Update August 13th: More thoughts on this from Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch.
Update August 12th: JIm Boulet of English First says Tyson’s reversal a big victory for America, here. And, be sure to see Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy here on Tysons, Sharia creep and Brian Mosely.
Update August 10th: CAIR calls critics of Tyson’s Islamophobes here.
Update August 8th: Union overturns the contract here.
Update August 7th: Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch at Frontpage here, and a lot of informative comments at Jihad Watch here. See the Shelbyville Times-Gazette editorial today too.
New from the Times-Gazette on August 6th: Brian Mosely has a follow-up article here. And, my response to the bigotry charge here.
Update August 6th: My comments on this story, where are the investigative journalists?
Update August 5th: Here Fox News adds a bit more information.
More on this story on August 4th: Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies made a few additional good points here.
My latest update: This post has led to renewed interest in what happened in Emporia, KS, go here.
Update! August 4th: Bloggers (here) are now going after Mosely for exposing one critic of his reporting as an employee of a refugee resettlement volag. What, he isn’t allowed to question critics motives who are questioning his? It seems to me that if you put your employer’s name on the internet, it is public information.
Update! Update! August 3rd: See reporter Brian Mosely’s blog today on how this story is spreading like wildfire here.
Another shoe has dropped in Shelbyville, TN where Somalis now make up a large percentage of the workers in a Tyson’s chicken processing plant there.
Workers at Tyson Foods’ poultry processing plant in Shelbyville will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day, but will instead take the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr in the fall.
A recent press release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) stated that a new contract at the Shelbyville facility “implements a new holiday to accommodate the … Muslim workers at the plant.”
The RWDSU stated that “the five-year contract creates an additional paid holiday, Iidal Fitil, a Muslim holiday that occurs toward the end of Ramadan.”
I’m trying to figure out what is the magic number of Somalis that would be required to begin to change our American customs in a community.
The press release stated there are approximatly 700 Muslims working at Tyson’s, but Mickelson said that Somalis only represent approximately 250 of the 1,200 employed at the plant, a little over 20 percent of the workforce.
To clarify the above, it seems the Union says 700 Somalis work at Tyson’s while Tyson’s claims only 250. So what is up with that? Seems like an awfully large miscount on someone’s part.
Read the whole article by award winning reporter Brian Mosely, and don’t forget to read the comments!
Through 2007 we have admitted 82,000 Somalis to the US through the refugee resettlement program. Between 6000 and 7000 came in 2007 alone. Go to this post where a reader and I discuss those numbers.
P.S. If you are a new reader just joining us, see the Shelbyville Somali rampage of last week here.