Rough patches ahead for Cargill in Ft. Morgan, CO

A few years ago we created a whole category here at RRW on the Somali demands for special prayer breaks at Greeley’s JBS Swift and Company meatpacking plant (Grand Island, NE was involved too).  You can visit that category here.

Some of those fired workers (and frankly agitators) went to the Cargill plant in Ft. Morgan.  Here is a story that ran in the Denver Post the same day as everything is peachy with Muslim immigrants in Ft. Morgan, here.   You can tell they are working up to “issues” developing there too.

Although Cargill’s Fort Morgan operation has escaped controversy over accommodating the religious needs of its Muslim workforce, an undercurrent of problems exists, according to current and former workers and Somali translators.

Company officials say they respect religious rights and follow the law but cannot undermine a plant that produces 4 million pounds of beef daily.

“We know that some of our employees would like a guaranteed prayer time every day,” said Cargill spokesman Michael Martin. “That is not the legal requirement, and it would be impractical to accommodate this without shutting down the production line.”

He said the company accommodates the vast majority of daily prayer requests.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employers cannot deny a “reasonable” religious accommodation request as long as it does not pose an undue hardship, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Muslims pray five times a day at prescribed times that move depending on the sun’s position. That can pose challenges for plants with many Muslim workers. One-fourth of Cargill’s 2,000 workers are Somali, company officials say.  [Kind of negates any sympathy one might have for the company when they brought this on themselves by their own hiring practices.---ed]

The number of federal workplace-discrimination complaints filed by Muslims shot up in 2009 and 2010, to almost 800 each year, the EEOC says. Those numbers eclipsed the decade’s previous high mark the year after 9/11.

Then here is a reference to the Greeley mess I referred to in the opening above.

Cargill has avoided the rancor that has plagued JBS Swift & Co. in Greeley and other food plants nationwide. In 2008, about 100 Somali Muslim workers were fired after they did not report to work in protest of Swift’s refusal to give them a prayer break during the holy month of Ramadan.

Agitate, agitate, agitate, year after year.   Kind of makes turning to vegetarianism more appealing all the time!

Grand Island, NE: More refugees on the way

If the only article you ever read about Grand Island, Nebraska and refugees is this one, you might think that everything was going smoothly in this refugee resettlement target city.

So, before you read the article (yesterday) from The Independent, go back and first read this 2010 post about a Los Angeles Times report where the Grand Island police chief says of his city—-it is chaotic anarchy among all the ethnic groups.*

Grand Island is also the city where the Somalis bullied the Mayor and attempted to get her to resign over something she said in the New York Times, here.

I had forgotten how much I’ve written about Grand Island, just type it into our search function and see that we have several pages of posts.  Or, you might visit our whole category entitled, ‘Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy’ where there are many mentions of Grand Island.

Grand Island’s problems revolve around, what else, meatpacking plants nearby.  The Swift plant near Grand Island is one of several that experienced clashes among its various ethnic workers over demands for special treatment by Somalis.  They wanted prayer breaks during work hours, others objected.

The article from The Independent today says that more Burmese will be coming to Grand Island.  LOL!  I suspect they have had enough of the Somalis and food processing giant, Swift, wants some more docile immigrant workers.

Read the article, but here are some bits of information that might interest you, they did me (emphasis mine).

If the past is any guide, Grand Island may one day be home to Burmese refugees.

That’s because Burma has sent more refugees to Nebraska than any other country during the past five years, said Karen Parde, refugee coordinator for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Parde spoke at a Thursday Lunch and Learn hosted by the Multicultural Coalition of Grand Island.

She said Omaha and Lincoln are Nebraska’s two official resettlement cities, but communities such as Grand Island, Lexington, South Sioux City and others are primary locations for secondary refugee migrants.

Once refugees get established in a city their populations grow as others of their ethnic group move to be near to those who share the same heritage.  This is understandable—that they want to be with others like them—but Americans of European heritage aren’t allowed that wish (funny how that works!).

“Once refugees arrive in the United States, they have all the rights you and I do,” said Parde, who noted that the only exception is the right to vote.

One of those rights is the freedom to move to any city in the United States and not remain in the original resettlement city chosen for them, Parde said. As a result, refugees often move to a secondary city to be close to family members. They often move because the secondary city offers a better prospect of finding a job and a better chance of finding less expensive housing.

Looks like our overall refugee numbers will be lower this year.  Here they blame it on security checks that are holding the flow down, but I will bet its also because there is little to NO work and much welfare needed for refugees arriving now.   Meatpacking labor is probably the only employment around.

Refugees must undergo a security check before they are allowed into the United States, Parde said. Recently, one more security layer was added. Because security checks have expiration dates, some clearances have lapsed because of the time involved in doing the additional security check. Those initial security clearances must then be redone.

As a result, Parde estimated that between 60,000 and 65,000 refugees will enter the United States this year, even though 80,000 is the approved number.

Nebraska typically agrees to take about 720 immigrants annually, but Parde said it has agreed to take up to 800 refugees in a year. She said the decision to raise the number has been a balancing act, especially when the state economy has slowed.

Yes, here it is, it’s taking a long time for refugees to find work.

She said the primary temporary assistance is a Cash and Medical Assistance program that refugees can receive for up to eight months. However, the expectation is that refugees will find a job within 30 to 90 days.

Parde told The Independent that Nebraska refugees had easily been meeting that goal until the economy slowed. Most refugees continue to find jobs, but now it is often taking five, six or seven months.

Many refugees come with no knowledge of modern amenities.

As a result, when they arrive in the United States, they have almost no knowledge of modern life, including knowing anything about electricity, refrigerating food or modern sanitation, Parde said.

And, now, here is the only thing in the whole article that would tell readers that everything is not copacetic in Grand Island.  Some of the Somalis don’t like each other.  Where have we heard that before?

While Americans may think of all people from the same country as being the same, refugees see distinctions, Parde said. Somali refugees will divide themselves into what she described as “Somali Bantu” and “Somali Somali.” She said the Bantus, an ethnic minority in Somalia, are considered to be of a lower social class by “Somali Somalis.” Bantus have sometimes been mistreated by Somalis.

*It’s been over 30 years since I’ve had the pleasure of watching the spectacular sandhill crane migration on the Platte River near Grand Island, it makes me sad to read about how different this heartland town must be now.

Truth-telling Grand Island, Nebraska mayor retiring

We should all be so lucky to have a mayor like 73-year-old Margaret Hornaday—a politician who is one tough lady and speaks the truth.

We first learned about Mayor Hornaday, here in 2008, when she burst on the scene by stating a truism in the New York Times.  This was in the wake of a complaint by Somali workers of religious discrimination at the JBS Swift meatpacking plant there.

The New York Times reporting, in a story about tensions between immigrant groups, that brought the wrath of Somali activists down on her:

Ms. Hornady, the mayor, suggested somewhat apologetically that she had been having difficulty adjusting to the presence of Somalis. She said she found the sight of Somali women, many of whom wear Muslim headdresses, or hijabs, “startling.”

“I’m sorry, but after 9/11, it gives some of us a turn,” she said.

Not only do the hijabs suggest female subjugation, Ms. Hornady said, but the sight of Muslims in town made her think of Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the United States.

“I know that that’s horrible and that’s prejudice,” she said. “I’m working very hard on it.”

She added, “Aren’t a lot of thoughtful Americans struggling with this?”

Subsequently there were demands by Nebraska Somali community organizers for her to be impeached and thrown out of office!  Here they call her a terrorist and say they will sue her.

We had lost track of the story until yesterday when I saw the article about her upcoming retirement (she obviously finished her term).

Two years later we pick up the story here

Asked by The Independent what she found most difficult during her tenure, she responded:

“Biting my tongue,” Hornady said after an uncharacteristic pause while she ruminated.

Then she went on to tell the story about the New York Times and the Somalis’ rage.  (I don’t know if this, below, all happened before or after they were demanding she step down as mayor.)

The Independent story goes on, Somalis wanted her to meet their women:

Her straightforwardness also led to what Hornady considers one of two regrets during her term ” comments made to the New York Times about post-raid Grand Island. Swift recruited refugees from Sudan and Somalia to fill voids left by undocumented Hispanic workers. The Somalian workers encountered difficulty in accommodating their prayer schedule and fasting during Ramadan and engaged in a walkout all the way to City Hall.

The mayor commented that, in a post-9/11 environment, the clothing worn by some Somalians was startling and may even evoke images of terrorists.

“What ticked them off is when I said the hijab, the head scarf they all wear, was to me a symbol of women’s suppression and that angered them,” she said. “They see it as religious or respect.”

Sudanese residents had already met with the mayor to discuss assimilation into the community. Her comments in the Times prompted a fervored request from Somalis for a meeting, as well.

“It created such a brouhaha, the Somalis wanted to meet with me. I told them I would be happy to meet with them,” Hornady said. “They wanted me to meet with their women.”

Mayor Hornaday planned a tea party for the women and hardly anyone came

A date was mutually picked, and City Hall set up for the 40 women and some men that the mayor was told were coming.

Instead of using the city’s rectangular meeting tables, the mayor had round tables brought in. She bought round mirrors and flower-filled vases for each table and bought a rose for each woman.

She even brought in her mother’s silver tea service and arranged for cucumber sandwiches and apple and lemon tarts from Sutter Deli.

“I carefully avoided any pork or anything that might be a problem,” she said, in respect of the cultural diet restrictions.

The 9 a.m. event was pushed back to 10 a.m. on a rainy, cold morning.

“By 10:10 a.m., one woman and her father had arrived,” the mayor said. “Maybe by 10:30 there were half a dozen women and 12 men.”

Unfortunately, the mayor’s brother had died just days prior to the tea party, and she had to catch a flight to his California memorial service the morning of the event. It left her little time to spend with the few who did show up.

“The women spoke not one word,” she said.

Racial tension was all around (not limited to white on black racism)

The Independent story continues:

What was said to the mayor at that meeting and at others during her tenure leading a culturally diverse community is that tensions occur all around.

The mayor said Sudanese and Somalian people don’t always get along and are “suspicious” of Hispanics. Hispanics can be negative toward blacks, she said.*

“White Americans don’t have a lock on bigotry and racial prejudice,” the mayor said.

In hindsight, it might have been good to “rephrase” the statement to the New York Times reporter, Hornady said, but she has no regrets in making it.

“I didn’t say anything that other people don’t think, haven’t thought. I’m just more honest about it,” Hornady said. “I got a huge number of e-mails in response to that from all over the world.”

The responses were “mostly supportive, primarily supportive,” she said, noting that things that are new or different stand out more in a small community such as Grand Island.  [I would like to think we had some role in her supportive e-mails because we sent her address around the world at the time!]

Thanks Mayor Hornaday for your service to your town and our country!

* We have posted several stories on Grand Island racial tension, and one of the most telling tales was one reported in the Los Angeles Times of all places about how the different cultures are fighting with each other in that meatpacking town.  Diversity is beautiful or chaotic anarchy?

New readers! See our category (80 posts!) entitled Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy for all of our posts involving those western meatpacking plants targeted by Somali Muslim activists (and CAIR with handmaiden EEOC!) demanding religious accommodation in the workplace.

 

From meatpacking to driving a cab, Denver suburb becomes the heart of the Somali cabbie business

This is an overly long story about the use and abuse of African cab drivers in Denver.  I couldn’t get through the whole thing, so I recommend reading the comments first and it will give you a gist of the sob story (the title, ‘Mean Streets‘ tells you right away the tone of the story).

I’m posting it because of this little bit of information about a growing Somali Tuula in Aurora, just outside of Denver.  It also provides an update of the story we covered extensively two years ago about the Somali religious demands at the Swift meatpacking plant in Greeley.*  According to this report, many of the meatpacker workers have now turned to the cab driving business.

From Westward News:

He [Ahmed Odawaay, who teaches Somalis how to pass cab driver tests] isn’t the only one to get his start in this Aurora strip mall. Over the last few years, these storefronts have become a community center of sorts for the area’s growing Somali community. Down the way, past a store that sells international cell phones and Arabic prayer books, a former Chinese restaurant is now a Somali eatery and pool parlor. At the far end of the strip, another cafe serves up gingery chai and sambusas — the Somali version of samosas — and broadcasts international soccer games.

Odawaay has watched this ad hoc village take root as more and more Somalis have moved to metro Denver — or, as he likes to put it, gotten stuck here. Some came to Colorado from other parts of the country for decent-paying warehouse positions at places like MCI or delivery gigs with the Rocky Mountain News, but those jobs don’t exist anymore. Some came to work at the Swift meatpacking plant in Greeley, but as claims of discrimination against Muslims there triggered an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint, many of the immigrants headed south to try their luck in Denver.

According to Odawaay, they’ll find few options beyond driving taxis.

* We covered the Greeley/Swift controversy extensively in a special category, here.

For new readers: We have admitted well over 100,000 Somali refugees to the US.   To check out the numbers visit this post, one of our most widely read posts over the last few years.   In FY2010 which ended September 30th the US State Department resettled 4,884 Somalis (here) to towns near you.

Also, after being closed for nearly two years, the US State Department is on the verge of resuming the fraud-ridden family reunification program that admitted as many as 36,000 Somalis fraudulently to the US between 2003 and 2008.  See the latest on new regulations, here.  The State Department is on the verge of re-opening the program.

Ft. Morgan, CO Police Chief sent to Denmark to learn more about refugees

The trip, sponsored by the US State Department as part of a program to help communities deal with a refugee influx, is detailed here in a lengthy article in the Ft. Morgan Times:

Fort Morgan Police Chief Keith Kuretich spent two weeks in Denmark recently talking with of-ficials about Fort Morgan’s experience with refugees and immigrants, and learning about that country’s situation.

He flew to Denmark along with seven other Americans as part of the World Learning Visitor Exchange Program supported by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cul-tural Affairs Office of Citizen Exchanges.

The Chief did learn that terrorism is a real problem in Europe with its open borders.

Read it all.

The Ft. Morgan honor killing

I wonder what ever happened with that Ft. Morgan Somali honor killing we wrote about last in May, here.   I wonder if the Chief discussed honor killings with his Danish counterparts?

Now I see, Abdi plead guilty when faced with the evidence that the knife he used to kill his stepsister was taken from Swift & Co. meatpacking plant where he worked (the victim worked at Cargill meatpacking) indicating perhaps that the murder was premeditated.  He would then have to face trial on first degree murder charges.   The article says he was to be sentenced in July, but I don’t see any story on that.

Abdi’s plea bargain effectively sweeps the whole honor killing story under the rug.

No sympathy from me for meatpackers!

Regular readers know I have been out of the loop lately, preoccupied elsewhere, and so I’m late on some of these stories that have broken in the last two weeks.   I wanted to be sure to get this posted however because it’s a subject we followed minute by minute two years ago and have a whole category on the topic here (Greeley/ Swift/ Somali controversy).

So, here we go at the Huffington Post, two years after the fact, Swift is being sued by the EEOC  (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) for religious discrimination. The stealth jihad in all its glory.

DENVER — Muslim Somali workers at two JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in Colorado and Nebraska face ongoing harassment because of their race and religion, including being prevented from getting a drink at one of the plants after fasting all day during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleges.

A lawsuit filed by the EEOC late Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver alleges JBS officials shut off water fountains at its Greeley meatpacking plant, keeping Muslim Somali workers from getting a drink at sundown.

The suit says the water fountain incident happened in September 2008 and is part of a pattern of religious and racial harassment that continues at the plant. Workers also are denied prayer time and face termination for asking to pray, according to the lawsuit, which names as plaintiffs more than 80 current and former employees.

A second lawsuit filed by the EEOC in U.S. District Court in Omaha, Neb., alleges similar acts at the company’s meatpacking plant in Grand Island, Neb.

Swift officials did not immediately return messages. Many workers named in the suit could not be reached for comment.

Why no sympathy from me, because these giant meatpacking companies (some not even American companies! JBS Swift is Brazilian-owned) have been hustling immigrant labor for a long time simply to avoid paying the higher wages that would keep American workers (see CIS study here).  I am also convinced that they are getting additional benefits (tax breaks?) from the federal government for hiring refugees.   Some meatpackers even have gone so far as to lure hordes of Somalis from one American city to the next for such employment causing economic and social stress in small cities and towns that have to accommodate the influx.

The meatpackers have been a driving force behind refugee resettlement for at least as far back as the Clinton Administration, here.   Readers, this is not about a humanitarian concern for the world’s downtrodden.

Burmese happy in Greeley

Here is a nice story that a friend just sent me about a Burmese family that is happy with their new life in Greeley, CO .  I’ll let you read it all here in the Greeley Tribune.

But it made me wonder if they too have been brought there to work the meatpacking plant jobs at Swift and Co. that resulted in that huge controversy we followed back starting  in 2008 (this is an early post).  Longtime readers may remember that Somalis caused a huge turmoil when they insisted on special break times during Ramadan, then walked out on the job.  Other ethnic minorities protested the Somalis.  It was a mess.  We have a whole category with 76 posts on the evolution of the controversy entitled ‘Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy’ for anyone wishing to learn more.

The article doesn’t say where the Burmese work but I’m wondering if Swift is further diversifying its meat packing plant there.   If you recall they fired a lot of the striking Somalis who then moved on to Cargill in Ft. Morgan, CO.  My theory is that the volags (supposed non-profits who have federal contracts to resettle refugees, some are churches!) and the US State Department are in the business of supplying cheap labor to meatpackers and other mega-businesses.

Then I was reminded of the likely honor killing where a Somali from Greeley murdered his sister in Ft. Morgan, here and here.  I wonder whatever happened with that case?

Grand Island, NE police chief: “It is chaotic anarchy” here among all the ethnic groups

The Los Angeles Times has finally caught on to problems created when many diverse immigrant groups arrive in small midwestern towns lured there by the big national and international meatpackers.  Here is a story thanks to Baron at Gates of Vienna that summarizes much of what we have already said about Grand Island, NE and its multicultural woes.  (See our category Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy where we have filed all of our Grand Island posts for a couple of years)

There isn’t much new in this article that we haven’t previously reported, but coming on the heels of the Maine Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence announcement that it would use Somali-saturated Lewiston, ME as an example of how town folks can get along with their immigrants, I’m thinking what the heck are they going to Frederick, MD  for?   Let them go to someplace like Grand Island, NE that will be a real challenge when they have to tell the Hispanics, Somalis, Sudanese and now Cubans that they need to just get along with each other!  Maybe its just a matter of reminding them about our magical melting pot!

This really makes me steam!  They (the hate violence gang) don’t want to sort out the ethnic conflicts between people of color, they just want to claim white people are racists and need government-funded behavior modification! 

Back to the LA Times (rant concluded) here is how the lengthy article begins:

Grand Island, Neb., has long been a revolving door of immigrants, from Vietnamese and Bosnians to Latinos and Sudanese. But with Somali Muslims came a whole new set of conflicts.

The reporter gives the reader a little history about the Hispanics who have been in the town for a long time and then tells us about the raids by ICE.  After those raids other ‘legal’ immigrants came to town.   One townsperson summed it up well!

“There has been more bigotry,” Fulton said, “because there has just been more and more and more of them.”

Then the Somalis came looking for the meatpacking jobs:

The emotions unleashed by the raid would soon find a new target — Sudanese and Somalis attracted by the promise of work at the meatpacking plant.

The new immigrants, who had been granted refugee status because of strife in their homelands, posed new challenges to the status quo in Grand Island.

They were black, and some were Muslim.

At first the Muslims didn’t make too many demands but then in 2008 they stirred up anger among other ethnic workers (we have all this in our posts from that time period).

That changed in 2008, during Ramadan, when virtually all the Muslim workers began leaving the assembly line en masse to pray. Even Muslims who are not particularly religious often make an effort to pray during the holy month.

Co-workers complained that they had to pick up the slack. Management told the Somalis they couldn’t pray because the plant, one of the largest in the country, couldn’t afford to stop the machines. Five hundred Muslim workers, infuriated, walked off the job.

Most came back after Swift & Co. agreed to accommodate them by changing break times.

But other workers protested that the Muslims had gotten preferential treatment, an idea fueled by a story published in a local Spanish-language newspaper that falsely claimed the Somalis had gotten a pay raise. Fights broke out in the lunch room. Hundreds of Latinos — joined by the Sudanese, who are mostly Christian — walked off the job.

The plant settled down because the meatpacker made accommodations to the Muslims and as we learn later in the article many of the nomadic Somalis moved on to another Nebraska town.   However, the LA Times tells us that crime in Grand Island is now out of control!

Major conflict at the plant let up when Ramadan ended. But tensions in town mounted like never before.

At the Autumn Woods apartments on the southeast side of town, police were called several times a day to respond to stabbings, shootings and disputes.

A war was building between the Somalis, who lived on one side of the complex, and the Sudanese, who lived on the other side.

“It’s chaotic anarchy,” Police Chief Steve Lamken said recently.

In late August 2009, a Sudanese man was shot in the head at the apartment complex. Police arrested three Somalis in connection with the killing.Officer Robert Winton blamed the fighting on the Africans’ violent homelands. “They’re at war in their countries and they bring it here,” he said.

Violent crimes in Grand Island have risen in the last two years and the community, surrounded by cornfields, now faces a gang problem.

To top it off the LA Times wraps up by mentioning that 700 Cubans have come to town this year.

I won’t go into it here because this is getting way too long, but the LA Times article also discusses Grand Island’s mayor and the problems she had with the Somalis.  I recommend you go back to my 2008 post on how the Somalis demanded that the mayor resign.  Also, note in previous posts that the Somalis brought CAIR to town and here.

So, hey Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, how about tackling the ethnic strife and multicultural hate violence going on in places like Grand Island, NE and leave the good people of Frederick, MD alone.

For new readers:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US (this linked post continues to be one of the most widely read posts we have ever written) in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened (that we know of), but will be soon. 

Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled as I write this. We recently learned that we will be taking 6000 Somalis this year from one camp in Uganda and as many as 11,000-13,000 total from around the world.

Grand Island, NE: CAIR (with handmaiden EEOC) wins another one

AND!  Surprise (not)!  Another Somali Ethnic Community Based Organization is born! 

We reported extensively last year about the demands of Somali Muslim workers for religious accommodations at the JBS Swift & Co plant in Grand Island.   You can visit our category that includes the controversy at the Swift plant in Greeley as well, here.

The gist of what happened is this, from the Washington Examiner a couple of weeks ago.

Hundreds of Muslim workers walked off the job and picketed in protest last September, saying they wanted time to pray at sunset and break a daylong fast. Plant management responded the next day by adjusting the work schedule to accommodate them. That fueled a counterprotest in which other workers walked off the job, arguing Muslim workers were given preferential treatment. Management then ended the accommodations, which sent Muslim workers back to the picket lines.

The company fired 86 workers for walking off the job. It eventually hired back about a dozen.

“I think a lot of people went in last year sort of flying a little blind,” said JBS spokesman Chandler Keys. “Everyone got their eyes opened.”

They had their eyes further opened this past week when it was learned that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) gloatingly reported that the federal EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) had ruled that the Muslims were “unlawfully harassed” last year.  Jerry Gordon writing at New English Review has more on the story.

Nevermind that the Somalis in Grande Island harassed and intimidated the mayor of that city last year here.   Everyone knows harassment only goes one way right!  Somalis don’t harass white women, of course not!   See also Mohamed Rage, the community organizer from Omaha, and his ECBO and its involvement with CAIR here.

Enter a new ECBO

Looks like the Somalis of Grand Island don’t need Rage’s agitation services anymore!  They have their own brand new Ethnic Community Based Organization as of June 2nd of this year.   It is called the Nebraska Somali Community Association and they are already weighing in on the CAIR/EEOC/Swift issue here where the reporter quoted as the authority Yasin Ali .

Ali is the 17-year-old  co-founder of the Nebraska Somali Community Association.  See staff and Board of Directors here (see below also*).  No sign of who is paying for this ECBO but when you look over the site you will see they are using all the right verbage to make a case for grants at the Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement to help refugees find “resources” (aka taxpayer supported programs).

More from the Grand Island Independent in June.

Yasin Ali, a 17-year-old senior at Grand Island Senior High School, filed the incorporation paperwork with the Secretary of State’s Office Wednesday in Lincoln. He’s also working on a non-profit filing for the association.

Teenager Ali is helped by another Somali who is looking for work in Grand Island.

Ali will be staffing the office over the summer, but once school starts again in August, he will rely more on assistance from his co-incorporator, Samatar Ali, who is not related to Yasin Ali. Samatar Ali was a doctor in Somali and is currently looking for work in Grand Island.

Now, I thought this was kind of curious, when you go to their papers on file with the Secretary of State of Nebraska someone named Abdullahi Abdulle is listed as agent at 210 N. Piper St. #10, Grand Island, NE 68803 and coincidentally so are Yasin Ali and Samatar Ali at that same address.  We learned previously that Samatar Ali is not related to Yasin.  It must be a busy household at 210 N. Piper St!

Interesting, don’t you think, that Somali ECBOs are popping up wherever there are meatpacking plant controversies.  As I said, who is paying for this one?  We know in Greeley their new Somali “community organizing” outfit is mostly supported by taxpayers, Lutherans and a union.

Learn all about ECBOs at our new category, here.

*I decided to post the staff and board of directors names here too in case we need them in the future.

Staff

Yasin Ali- Founder and President
Guled Ismail- Vice President
Liiban- Community Liasion

Board of Directors

Paul Warshauer (Grande Venues)- Board Chairman
Alisa Grim (GIPS Teacher)- Secretary
Ali Samatar (Former Doctor)- Treasurer
Yasin Ali ( Student)
Guled Ismail ( JBS Swift)
Karen Natchigal (BBBS)
Amanda Levos (GIPS Teacher)

Note to new readers:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing

JBS Swift meatpacking plant in Greeley, CO hopes it is ready for Ramadan tomorrow

I guess hope springs eternal, but management at JBS Swift & Co in Greeley thinks that after making a number of concessions they can accommodate their hundreds of Muslim workers demands during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.  Of course it remains to be seen whether other ethnic workers in the plant will protest the religious accommodation as they did last year.  From the Greeley Tribune today, hat tip Jerry Gordon.

Just a day before the beginning of Ramadan, the holy month of fast and prayer for Muslims, talks between meatplant workers, union representatives and company officials continued in earnest.

The objective: Avoid a repeat of the showdown at sundown that flared at JBS USA meatpacking plants in Greeley and Grand Island, Neb., last September.

During Ramadan, Muslims don’t eat or drink during daylight hours. They break their daily fast after sunset prayers.

Miscommunication about how to handle the religious practices resulted in more than 100 Muslim workers — mostly Somalis, but also other East African refugees who’ve moved to Greeley in recent years — being fired last September for walking off production lines.

Graen Isse, a Somali who helps operate the East Africa Community Center in Greeley, said he thinks conflicts will be avoided this year.

They got their special bidet toilets, but will they get their shift changes?

Unlike last year at this time, JBS has created two prayer rooms for Muslim workers inside the plant — one for men and one for women. Also, the company has installed stations in restrooms that allow workers to thoroughly wash, which is custom before prayers.

Still, some Muslims on the B shift, which runs from late afternoon to late evening and runs into prayers at sundown, have requested a monthlong switch to the daytime A shift to avoid conflicts, Isse said.

“I don’t think they’re going to move 400 workers to A shift,” Isse said of JBS. “It’s hard for them to do.”

Yes, indeed, be sure to accommodate those Somalis!

Chandler Keys, JBS spokesman, declined to comment on specific proposals being discussed.

“We think we have the right solutions to make sure the plant operates functionally and efficiently, but also trying to accommodate the needs of all the workers going into Ramadan, particularly the Somali workers,” Keys said.

There’s no telling for sure how it will work out until Ramadan begins this weekend, he noted.

I guess we will wait and see! 

Now I want to turn your attention to Graen Isse (Mohamud Ahmed Isse).  I’ve followed his ‘career’ in Greeley since it began shortly before Ramadan last year.  Well-educated and bilingual, Isse arrived in Greeley in advance of Ramadan and lo and behold got a job at the plant one week(!) before he was fired along with other workers.   Coincidence?

I don’t think so, I think Isse is a ‘community organizer’ sent to Greeley to agitate.  I guess the big question remains, who sent him? 

Just a reminder that it was also Isse who inflamed the conflict between Somalis and Hispanics by going to the Arab press and blaming the trouble on the longtime Hispanic workers, here.   Remember Alinsky says you need to create chaos to bring about change.

This is what we learned about Isse last fall here. 

Remaining [after many Somalis moved to Ft. Morgan, CO] are the “community organizers” who had intrigued me while the controversy was on-going. Graen Isse was the guy who had showed up in town just before all this started and then busied himself by talking to the likes of Arabic news outfits, blaming the problem on the Hispanics. He told the Arab publication he had worked in America since he was 16, but from this puff-piece it would appear he had a typical American high school experience. And, with an education like his, what was he doing looking for meatpacking work (even as a translator)?

Graen Isse, a local Somali leader, understands these conflicting impulses well. In his fourteen years in America, he’s bounced between three states. Now he’s trying to figure out how to help Greeley’s Somali community survive, even if he’s not sure how long he’ll stick around himself.

Slim and amiable, the 27-year-old Isse is constantly in motion — knee tapping, cell phone wire hanging from his ear, eyes scanning the room. [who is he talking to and what is he looking for?]

[Supposedly separated from his parents as a child by the everpresent violence in Africa, miraculously one day his parents were found.]

One day, Isse’s older brother appeared and announced that their parents had escaped to neighboring Kenya. As his family was reunited, another of Isse’s brothers, who had been injured in the war, made it to California as a refugee. He told the government about his family back home, clearing the way for Isse and several members of his family to apply for refugee status and move to San Diego. *see note below 

So Isse grew up as an American teenager, running track and playing high school football. After he graduated from high school in Minneapolis, where his mother had moved, his globetrotting continued. He took college classes in California, then completed his degree in Kenya before ending up back in San Diego. There he worked for a transportation tracking company, drove a taxi, even took some law school classes.

Isse moved to Greeley last summer because a friend from California, Aziz Dhies, was working as a nurse there and suggested that Isse might like the town as well. Isse was hired as a translator at Swift and had only been on the job for about a week when the Ramadan controversy began. He was thrust into the midst of the problem as he negotiated on behalf of hundreds of people whom he had only just met. He, too, was fired because he went home to eat and rest on the day the dispute was resolved instead of returning immediately to work. But he quickly found a new job, working part-time as a translator at the Weld County courts. And he and Dhies dedicated themselves to community organizing, forming the East Africa Community, which aims to be “the middleman between the leaders and our community,” Isse says.

I believe that Isse is a professional community organizer brought in to agitate the Swift workers, but I guess the big question is, who sent him? 

* For new readers:

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.

The immigration fraud involved mostly Somalis filing application to bring family members to the US who turned out not to be related.  The program is still under suspension.

See our entire category (over 70 posts) on the controversy on-going with Swift and Co. and its Somali workers, here.