Workforce Language Services

In elementary schools across the country, children learn about how early settlers came to this country to escape religious intolerance acros the pond.  Unfortunately, freedom to practice one’s religion does not extend to 21st century Muslim immigrants. 

A meatpacking company Wednesday laid off about 100 Muslim immigrant workers who walked off the job last week in protest of the firm’s refusal to give them time to pray during the holy month of Ramadan.

When Ramadan began Sept. 1, workers said supervisors informally gave them time to break their daylong fast at sundown.

But non-Muslim employees protested, and on Friday, JBS Swift & Co. officials refused to give workers break time to pray and eat.

And an especially nauseating quote from the Diversity Spectrum article:

Ibrahim said Swift supervisors had shut off water fountains Friday evening to prevent Muslim workers from having their traditional drink to break the fast, and in one case a supervisor grabbed an employee by the neck, yanking him from his prayers.

“If I’d known there was a problem with prayer, I would have never come here,” Ibrahim said.

I bet Roger Williams would be disgusted.