2nd Swift plant reverses Muslim prayer policy, "riot" breaks out

Culture: Latest update as another Swift Plant kills off the prayer policy for Muslims celebrating Ramadan which gave them prayer time but made everyone else angry over the favoritism.

GRAND ISLAND — Day four of strikes at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Grand Island opened with a majority of A-shift workers (6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) walking off the job Thursday in a continued counterprotest -- and ended with police called to a reported riot in the Swift cafeteria. Reports Thursday night from workers at the scene indicated that a fight broke out between about 20 to 30 Somalian and Hispanic workers, but that the scuffle was under control in less than half an hour. A police team was called to Swift about 9 p.m. and entered the building. Shortly after, a group of Somalian workers were seen exiting Swift from north side doors and heading toward the parking lots. There were no immediate reports of injuries and no formal comment from either police or corporate officials. The Thursday morning walk-out had contributed to what was a 1,000-employee walkout over two shifts that completely closed the Swift plant Wednesday night. The strikes ultimately led to the recanting Thursday of a compromise reached two days earlier with Somalian workers who went on strike to gain prayer time during the holy month of Ramadan. "It was a compromise that people thought would work for everyone -- it didn't," said Dan Hoppes, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local No. 22. "Everything will go back to the way it was." Hoppes said he and Swift officials met late Thursday morning with the nearly 500 Muslim workers who on Tuesday reached a compromise to take their dinner break at 7:45 p.m. -- 15 minutes earlier than normal -- in order to conduct a sunset prayer. "We believe they're going to come back to work, but we don't know," Hoppes said, noting that reverting back to an 8 p.m. dinner time does not accommodate the fasting that the Somalians are under until the end of Ramadan on Oct. 1. A call to Swift officials was not returned.

After days of this going on here comes the understatment of this fiasco.

"I don't know what happened," Hoppes said. "I think we have problems between races.”