Muslims and Swift talks break down.

Nation: Swift is standing firm so far on prayer time breaks saying people will be fired if they took unauthorized breaks and those suspended if they have another work related incident would be gone as well if they came back.

Previous posts here and here.

Talks between JBS Swift & Co. officials and Muslim workers seeking prayer breaks during Ramadan broke down Tuesday afternoon and turned into calls of breach of contract. The roughly 250 workers, who've been suspended since walking off the job Friday night, say they will not return to work and may take legal action. They also acknowledge they may face mass terminations. A mid-afternoon meeting between the Muslim representatives and about 80 of the suspended workers grew heated in a downtown Greeley park when the representatives relayed information to the crowd. When workers learned the company would not allow break times for prayer, many shouted and crowded around a gazebo from which the representatives spoke. Within 30 minutes, workers split into smaller groups and milled around the park. Graen Isse, an African Swift worker, and several other Muslim workers met with company officials and a union representative for a few hours Tuesday, looking over a two-page list of grievances the Muslims presented. He said company officials verbally agreed to some items, such as requests for more African/Somali supervisors and improved translation for non-English speaking employees. But Isse said the requested prayer breaks -- a major issue for Muslims at all times but especially during Ramadan -- was rejected by management. "The thing they didn't agree with was the prayer (breaks)," Isse said. "And that was the whole problem from the start." Upon hearing that news, a group of disgruntled Muslim workers clustered around Isse and said, "No prayer, no work."

The worse thing is to just make up positions based on color and ethnic group instead of merit. That will only enrage more the non-Muslim workers who are already pissed off because of what they feel is special rights given to the Somali Muslims before all this blew up.

This week's actions are rooted in events at the plant on Friday. That afternoon, about 150 non-Muslim Swift workers protested the company's break-time accommodation of the Muslims. Manny Gonzales, spokesman for the UFCW Local 7, said Tuesday the union objected to what company officials did because it felt "the company was trying to sidestep the union to make this deal with workers. ... It's sort of how you get these sort of disagreements." While some Muslim workers said their complaints to union representatives have been ignored, Gonzales said the union will support them. He said if the Muslim workers are terminated in a way the union deems unfair, the union will step in to protect their rights and employment. "Obviously, we want to accommodate the workers so they're able to observe their religious freedoms, and we believe the contract already has language in it that protects the workers' religious freedoms of Ramadan," he said. The current contract was passed in 2004, when Swift had scant, if any, Muslim workers, and expires in late 2009. Sam Wantings, a Nigerian who worked for Swift for four months earlier this year, said he saw frequent racial tensions between Latinos and African workers. He said Africans were regularly discriminated against by Latino supervisors. "It's like two blind people leading each other -- you don't understand them and they don't understand you," Wantings said.