Joe Doakes from Como Park writes…:
Somali immigrants not doing the jobs Americans won’t do, shutting down the assembly line in the refrigerator factory for prayer during work hours.
What we have here is a failure to assimilate.
From the PiPress piece:
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday that more than a dozen employees of the appliance manufacturer Electrolux in St. Cloud are again being denied proper prayer breaks during the Ramadan fast.
The employees are participating in the latest claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to the Associated Press…This year, the company reduced the length of the meal break. Muslim employees say they no longer have enough time to break their fast and complete prayers after sunset.
Discrimination? Well…:
Electrolux responded Monday by saying that, in advance of Ramadan this year, the company proposed three possible revised meal and break schedules and put in place the schedule preferred by the majority of the employees.
“Electrolux seeks to accommodate the religious needs of all of its employees,” the company said in a statement.
I’m seeing a real opportunity here for a Muslim parts subcontractor…
And seriously – I am amazed that refrigerators are still built in the US.
If productivity is affected, maybe they could make up for it by working Christmas and Easter.
“Muslim employees say they no longer have enough time to break their fast and complete prayers after sunset.”
Maybe another employer can accomodate them!! Maybe they can go to work for the DNC.
Maybe Electrolux could open a shop in Mogadishu and buy a bunch of plane tickets. Problem solved.
“And seriously – I am amazed that refrigerators are still built in the US.”
Well they make freezers – but yeah – you are right. Hard to believe when our only manufacturing growth stories seem to be high-end cupcakes, disability checks to employable baby boomers and Obama excuses.
But the Somali workers need not worry – Electrolux just bought a company in Chile that builds freezers and has a leading position in the growth markets of South and Central America. May have plenty of time to do lots of praying, soon.
The longer I live in the Twin Cities, the more I realize how recent immigrants have been tought well on how to play the victim card to get free stuff.
Quite a change from our Norwegian and German ancestors of 120 years ago.
“Quite a change from our Norwegian and German ancestors of 120 years ago.”
Of course, they were most likely all Christains…
This sounds like bs to me. I work at the Eden Prairie Wal-Mart and at LEAST 25% of the workforce there is Somali/Muslim and they have no complaints, or at least none that I have heard. These people are just bitching to get their name in the news, the company was willing to work with them but it sounds like they are being real dicks about it.
My son would probably agree with you, Ben.
He works with two Somali women cashiers at Target who seem to be a little bit more interested in NOT making a spectacle of themselves. He says that they don’t object to scanning pork products, they just asked for latex gloves and wet wipes, which they put on one hand when they see pork products coming down the line, then use a wet wipe after they are done.
“And seriously – I am amazed that refrigerators are still built in the US.”
Actually, if you look carefully most major appliances are still built in the US or North America. It’s too expensive to ship them due to their weight and volume. There are exceptions, but they’re generally higher end models where the margin allows it.
It’s one of the reasons I’m conflicted on oil prices. There are better ways to fix this, but as the price of transportation shoots up, the more manufacturing and jobs come back here. The last time oil spiked by brother-in-law had to move his plastic manufacturing back to North America from China because transportation costs were so high that his margin had disappeared.