About 150 workers, most of them immigrants from Somalia, have been fired from a Colorado meat packing plant after walking off the job during a dispute over workplace prayer.
The Denver Post reports (http://goo.gl/59eUXV ) about 200 workers walked off their jobs at Cargill Meat Solutions in Fort Morgan earlier this month. Jaylani Hussein with the Council on American-Islamic Relations says that depending on the season, the Muslim workers prayed at different times of the day. But a decision was made at the plant to change the practice.
He says that on Tuesday, Minnesota-based Cargill fired most of the workers who walked out. Cargill representatives couldn't be reached Wednesday night.
Last week, company spokesman Mike Martin told the Greeley Tribune that because employees work on an assembly line, only one or two at a time can use a prayer area.
