The rights of Muslim employees to take prayer breaks during the workday versus the employer’s right to set workers’ schedules came to a head recently at a Wisconsin company.
According to media reports, seven Muslim employees of Wisconsin-based Ariens Co., a lawn mower and snowblower manufacturer in Brillion, Wisconsin, were fired for taking unscheduled breaks taken to pray in observance of Islamic custom. Fourteen workers resigned in the process, while 32 Muslim employees chose to stay with the company.
Observant Muslims pray five times daily. The company previously had a break schedule that accommodated the prayers. As it hired more Somali immigrant workers, however, it reached a “critical mass” of employees seeking a more lenient prayer-break schedule, an Ariens spokeswoman said.
Though Muslim employees called on the company to keep the previous break schedule, Ariens decided to do away with the policy in favor of two 10-minute breaks per shift, no matter the employee’s faith.
Ariens is just the latest company to encounter such disputes. Late last year, 190 employees at a Cargill meat processing plant in Fort Morgan, Colorado, were fired, over a change in policy on Muslim prayer breaks. The move occurred more than a week after workers protested the changed policy by walking off the job at a Cargill Meat Solutions plant in Fort Morgan. The plant had decided to stop allowing special breaks for prayers, CAIR said.
Under the original policy, Cargill had not only allowed the practice but also provided a room for the purpose. The time for the ritual was carved out of a 15-minute break period or from an unpaid lunch break.
Cargill denied changing the policy, saying it has provided a “reflection area” for all employees but that no accommodation is guaranteed, but rather must be flexible depending on staffing needs.
Cargill said it fired the workers only after multiple attempts to discuss the situation with local Somali employees.
Don’t be surprised if either or both of these disputes winds up before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission if the parties cannot settle the matters privately.
In the meantime, here’s the EEOC’s web page on religious discrimination, including reasonable accommodation of religion in the workplace.
This post was featured in Ohio Employer’s Law Blog weekly wrap-up on February 12.
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