Category: Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy

CAIR: Gotta get those Latinos calmed down

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update on CAIR from the FBI here.

That title is the key point I took away from this update on the religious accommodation conflict that began in Greeley, CO several weeks ago.   If you are new to RRW, go to our category entitled Greeley/Swift/Somali controversy here.   This story from the Denver Post, thanks to Whuptdue, begins with a discussion about how Jews and Muslims both want more workplace accommodation of religious practices. 

In response to the firings [by Swift in Greeley], both national Islamic and Jewish groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League, have urged respect for religious practices in the increasingly diverse workplace.

“This is a core issue for us. Everybody in our society should have the same freedom to worship or not worship as they choose without interference from the government or an employer,” said Bruce DeBoskey, director of ADL’s Mountain States Region.

“Yet we see people losing jobs. We see people have to use vacation to celebrate their high holy days. We see people docked pay,” DeBoskey said. “Most employers follow the law, but violations are still common occurrences.”

I don’t know what the big deal is, why is it a problem for a worker to use a vacation day to celebrate an important religious event?   Are we going to have every business in America close for every obscure holiday?  Hey, here’s a thought, wonder how Muslim workers would feel if things were closed down on that important Wiccan religious day called Halloween?

Another solution that seems so obvious to me is to give each worker maybe 2 or 3 days a year to choose which religious days they want to celebrate.  But, I guess that would be too simple.

As I said in a previous post, I believe everything has quieted down in Greeley and Grand Island, NE because CAIR is now working its magic behind the scenes.  They know that it simply won’t do to have the minorities, the grievance groups, all at each others throats.  If you are new to the issue, Hispanics, Sudanese and Vietnamese all walked out to protest Somali demands at the Swift plants.

For Muslims, the most difficult issue is typified by what happened at the Greeley slaughterhouse — a dispute over what is adequate accommodation of prayer in factory or assembly-line work.

“That’s our toughest nut to crack in terms of religious accommodation,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

It’s a year-round issue that tends to peak during Ramadan, Hooper said, when Muslims are perhaps more mindful of their devotional duties.

During the lunar month of Ramadan, Muslims are required to fast from break of dawn to sunset, then to perform sunset prayers — one of five prayer times required of Muslims every day.

Most work schedules mean Muslim employees will need to pray two to three times a day in the workplace.

Negotiations between Swift and the workers broke down when the evening break that Swift offered did not coincide with sundown. Non-Muslim workers, many of them Mexican, complained about their added workload when Muslims were given special breaks, said Ahmed Mohamud, one of the fired workers.

“We are trying to learn how Latinos and Somalis can work peacefully together, respecting each other,” Mohamud said.

CAIR knows you gotta shut up those Latinos and get them back on the right side (CAIR’s side)!   Afterall, the enemy is white Christian America, right Mr. Hooper?

Greeley/Grand Island, Somali/Swift mess may be start of something big

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

According to Religion News Service the recent conflict over prayer times at two Swift meatpacking plants may be the beginning of a Muslim labor movement in the US.  

Hundreds of Muslim workers at two meat processing plants in Colorado and Nebraska walked off the job earlier this month, protesting their employer’s refusal to grant time to pray and break a 12-hour fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

About 100 workers were fired in Greeley, Colo., followed by about 80 in Grand Island, Neb. JBS Swift & Co. insists the terminations had nothing to do with religion, but rather with employees refusing to return to work.

Whatever its outcome, the stand-off and others like it may mark the start of a grassroots Muslim labor movement in the United States, as immigrants push for the kinds of religious accommodations they believe their Christian counterparts take for granted.

“American Muslims in recent years have become more organized and aware of our rights as Americans,” said Ameena Mirza Qazi, a staff attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “As American Muslims become more a part of the American fabric — as educators, professionals, leaders, day laborers, and factory workers — we increasingly avail ourselves of rights that every American values.”

I maintain that the whole episode was orchestrated from on high, but there was a fly in the ointment.   The strategists didn’t count on the angry vocal backlash from other minorities working in the plants.  I am sure they figured the Somalis would demand special prayer time breaks and the management would cave.  That didn’t happen.

About one-fifth of the workers at the two JBS Swift plants are Muslim, many of them Somali immigrants. The United Food and Commercial Workers union represents employees at both sites, but has had trouble negotiating because of counter-protests by other workers, who say it’s not fair to grant time off to a religious minority.

According to this article, Muslims aren’t ready to strike out on their own and start their own unions.  They know they can’t succeed unless they work for all minorities rights.  They aren’t powerful enough yet so they must take cover in groups like this Leftist Interfaith Worker Justice and hope that people like Kim Bobo keep saying this sort of hogwash.

Interfaith Worker Justice, a national organization that engages the religious community in low-wage worker issues, is carefully watching the recent protests. When a union works on behalf of Muslim immigrants, as with a contract for Ohio janitors negotiated to include prayer breaks last year, the wider community benefits from increased dialogue and cross-cultural cooperation, said Kim Bobo, IWJ executive director.   [What does that mean?  I guess its similar to diversity enriching our lives.]

Several readers have noted that all seems quiet in the last week from Greeley and Ft. Morgan and that is because CAIR is on the scene.  They know the Stealth Jihad was NOT going along so stealthily when you have Hispanics, Vietnamese and Sudanese taking to the streets against the Somalis, so I am convinced they are trying to cool things down.

CAIR and local Muslim organizations are working on public education campaigns to reduce hostility against such requests. CAIR has also asked the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission to set up workshops to help the employees file discrimination charges against Swift, Abraham [CAIR honcho from Chicago] said.

More on CAIR and the EEOC here.

Note to readers:  We need someone to blog on foundations that back groups like Interfaith Worker Justice.  Check out their financial statement and notice the big foundations funding them.  Years ago I did some research on the foundations funding the major environmental groups in the US and it was many of the same cast of characters.   It was very revealing because I learned that many of the policies the groups esposed were coming directly from the foundations.  It wasn’t just a case of the so-called grassroots group developing positions and being then funded by big money old line families (Rockefeller, Mellon, Pew etc.) these foundations often told the grassroots group what to do.

Ft Morgan Times editorial is naive and deceptive

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Today the Ft. Morgan Times has an editorial entitled, “Refugees taking root in Ft. Morgan.”   I have read a lot of politically correct, diversity is beautiful, let’s all sing ‘kumbaya’ articles, but this one I’m going to print out and hang by my computer and wait for the day when something happens in Ft. Morgan, CO and I can refer to it again.

Lets take it apart, first this glowing opening about Somali-owned businesses:

It’s great to see a Somali-owned business spring up in Fort Morgan.

Not only do the newcomers need a place to gather, but this represents an investment in the community. Like those who buy property, those who start businesses have a stake in the success of the city. That makes them better citizens and neighbors.

Do the average folks in Ft. Morgan, the ones who can’t get special help, know that  government grants and mortgage deals help refugees establish businesses?

Then this is my favorite part because I think he means us!

Of course, if it were up to some people, Somali refugees would not have a chance to resettle anywhere in the U.S. There is even a Web site devoted to teaching Americans how to chase refugees of various sorts out of town.

This is a kind of insanity, since everyone except Native Americans are immigrants. Unfortunately, it shows the dark, ugly underside of our great country.

If he means us, I am tickled—that would make us the “dark, ugly underside.”  I love it when they call names!   If he knows another website that, as he says, teaches how to “chase” refugees out of town, I’d like to learn about that website.   If he has been to RRW, he clearly hasn’t read much because what we do is chronicle the sides of refugee resettlement, the sides he and the mainstream media ignore in their rush to make themselves feel good.  It is evident that this editor feels good about himself, he is taking on the dark underbelly.

Our position is what we have maintained from the outset— citizens should learn about all aspects (the good is covered every day in the mainstream media) of refugee resettlement in order to make an informed decision about how their community should proceed into the future and what sort of community it will be.  If Ft. Morgan residents want to have hundreds (thousands?) of third world refugees living there, then that is their prerogative.  But, they really ought to be willing to look at all the pros and cons first and this editor wants to make sure only his side is presented.

The misinformation continues:

Refugees are not illegal immigrants. They are carefully screened to keep out terrorists and disease. They have been invited into the country by the U.S. State Department out of the compassion of American hearts.

I don’t have time to re-write over 1000 posts, but right off the top of my head let me point out that one of the Ft. Dix Six was a refugee who was resettled in New Jersey and is now on trial for planning to kill soldiers at the US Army base.  Oh, and then there was that Somali guy found dead in nearby Denver with the jar of cyanide (or was it nothing to have enough cyanide on vacation to kill hundreds?)   Guess these were guys missed in screening.    Also, refugees with TB and HIV are allowed into the US (see our health category).  While you are at the health category check out the many discussions of Somali female genital mutilation. You should know that a Somali refugee died of TB in a Tysons meatpacking plant a year or so ago.

Then surely some of the refugees now flocking to Ft. Morgan are secondary migrants who move from city to city (Somalis are culturally nomadic) following meatpacking jobs,  but last summer (2007) government grants funded a Greeley/Ft. Morgan refugee resettlement office because the US State Department is sending more refugees to your “welcoming” towns.  That is what resettlement offices do!

The Somalis who have moved to Fort Morgan followed the lure of decent pay at the Cargill Meat Solutions beef plant. They were not placed here by some government agency.

I’m getting weary with this, I’ve seen this so many times.  The following three paragraphs indicate trouble is brewing and the Ft. Morgan Times is trying so hard to gloss over whatever is already going on, and to guilt-trip its readers into remaining silent.

Like any group moving to a new area, Somalis have much to learn about the customs and mores of rural Colorado. Fort Morgan Police Chief Keith Kuretich was right to ask refugee officials to do a better job of orienting refugees to our culture. A little better sense of what rural people are all about would help refugees adapt.

Then this (below) is to make you feel not culturally savvy, not worldly, if you question the appropriateness of an immigrant’s behavior.   You will shut up, because who wants to be a bumpkin in the eyes of the smart people!

For instance, if Somalis tend to have relatively large gatherings near their apartments, it helps to know that this is the custom in their culture. They are not loitering or getting together to cause mischief. It is no more unusual than people having a block party or a barbecue.

Nor are they trying to steal something from homeowners if they park in front of a house because there are not enough parking spaces at an apartment building.

Good luck to Ft. Morgan, I’m sure we will be hearing more from you again.

For new readers,  see Somali gang/clan violence in Minneapolis and Seattle.

NJ and Nebraska articles led me to this site…

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is a US Census Bureau site for something called the American Community Survey.  The reporters who wrote the story about South Jersey refugee and immigrant numbers and likewise the story from Omaha Nebraska about the foreign born population in that state relied on the most recent survey from the Census Bureau.

From the NJ article this little nugget jumped out at me:

According to the survey, just under 20 percent of the nationwide population age 5 and older spoke a language other than English at home in 2007, up nearly 2 percent since the 2000 census. For about 12.3 percent, that language is Spanish.

And, the Nebraska article which came on the heels of the Grand Island/Somali/Swift violence began:

The decline in foreign-born Cornhuskers in 2007 was not huge, about 1,000 people. But the reversal after years of growth suggests that Nebraska may be losing its distinction as a new destination for immigrants.

Iowa, by comparison, also a fast-growing immigration state, continued to see an increase in its number foreign-born residents: from an estimated 112,299 to 117,437.

A combination of factors most likely is behind the shift in Nebraska, national and local analysts say, including fewer employment opportunities and a less welcoming atmosphere.

There is that word again—welcoming. Do you think these advocates for open borders and increased immigration attend ‘spin workshops’ where they learn the proper jargon from community organizers?  I guess one starts to become unwelcoming when one sees jobs being lost to immigrants and multicultural violence breaking out as it has in Grand Island between Somali Muslims and every other nationality in that town.