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NASHVILLE, Tenn.-Union workers and officials at a Tyson Foods plant in Tennessee said Friday they have agreed to reinstate Labor Day as a paid holiday, and the plant will also observe the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr this year.Tyson had previously agreed to drop Labor Day and substitute the Muslim holiday as part of a new 5-year contract to accommodate Muslim workers at the plant in Shelbyville, which is about 50 miles south of Nashville.The decision sparked widespread criticism, from local politicians to talk radio to the Internet.The Springdale, Ark.-based company said it requested reinstating Labor Day after complaints from plant workers and the public.Union members voted Thursday to reinstate Labor Day as one of the plant's paid holidays and keep Eid al-Fitr as an additional paid holiday for this year only. For the remainder of the contract, workers will have Labor Day and a personal holiday, which can be used to observe Eid al-Fitr or another day the employee's supervisor approves.Union officials have said at least a couple hundred of the 1,200 plant workers are Muslim.Eid al-Fitr-which falls on Oct. 1 this year-marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.Muslim civil rights advocates criticized Tyson Foods, and a union official said the company's response was disingenuous."This wasn't something imposed. It seems that this backtracking would be the result of the backlash from anti-Muslim hate (Web) sites and Islamophobes on the Internet," (*)said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for Washington D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.Stuart Appelbaum, president of the union headquartered in New York, said he was surprised by the reaction to the holiday change."I would have thought that people would have been more sensitive and sympathetic to the concern to the members of our community, who want to celebrate their religious faith," he said. "It's a little disingenuous to say that they (Tyson) were responding to employee concerns. The proposal came from workers themselves."Tyson's previous decision to drop Labor Day as a paid holiday drew intense scrutiny. In a letter to the Shelbyville Times-Gazette newspaper published Thursday, the local mayor and other state elected leaders said substituting Labor Day "for a nontraditional holiday is unacceptable.""For over a hundred years, Labor Day has stood as a symbol to honor the working men and women of this country. But for the past few years traditions like Labor Day have been under attack. This time it's gone too far and we, as patriotic Americans, must draw our line in the sand," the letter said states.Requests for workplace accommodations of Muslim religious obligations have become common around the country, say Muslim advocates.In 2005, 30 workers walked off the job at a Dell Inc. plant in Nashville after alleging the company refused to let them pray at sunset.Last year, dozens of Somali meatpacking workers at a Nebraska plant quit their jobs because they were not given enough time off for Muslim prayers, though they eventually returned to work at the Swift & Co. plant.(*)On the Net:
Tyson Foods: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/storytext/tyson_labor_day/28523112/SIG=10ni0p86g/*http://www.tyson.com/
Council on American-Islamic Relations: http://www.cair.com/
PS:I'm really tired of certain muslim groups like CAIR pushing THEIR BELIEFS with THEIR HOLIDAYS on the US.
(*)Newsflash for Ibrahim Hooper:YES there are millions of americans that are tired of this pushing.Mr Hooper:This is not the Middle East,this is not Syria,Saudi or UAE.We are still a christian nation and with your pushing you are perceived as trying to destroy our holidays by replacing it with yours and in so doing trying to make out of America something that it NEVER WAS.
That's why--may be-- you get people not to like you vvery much,you know????
IF you dont like it...well think about the many thousands christians and from other beliefs living in the Middle East to whom muslims subject to all kinds of persecution and imprisonment and death,JUST BECAUSE they ARE NOT MUSLIMS....
SO since this is not the Middle East,you will have to submit to our laws and ordinances and holidays as many NON MUSLIMS humbly and silently submit to in your countries...
How would you like Mr Hooper of a Christmas day or a sunday off for worship in places like Saudi or Pakistan??????uh???????
(*)Everytime muslims have moved west,they have brought controversy with them....
So why do they move out of their countries after all IF we are all DHIMMIS,and INFIDELS and HELL BOUND and BLASPHEMERS according to your beliefs....???
Whenever you learn to respect other peoples beliefs and are willing to live under their laws,then.....may be you won't have people looking crooked at you all.
So Mr Hooper...be thankful that here in the US--still today--you can say whatever you want without worrying that your head would be severed from the rest of your body,or that you would be stoned,or hang,or shot,like it happens to non muslims in muslim countries...
So enjoy this freedom and let us americans take care of our history and our celebrations and holidays that remember us the greatness of those that went before us and built this nation....
You--still today--have the right not to like it as it is and say it freely....
But you dont have the right of trying to DES-WRITE our history and trying to change it into something that was not,is not and will never be....
As in the days of Noah...
