“The workers were told, ‘If you want to pray, go home,’” says Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “They feel missing their prayer is worse than losing their job. It’s like losing a blessing from God.”
190 Muslim workers at a Colorado beef-processing plant, many of them Somali immigrants, lost their jobs last month after staging a walkout to protest the plant’s prayer policy. Cargill Inc. said it fired the workers after the employees allegedly left their posts over a disagreement about when workers were allowed to pray while on the job. CAIR is actively working to reinstate many of these employees back into the company.
