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.