Posted on 10/21/2011 7:18:02 AM PDT by lbryce
Edited on 10/21/2011 7:19:58 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Uh oh. The fatwa’s are goin out now.
This happened a week or so ago. Is Hertz sticking to their guns?
Actually, they were first suspended. Now, they’re fired.
A local Seattle radio station put up a question on Facebook this morning asking what everyone thought of this. Much to my surprise (and delight), the vast majority sided with Hertz! The consensus was that you shouldn’t be paid if you’re taking time out of your day to pray and NOT do your job. It’s a glimmer of hope that there ARE truly sane people up here.
I’m a little confused about this prayers and breaks business.
Aren’t breaks from work mandated (10 minutes every 2 hours seems standard)? And if someone wants to pray during that break, it should be fine. What’s the contention over these breaks at Hertz? Are the Muzzies demanding special times for breaks? Are they demanding more than the usual number of breaks everybody else gets? Do the prayers take longer than the standard 10 minute break?
If they’re supposed to clock out and in, that suggests these are not “standard breaks,” but approved leaves from work. If the employee won’t clock out/in when that’s the standard policy with the company, then screw ‘em, they’re attempting to defraud the company for unjust wages.
Essentially, Hertz said ou could take a break whenever ou wanted too but needed punch out as Hertz was not goingb to pay for prayer breaks.
Yes...Washington State law requires an employer to provide for breaks. The standard is that for an 8-hour shift, you must have a 10-minute break every 2 hours, plus a 30-minute lunch. Our company (which also works at SeaTac) researched this and emphasizes the importance of this rule to our supervisors. They do this because the company was sued in the past and this was a part of the suit (The company lost and had to shell out some serious bucks). Note: the lawsuit had NOTHING to do with religious observances.
The problem is that muzzies have to pray at certain times of the day. That means that ALL the muzzies wanted to take their breaks at the same time...and suddenly, Hertz loses a big chunk of their workforce. Not only that, but it is possible that some were taking more time than was necessary for their breaks, which meant further lost productivity.
As for muslim prayer times, they aren’t exactly set in stone. I did some research and found the following..The 5 times a muslim is supposed to pray are pre-dawn, noon just after local noon), afternoon (between noon and sunset), sunset, and evening (before you retire). There is also an additional prayer time of sunrise, which is optional.
As I said earlier, the times for prayer aren’t set in stone. I went to a website that will calculate for you, based on your location, what times each prayer should be done. They aren’t the same every day. Times for prayer change with the seasons. For example, the sunset prayer may be at 8 in the evening in summertime, or a little after 6pm (what it is today).
If the muzzie workers are trying to be strict about the exact time they HAD to pray, no matter what they were doing, that would be enough reason for Hertz to call “shenanigans” on them. In defense of some muzzies who work at Hertz, they ARE sticking to the company’s rules and clocking out. These workers have not been fired. It is the one’s who are trying to play fast and loose with the rules and are screaming about “religious freedom” who got canned.
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