Day: September 17, 2008

Swift caves to Somali demands at Grand Island, NE plant

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Thanks to Blulitespecial for being on top of the news again.   Swift has given in to demands by Muslims at its Grand Island meatpacking facility and will shift break times to allow Muslim prayers.

OMAHA, Nebraska — A meatpacking plant has agreed to accommodate Muslim workers’ request for prayer time during Ramadan, union officials said Wednesday.

Earlier this week 300 Muslim JBS Swift & Co. workers, most of Somali background, walked off the job in protest of the prayer dispute. No one was fired after the protest.

Dan Hoppes, president of the local United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said management at the plant has agreed to temporarily change the timing of the second-shift lunch break to accommodate workers wanting time to pray during the Muslim observance of Ramadan.

I’m sure we will learn much more tomorrow.  It will also be interesting to see if Somalis in Greeley, CO will roll the Swift plant in that city as well.

If you are new to this story, go to our category Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy here and catch up if you can!

Another Presidential campaign tip from the Immigration lawyers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well here you go, another “comment” from Immigration lawyers and how they see the 2008 Presidential campaign.  And, although yesterday they said that McCain would more likely take on immigration “reform” in his first year, they are still in the tank for Obama.

This is what they say Obama should do.  He should focus on the Hispanic vote in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada—the states this group claims are the swing states.

In that case, here is what I say.  All of you voting Hispanics in Colorado consider that if Obama should win the Presidency you can bet, and take it to the bank, that the number of African immigrants will dramatically rise and they will be competing with you and blaming you, Hispanics, for their trouble in the workplace—just as they are today in Greeley, CO.

Graen Isse, Somali mouthpiece in Greeley is moving on up

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Don’t you just love how refugees and immigrants can move on up in America.  This is such a wonderful country, don’t you think? Truly the land of opportunity!  Here is a case where all it took was being the mouthpiece for fired Somali workers in Greeley, CO and presto, off the meat slicing and dicing line and into the Court House.

Graen Isse came to our attention as one of the community organizers in the Greeley/Swift-bad meatpacker-fires-poor-Somalis story still on-going in that city.   He was prominently on display in a news film linked in this post (hope the link to the film works for you).

Isse is also the guy who told the Arab press that the Hispanics are to blame.  And, as far as I can tell, no American publication has mentioned that fact, while they have made him their go-to guy in Greeley.

On hearing that the Somali workers in Grand Island, NE were protesting too, he lamented:

Graen Isse, one of the workers fired by JBS Swift in Greeley last week, said he was saddened by the Grand Island news.

“I’m feeling bad. I don’t want anybody to be facing unemployment,” Isse said Tuesday. “I want them to have their jobs and support their families.”   [boo-you know what-hoo!]

And, these reporters obviously eat this up quoting him extensively.  Oh, brother!

Isse says:

— Graen Isse, one of the workers fired by JBS Swift in Greeley last week for what the company called an unauthorized walkout during their shift, said 121 workers at the Greeley plant were fired by the company on Sept. 10. He said virtually all of the workers applied for unemployment benefits on Monday and Tuesday, working through union representatives in Greeley. He said the workers also will file for hardship benefits through the union.

— Isse said six more Muslim workers were fired at the Greeley plant Monday for taking breaks to pray around sunset. Tamara Smid, a spokeswoman for JBS Swift, said via e-mail Tuesday afternoon she had no knowledge of more terminations.

— Isse said some of the fired Muslim workers in Greeley met with a representative of the U.S. Department of Justice. “They’re trying to negotiate with the company,” he said of the federal official.

— Isse said some of the fired workers planned to meet again with an attorney Tuesday night to discuss potential legal action against JBS Swift and their options for getting their jobs back. The group also met with a union attorney over the weekend.

— Isse said most of the fired workers have remained in Greeley. “I’m not going nowhere. I like Greeley,” Isse said, noting that he had an interview this week with the Weld County Courthouse to work as a translator.

Ahhhhhh!   And, now they are going to give him a job as a translator in the Courthouse!   Isn’t America just grand!  Will there be a movie offer next?

Gates of Vienna: probing the infidel world

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna blog today analyzes what is going on in Greeley, CO and Grand Island, NE and concludes that what we are seeing with Somali demands for accommodation of Islamic practices in the workplace is a continuation of a worldwide phenomenon—probing the infidel world to see how far they can get with each new step toward establishment of Sharia law.

Last Saturday I wrote about the Ramadan demands (and subsequent firings) of Somali employees at a JBS Swift plant in Greeley, Colorado. Last night I wrote about Muslim probes of the infidel world, and the fact that they are going on all the time, even if we don’t recognize them.

Today these two topics have converged. Once again, it involves Somali employees at a JBS Swift plant demanding prayer privileges for Ramadan. This time the aggrieved employees are in Grand Island, Nebraska.

Read on.   His excellent analysis brings to light an earlier probe in Grand Island where Swift backed down, and so he concludes:

JBS Swift made concessions, and that’s why the Somalis are back with another demand. There will always be another demand, until full sharia is instituted in Nebraska, and the green flag with the crescent and star flies over the state house in Lincoln.

That’s the way these probes work. The ratchet turns in only one direction.

To learn more about what is happening in Greeley, CO and Grand Island, NE see our category with posts in chronological order here.

Also, I will continue to remind readers that the US State Department has brought over 83,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years with the larger number of them coming since 9/11.

Catholic Charities can’t handle the large number of refugees coming to Syracuse

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is the same story throughout the US.  As the fiscal year winds down, the State Department is in a rush to get as many refugees into the US by September 30th as they can.    The problems in Syracuse, with the large number of Bhutanese refugee arrivals, are symptomatic of what is wrong with refugee resettlement and demonstrates why the system is, in my opinion, rotten and needs to be overhauled.

The volags, like Catholic Charities are paid by the head by the taxpayers of the United States to resettle refugees.   But, it is supposed to be a public/private partnership and they are supposed to put in their own time and money.   They obviously don’t do enough. 

I have contended all along that each family arriving in America must have its own sponsor—a group, a church, whatever—to take care of helping the family assimilate and survive for as long as it takes.   This individual sponsor would be responsible for providing food, shelter, clothing, transportation, help with paperwork and assistance in finding a job.  If we are going to bring refugees we should care for them properly and help them become good American citizens.   See the post I just wrote a few minutes ago about similar problems with Iraqis going to Arizona.

Situations like this are completely irresponsible:

Because of the rush of refugees, it’s taking 60 to 90 days to get people in for medical checkups and sign them up for health care and public assistance. Normally, that takes 30 days. Because of the delays, Catholic Charities has had to rely more on donations to buy people food and medicine for new refugees [this should be their job, not the taxpayers anyway!], Hargrave [director of Catholic Charities refugee program in Syracuse] said.

Local agencies say the bubble of refugees is caused by the federal government’s attempt to resettle refugees before the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30. Officials said they wouldn’t be scrambling if the refugees were spread out throughout the year.

“We’re having trouble working with that many people,” Hargrave said. “The Department of Social Services is having a great deal of problems getting people through Medicaid, food stamps and public assistance. We can’t manage to get them through the system.”

Those Bhutanese not getting medical check-ups immediately pose a health risk to the community because refugees with both HIV and TB can enter the US, and children need to be immunized in order to go to school.

And, on top of not being able to get the new refugees on welfare fast enough, there are virtually no jobs:

Jasenko Mondom, a job developer at the Refugee Family Program, said the biggest challenge is finding jobs for new refugees. Local companies that typically hire refugees for entry-level jobs have either shut down or moved those jobs overseas.

It’s taking longer to find people jobs, he said. Typically, Mondom said, local companies hired two or three people a week. Now, he’s lucky if he can get one person hired a week.

The US has agreed to take 60,000 Bhutanese, presently living in camps in Nepal, over the next several years.  We have written on many occasions about their situation and their arrival in the US, go here to see those posts and learn more.