Workers protest Somali accommodation at Colorado meatpacking plant

Update September 11th:  Over 100 workers fired!

Update September 10th:   Talks break down.

Update September 8th:  Cover-up of the violence?

Update I promised:  Meatpackers and Muslims in the ideological birthplace of Al Qaeda!

Thanks to Always on Watch for sending me this article from Greeley, Colorado where Swifts meatpacking plant workers walked out to protest the company’s accommodation of Somali Muslim demands for a change in break time.

A complaint by Somali workers earlier this week that they weren’t getting early enough break times to accommodate religious fasting snowballed into worker protests at the JBS Swift & Co. plant Friday.

Employees from both early and late shifts converged in the afternoon in front of the human resources office at the north Greeley plant.

About 100 employees, some of whom were supposed to be working, protested company officials accommodating Muslims by moving their break time to accommodate those fasting for Ramadan, a Muslim holy month. The company allowed Muslim workers to take their breaks about an hour earlier than normal to break their fasts.

One worker had this to say:

“They have no respect for the Spanish or white people,” said Brianna Castillo, a Swift employee of four years. “Many times we are forced to pull extra count… I don’t feel that is right.”

Castillo, who is white, said every race was represented in the protest with the exception of Somalis. Castillo said employees are frustrated by what they feel is a double standard when it comes to other races and Somalis.

“Somalis are running our plant,” Castillo said. “They are telling us what to do.”

All of this is no surprise, except that finally some workers are saying they have had enough.  Go over to Jihad Watch today on this story and see what Robert Spencer has to say about the issue of accommodating Muslim religious practices—something we have talked about at length here.

And this is very important!  There was violence by the Somalis before the peaceful protest by non-Muslim workers.  A reader at Jihad Watch had first hand knowledge of the incident and reported the following:

There’s much more to the story than what the Tribune printed. It was not all peaceful, as the Tribune has led us to believe. My neighbor, directly across the street from my home, is a Registered Nurse. She is currently employed at the Swift Meat Packing plant at Greeley in the medical department. She was an eyewitness to the building conflict and post-riot damage within the plant that happened at about 7:30 p.m. on Friday evening, 9-5-08.

The Greeley P.D. SWAT Team and many police officers had to come into the plant to stop the destruction by approximately 200 angry Muslims of tables, equipment, and helmets inside the cafeteria at about 7:30 pm last night. My neighbor said that the medical department rendered treatment to one non-Muslim female worker who was assaulted during the melee.

There is more at Jihad Watch.

I’ll have more later because we have written several times on Greeley/Ft. Morgan.   Check back for Part II to learn about the federal government’s involvement in helping supply refugee workers to this part of Colorado.

Just a reminder,  the US State Department has brought over 82,000 Somali refugees to the US in recent years.

To all of you students of Islam, what else is Greeley famous for?  It is ironic!