Posted on 05/28/2008 6:02:50 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Six Somali women claim they were ordered by the manager of a suburban Twin Cities food-processing plant to wear pants and shirts to work instead of their traditional Islamic clothing of loose-fitting skirts and scarves, says the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil liberties group representing the women.
The women have filed a religious discrimination complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
"For these women, wearing tight-fitting pants is like being naked," said Valerie Shirley, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota chapter of CAIR. "It's simply not an option."
CAIR issued a press release calling on Mission Foods to reinstate the women in their jobs. However, the group declined to disclose the names of the women and would not make them available for interviews Tuesday.
Gruma Corp., the Irving, Texas-based parent company of Mission Foods, released a written statement Tuesday denying that any employees were terminated or disciplined at the New Brighton plant. However, the company made clear the six women have been relieved of their responsibilities for now and ultimately may lose their jobs if they don't wear uniforms.
"Should these employees choose to adhere to the current Mission Foods uniform policy, they may return to their positions with the company," the company statement said. "However, these positions will need to be filled as soon as possible and cannot be held indefinitely."
A company spokeswoman said she could not provide photographs of the uniforms.
Such disputes have intensified as the American Muslim community grows in numbers and becomes more politically organized, said Thomas Berg, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. "After 9/11, both the number of conflicts arose but also the sense among Muslims that they needed to stand together -- at least to oppose unjustified actions," he said.
Last year in Minnesota, some Muslim cashiers at Target Corp. were shifted to other positions inside stores after they refused to scan pork products because doing so would violate their religious beliefs. And in 2005, 26 workers were either fired or suspended by an Arden Hills electronics manufacturer for violating the company's prayer rules, which set limits on the times they could break for prayers.
The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 says employers must accommodate workers' religious beliefs, so long as the requests are "reasonable" and do not create "undue hardship" for the company. But the definition of what's reasonable and what constitutes hardship can vary dramatically from one case to the next.
A security firm, for instance, may have a prudent reason for requiring workers to wear uniforms, while a doctor's office might not. "Each of these cases turns on the facts," Berg said.
For many Muslim women, wearing loose-fitting clothing is a religious requirement. Clothing that highlights parts of woman's body or accentuates curves is often considered immodest. A headscarf, or hijab, is seen by many Muslim women as a way to express faith and avoid unwanted sexual attention.
At the Mission Foods plant, the Muslim workers had already made some accommodations, said Shirley, the CAIR spokeswoman. They had agreed to wear coats over their scarves, but the company took them away before imposing a new dress code that involved trousers and shirts, she said.
The women's traditional clothing fit loosely but never posed a safety risk, Shirley said, because the six women put tortillas in packages and did not work near machinery. "Tortillas came down a conveyor belt onto a table and they packaged them with their hands," she said. "There wasn't even the potential of a safety hazard."
CAIR is a terrorist organization. They have helped groups directly involved in terror.
CAIR is attempting to impose shareah by threat and lawsuit. Every case they launch should be shot down on First Amendment grounds.
Why put up with this nonsense? This 3rd world insistence the modern world bend crap is way past tiring ...
That's too bad because the current Archbishop of Canterbury is an apostate judging from his position regarding the resurrection.
Pakistanis have been dealing with Islam for far longer than the Somalis.
Time for the Somalis to take that big leap innto the 8th Cenntury Fur Shur.
Islamification can be a slow process in the hands of a patient and determined invader … change a law here, a tradition there and after a few years …? Get your prayer rugs now before the rush. ;-)
“I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future...But I’m not going to do anything violent to promote that. I’m going to do it through education.” - Ibrahim Hooper CAIR Spokesman.
“Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam ... Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” - Omar Ahmad Co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations
I work with somali’s. The uniform was pants and top. They did wear their head scarf and long sleeved shirt under the top. They also wore the pants. Those that worked in a clean area wear scrubs (tops and pants) just like the rest of us. they do wear the scrub jackets to to cover up their arms. hair is covered by the same blue nets that the rest of us use, since you can’t see through them it isn’t a problem.
Yeah, they try to stick it in our eye every chance they get. Just take a trip down to a college campus and see how many burkas are walking around.
WTF ever happened to immigrants assimilating?
Assimilation is not “politically correct.” Political correctness will be the death of us.
If you don’t like the job and its requirements, DON’T TAKE THE JOB, YOU NUMBSKULLS!
Loose dresses in an assembly line is a dangerous, an accient waiting to happen with anything they get caught up in.
A scarf caught in a roller set is a broken neck.
Punjabi clothes are not as dangerous as a tie or what these women want to wear. But they are halal.
If they’re willing to strap explosives to themselves, mutilate their daughters, and murder their children for their religious beliefs, what’s an arm or a leg?
So when these nutjob terrorist women strap the explosives and bombs to their bodies are they pulled for loose fitting or do their “curves” show. What hypocrites! Wake up America before the Lobster in the Pot is done! The heat is being turned up gradually so you won’t feel it until you are dead.
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