Month: September 2008

CAIR is a busy little beaver in Greeley, CO

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In all the hullabloo yesterday over the Swift meatpacking plant controversy in Grand Island, NE, I missed an update from Greeley, CO where Swift fired Somali workers last week when they failed to show up for work.  So, here is what was happening in Greeley according to a Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) lawyer in from Chicago to make sure the Somalis get what they want.

Rima Kapitan, with CAIR’s Chicago office, on Wednesday met with Muslim workers recently fired by JBS Swift. She said CAIR is coordinating with an attorney retained by about 60 of the fired workers.

Here then are some nuggets of information offered by Kapitan to the Greeley Tribune:

*   Kapitan said more talks are planned this week between CAIR and national officials with the United Food and Commercial Workers, the union that represents production workers at Swift.

*   “We’ve been in contact (with JBS Swift) since about a year ago and proposed a number of possible solutions, or adjustments, that would accommodate the workers and not impose undue burden on Swift, but these offers have been unsuccessful so far,” Kapitan said.

*    In Greeley, Kapitan said some of the roughly 120 Muslim workers fired on Sept. 10 have starting looking elsewhere for work.

*   “A lot of them are demoralized,” she said. “A lot of them moved from out of state to work here, and they’re just asking for a few minutes a day to pray.”

*    While CAIR has filed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission-related grievances against the Grand Island plant, Kapitan said, none to her knowledge have been filed in Greeley. [See CAIR and the EEOC here.]

*    Kapitan said CAIR has notified the attorney representing the Greeley workers that it’s willing to help on behalf of the fired workers.

And then here is a gem: 

“We’re here to defend an American ideal, and it’s an American ideal that people from different faiths should be able to practice their faiths in this country,” she said.

If you are lost in this story, go to our special category which now has 30 posts in two weeks to help you sort it out.

The latest news from Grand Island: Calm before a storm?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 22nd:  Veiled threats from Somali community organizers?

Update September 21st:  Some thoughts from me about this whole issue.

Update September 20th:   Now the Cubans are coming.

Evening update:   Reports first said 50-80 quit, now reports say 150 Somalis quit or were fired.

Update, later in the afternoon:   A bunch of Somalis quit.

Update:   More details from the Grand island Independent.  This report says there was violence Thursday.

Reports Thursday night from workers at the scene indicated that a fight broke out between about 20 to 30 Somalian and Hispanic workers, but that the scuffle was under control in less than half an hour. A police team was called to Swift about 9 p.m. and entered the building. Shortly after, a group of Somalian workers were seen exiting Swift from north side doors and heading toward the parking lots.

But, the next report  says police deny violence— just a verbal altercation.

Update:  Today’s AP story is here:

Jacinto Guerrero kept in his pocket a list of needs, a scrap of paper containing words scribbled in Spanish. Breaks at normal times, no religious discrimination, same benefits and privileges, it read.

Guerrero said he comes to work to do his job and so should everyone else.

“You and your religion – it’s between you and God,” he said. “You don’t need to show it to everybody.”

 

 

While I slept, Blulitespecial did a roundup of the news out of Grand Island, NE.   Bottomline, who knows what is going to happen today after managers at the Swift meatpacking plant rescinded an earlier decision to accommodate mostly Somali workers’ demands for shift changes in order for them to pray at exactly the time they want during Ramadan.   Most of the other non-Muslim workers walked out in protest.  Guess you can’t run a plant with over 1000 workers walking out! 

This is from a local TV station (Warning:  Contains Somali community organizer alert!):

The company scrapped the break change.

But now Muslim Somalian workers are back where they started when they walked out of work Monday.

“They told us that they went 360 degrees, you know. They told us no break at 7:30pm. They have to go back to 8:30pm,” said Abeisamad Jama, a Grand Island Muslim community leader.

The same time it was when Somalian workers walked out.

“I think this is not going to be over. Nobody’s going to let it go like this. We’re going to pray our religion and we’re going to practice wherever we are no matter what,” said Jama.

And, then this from the Omaha World-Herald:

GRAND ISLAND – Amid a fourth day of walkouts at a Grand Island meatpacking plant, managers Thursday discarded a compromise designed to accommodate Muslim employees’ prayers during the holy month of Ramadan.

“It was a compromise that people thought would work for everyone. It didn’t,” said Dan Hoppes, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local No. 22. “Everything will go back to the way it was.”

The workday began Thursday with a majority of first-shift workers walking off the job at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant.

A total of 1,000 employees walked out during the first shift Wednesday and the second shift Thursday. A call to JBS Swift officials was not returned Thursday.

One non-Muslim protester said she is angry because the company gave in so easily to Somali demands:

Counterprotester Veronica Yebra said management Thursday was telling workers to “get through the nine days” left of Ramadan and then the plant schedule would return to normal.  [This time it’s just nine days, just nine days of accommodation, then what?  More demands for another accommodation, maybe a paid holiday for the last day of Ramadan?  And so it goes.]

“I’m not upset with the Somalians,” Yebra said. “It’s the company – the decision. They gave in so easy. We have Hispanics and Vietnamese and Laotians. It affects all of us, and we want the same opportunity for everyone.”

And then how is this for jaw-dropping:

Sudanese protester Gatluak Wuol from the second shift wanted to distinguish his culture as being different from the Muslim workers from Somalia.

“We have a different religion. I’m Christian,” Wuol said. “We support this (the counterprotest) because we need equal rights.”

The whole situation left Hoppes bewildered.

“I don’t know what happened,” Hoppes said. “I think we have problems between races.”

NOOOOOO!  Mr. Hoppes, we don’t have problems between races!  Just say it, why is everyone so chicken?  We have problems between Islam, and Muslim demands that we accommodate them, and everyone else.

What we are seeing in Greeley and Grand Island is a probe.   And, so far, it seems to me that the Somali Muslims have overplayed their hand (more on that later).   I guess the Somalis and their community organizers figured the folks working in real jobs, like meatpacking, were going to roll over like the Washington elitists running the government.  It looks like they figured wrong.

To follow all of the goings-on in Greeley, CO and Grand Island, NE see our whole category on this two-week-old saga.

And, finally, what the heck it could be worse, we could be in Greece.

Allowing non-citizens to vote?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies held a panel on that question earlier this week. A comprehensive paper by one of the participants, Stanley Renshon, is here. A transcript of the proceedings is here, and a Congressional Quarterly news story about the panel headlined Non-Citizen Voting: ‘American Dream’ or ‘One of the Worst Ideas Ever’? is here. The article begins:

An emerging movement to give non-citizens the right to vote in local elections should be resisted because it puts at risk national cohesion and the value of U.S. citizenship, according to a new report by a group that supports lower immigration.

“The Constitution, the Congress and the courts have enshrined voting as a core indispensable element of American citizenship and democracy,” Stanley A. Renshon, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, said upon release of his paper, “Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote in the United States? Why Not.”

Those who support non-citizen voting argue that it would actually be more democratic because more interests would be represented and participation in the political process would aid newcomers’ assimilation.

The report attempts to debunk that claim. And conservative columnist Michael Barone took issue with that characterization at a Sept. 15 CIS event promoting the study.

“This proposal is a tactic by insincere manipulators who want to increase the number of votes cast on their side of the issues and in the absence of interested citizens are willing to try to find any votes they can,” Barone said.

That “movement” is not “emerging” by itself, as a chick emerges from an egg. It has been created by activist groups like ACORN (Obama’s old employer) and groups championing illegal immigration. And I’ll bet that if Graen Isse, Somali community organizer in Greeley, Colorado, isn’t already involved in such a movement, he soon will be. Groups of refugees like the Somalis, bursting with grievances, are ripe for recruitment into claiming rights never before given to non-citizens.

A July paper from the Heritage Foundation, The Threat of Non-Citizen Voting, by Hans A. von Spakovsky, says:

In 2005, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that up to 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty from voter registration rolls over a two-year period in just one U.S. district court were not U.S. citizens.[1]  While that may not seem like many, just 3 percent of registered voters would have been more than enough to provide the winning presiden­tial vote margin in Florida in 2000.

The Heritage paper is about illegal voting activity. The Krikorian panel is about the movement to make non-citizen voting legal. These are two trends that need close watching.

All hell breaking loose in Grand Island, NE over decision to accommodate Muslims

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 22nd:   Somali organizers make threats?

Update September 21st:   In my opinion:  Somalis overplay their hand.

Update September 20th:    The Cubans are being brought in—a multicultural mess indeed!

Update later on the 19th:    150 Somalis quit or fired at Swift.

Update September 19th:   Somalis say it isn’t over yet.

Update this evening:   Fox News is reporting that the deal is off, no special accommodation after all.  I’m sure my steadfast reader, Blulitespecial (who never sleeps), will have more details for us in the morning!

GRAND ISLAND, Nebraska — Managers at a Nebraska meatpacking plant have told Muslim employees, most of them Somali, that shift changes made to meet their prayer demands weren’t working and would be ended.

Update later today:  Strike continued today.  See photos of workers protesting Somali accommodation.

 

Last night I told you the decision had been made at the Swift & Co meatpacking plant in Grand Island.  The Somalis won when managers decided to give in to their demands for shift changes during Ramadan.

But, now all the other workers of all cultures and nationalities have walked out in protest, just as they had in Greeley, CO nearly two weeks ago.  (Hat tip: Blulitespecial)

A compromise reached to accommodate prayer for about 500 Somalian meatpacking plant workers in Grand Island led to a counter protest of even more workers at the JBS Swift & Co. plant Wednesday.

Workers including Caucasians, Hispanics, Vietnamese, and African-Americans walked out after clocking in on the B shift shortly after 3 p.m. [A commenter to this news story says that the Sudanese were not with the Somalis, but with this group of counter-demonstrators]

The objection — a change in the break schedule that leaves B shift workers shorted of hours Monday through Friday and forces them to work Saturday to earn at least 40 hours of pay.

“The Somalians say they can only work three hours after sunset, so we’re supposed to work 7.3 hours a day Monday through Friday,” said Naomi Jakubowski. “We’re supposed to come in and make up the time on Saturday or be shorted at just 36 hours.”

“I don’t want to sacrifice my Saturdays with my kids — and I can’t raise ’em on 36 hours of pay,” she said. “I’ve got rent, food and diapers to buy.”

This article from the Grand Island Independent then describes the shift schedule changes and quotes Dan Hoppes, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local No. 22, as saying:

“This will give them time to pray and satisfy their faith.”

The Grand Island plant employs 2500 workers, according to this news story, and 500 are Muslim.

The multicultural protesting workers, including these women standing up for Hispanics, didn’t mince words.

Bernadino Orellana said the Hispanic workers have staffed the Swift plant for 20 to 30 years. The Somalian workers have come in the last year and changed everything — Swift management has given in to the minority, she said.

“Nobody should have special privileges,” shouted B shift protester Tina Ramirez. “Treat everybody fairly.”

Counterprotesters raised objections Wednesday to a pay raise they say the Somalians were given and were bragging about Tuesday and Wednesday.

Ramirez went on:

Ramirez said Wednesday that the Somalians come late, leave early and take frequent breaks and “drop all the time” in prayer right in front of people, so people are literally tripping over their bodies.

“They don’t do the work and we have to work double,” she said. “It’s not fair.”

[…..]

“Everyone has rights. Be equal. Be fair,” a protester sign stated in the Swift parking lot Wednesday night.

“We all have religion,” Ramirez said.   [But, some are more equal then others]

Apparently Somalis claimed, as they had in Greeley, CO, that supervisors physically abused Somali workers and that one male tried to follow a Muslim female to the bathroom.  In Greeley, the Somalis charged that men went into the locker room and fondled Somali women’s breasts while trying to remove them from the floor.   The Somalis know that these allegations involving their women will inflame their supporters around the world.  As a matter of fact, in some parts of the world, the allegation alone would get someone beheaded.

Hoppes said the union is continuing to investigate allegations that some praying workers were kicked by a supervisor and that a male supervisor followed a female worker into a bathroom as she attempted to pray. He said witnesses to those events have not surfaced and Swift is denying either incident happened.

Don’t forget to read the comments to this story, they are pretty hard hitting. One commenter, Thompson, said:

The people at Swift who made this decision are nothing more than COWARDS!!!!

Regular working Americans get this, the seriousness of accommodating and bending over backward to Islamic religious demands.  It’s only our elitists running the US government and the media elites who want to dismiss the growing storm by telling us we are a bunch of racist , bigoted, xenophobes.   Notice the counter-demonstrators come from all sorts of cultural backgrounds and are of various and assorted colors.

And finally commenter AlwaysaHusker said:

If this is part of the global unity, I don’t want any part of it. You better hold on to your hats, because America is going down.

Just a reminder, the US State Department has resettled over 83,000 Somalis over the last 25 years and dispersed them throughout America.

If you would like to learn how this issue (Somali demands at meatpacking plants) has evolved over the last two weeks go to our special category here.  Posts are organized in chronological order from the most recent to the oldest.  See “probing the infidel world” here.

Read especially this post which describes how the accommodation of Islamic religious demands is part of the “stealth jihad” to bring Sharia law to America.   The Somalis are merely the foot soldiers, the advancing wedge.

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!