIslam.net report monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
“They said, ‘You pray at a scheduled break, and that’s it.”
The umbrella group has filed a complaint earlier this week against Exel Inc., a subsidiary of Deutsche Post DHL, for sacking 18 Muslim workers from e Westerville-based logistics company.
The workers, of Somali origin, were fired because they prayed twice during work hours for about 10 minutes each time.
The complaint accuses the company of denying requests to adjust break times for the workers to allow them perform their prayers.
Though previous managers had made modifications to the break schedule, new supervisors refused to do so.
“It’s not accommodating when they were aware the break times made them miss the prayer,” Nimer said.
Company officials, however, deny any wrongdoing, saying that Exel is dedicated to ensuring its workplaces are sensitive and respectful to employees’ religious and ethnic practices. “The allegations … neither conform nor align with the way we do business in any of our sites,” Exel officials said in a statement.
“Rather, Exel goes to great lengths to ensure employees’ religious practices are understood and, as appropriate, accommodated. “In both policy and practice, Exel has established a culture in which discrimination of any kind is not tolerated.”
Discrimination
The sacked workers complain that the company has a history of discrimination against Muslims. “This company has a history of discriminating against Muslims, especially Muslims of Somali origin,” Nimer said. “This type of blatant discrimination cannot be tolerated,” he added.
The workers said they were initially denied access to the company’s human-resources department. One manager is also alleged to have told employees to pray in a restroom so they would not be seen.
The Muslim advocacy group said the sacking of some workers prompted a Feb. 8 meeting at which a manager told other employees that policies would not be changed. As workers insisted on performing their prayers, more employees were subsequently fired.
Nimer said the accusations come on the heels of complaints filed last year by two other fired Exel employees, both Muslims.
One man said he was fired after requesting the continuance of prior accommodations that allowed him to attend mandatory Friday prayer services while another said he was fired for praying during a break.
The United States is home of a Muslim minority of between six to eight million. State and federal laws require employers to accommodate the religious practices of workers unless they unduly burden the company.(T/P08/P03)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
