I sure hope this company has deep pockets (remember the Minnesota Gold & Plump chicken plant settlement?) And to tell you the truth what would prompt any Minnesota company to hire Somalis—aren’t they following the Somali lawsuit history right there in their own state!
Here is the tale of woe to be visited on Dianne’s Desserts (I previously mentioned the controversy here):
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is preparing to file discrimination charges against Dianne’s Fine Desserts for allegedly mistreating Somali workers.
About 45 Somali workers walked off their work site because they refused to follow a new dress code mandating that workers roll up their skirts so they are “15 inches from the ground,” which some are calling a “burqa ban.” CAIR’s president says that new policy was merely a pretext for something more sinister.
“We have more going on here than just a new dress code,” Lori Saroya told the Faribault Daily News. “We’re hearing about an extremely hostile work environment that they’ve been dealing with. We’re hearing the dress code was created to target the Somali employees because the company knew they couldn’t comply with it so they could get rid of them. Many of these people are reporting being subjected to other forms of harassment, and it’s shocking.”
Then here is the kind of thinking that gets these people (owners and managers of companies) in trouble—we are keeping our demographics about the same! Say what! Is this what we have come to? We have to have one of this race, and one of that race, and one of that religious group and one from this country and one from that country!
Knowles [Mike Knowles, owner of Dianne’s] said Dianne’s has hired people to replace at least a portion of the workers already while keeping the demographics about the same. Many have already been replaced, according to Knowles’s comments in the Daily News.
“We have hired a number of diverse workers who are willing to abide by the new safety rules. We’re continuing to run the plant and keep things going. We are getting new applicants every day,” Knowles said. He pledged full cooperation with the EEOC and said he looks forward “to the opportunity for the truth to come out.”
Meanwhile, we learned today that Norway is sending Somalis back to Somalia!