U.S. Factory Drops Labor Day For Muslim Holiday

Hi Everyone.

Just received an email from Tyson that the Labor Day holiday had been re-installed by the union at the company's request as a paid holiday.

Activism works!

reply to post by centurion1211


That's awesome!

Thanks for the update.

Just a curiosity-based question: Are they still upholding the Muslim holiday as a paid vacation as well?

reply to post by ZindoDoone


the funny thing is that i live a few cities over from shelbyville tn and it is not a big city pop. is about 20,000 people in the whole county. not counting all the illegal mexicans and arabians. this in the middle of tn just a few factories.

Originally posted by AshleyD
reply to post by centurion1211

 

That's awesome!

Thanks for the update.

Just a curiosity-based question: Are they still upholding the Muslim holiday as a paid vacation as well?

In this article it says Tyson is keeping both holidays.

article

Union workers and officials at a Tyson Foods plant in Tennessee said Friday they have agreed to reinstate Labor Day as a paid holiday, and the plant will also observe the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr this year.

Probably a wise decision on the part of Tyson.

The Muslim workers should get their holiday and the rest should get their Labor Day.

Seems fair to me

That's great news

Now that's what i was talking about, a fair compromise. Both groups of employees walked away with something.

Now who should we take on next?

reply to post by centurion1211


Thank you very much for your reply.

This is something from the new article:

Union officials have said at least a couple hundred of the 1,200 plant workers are Muslim.

That stood out to me since the original article stated there were approximately 700 Muslim employees at the plant.

This excerpt from the newer article also incensed me:

Muslim civil rights advocates criticized Tyson Foods, and a union official said the company's response was disingenuous.

"This wasn't something imposed. It seems that this backtracking would be the result of the backlash from anti-Muslim hate (Web) sites and Islamophobes on the Internet," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for Washington D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

That really irks me for those who had a problem with this to be labeled as 'Islamophobes' and websites who discussed this as being 'hate sites.'

This irritated me as well:

"I would have thought that people would have been more sensitive and sympathetic to the concern to the members of our community, who want to celebrate their religious faith," he said. "It's a little disingenuous to say that they (Tyson) were responding to employee concerns. The proposal came from workers themselves."

To me, that is misleading. Like Finn stated, nobody seemed to have had a problem with Muslims getting their holiday off and non-Muslims getting labor day off. In my opinion, that idea would have been sensitive to everyone and not just the religious minority. Furthermore, like Finn also said, it would be better for business to have to employees doing a shift change, so to speak, to keep the plant running on both days but with different staff. What bothered people is that non-Muslim Americans would have given up a federal American holiday in favor of a religious holiday. Nothing to do with xenophobia unless you want to blow things out of proportion.

reply to post by AshleyD


I'm glad that i'm not the only one that noticed the discrepecies in the numbers of Muslims before hand and after the fact. Not to mention the fact that anyone that had a problem with American workers losing an American national holiday was labeled as either a Muslim hater, or an Islamaphob. So basiclly what he's saying is that if you are not willing to lose something so that we may gain something, then that means that you hate, or fear us.

I don't understand why he felt the need to make comments like that, the Muslim workers received thier holiday and the non Muslims were allowed to keep theirs. Seems like he should be happy that the Muslim people received their holiday. All he's doing in making his statement is making it appear as if he has a problem with the non Muslims being allowed to keep their holiday, makes me wonder.

reply to post by chise61


The two replies above me are not only ridiculous, but ridiculously simple minded. Rummaging through some of the replies in this thread makes me think that it's most of the people who have participated. One side is angry with the Muslims about fighting and winning their religious right to, god forbid, get a day off of work. And the people chiming in for the Muslims bringing the bad things "America has done" or whatever...

!. Get real.

2. It's neither the Muslims fault or anybody else's fault. This is either Tyson Co. itself or it's the labor union for organizing such a deal.

This isn't Islam forcing change in America, or Americans fighting for their right to be Americans. This was a poor attempt at separating people, and for the most part, it worked and worked well. Look at everybody who had taken their swords out for any particular side, when in all actuality, nothing had changed except a company accepting the fact they should hand 1 day off as to be sensitive to a fraction of their workforce.

To all those who didn't jump on a bandwagon and went to war for any "side."

To all you ______ who did.

reply to post by DeadFlagBlues


Talk about jumping to conclusions. Sorry, but I am now immune to the assaults and shame laying of the P.C. crowd after eight months of membership here.

I pointed out discrepancies in the before and after news stories and agreed that it would be nice to have both days off for different employees, that way everyone is satisfied, not to mention it being good business sense. I was also put off by the label and accusation of bigotry for whoever protested Tyson's decision, without ever expounding on the cause of my surprise.

So take your bleeding heart preaching to someone who perhaps merits it?

Thanks.

[edit on 8/9/2008 by AshleyD]

reply to post by DeadFlagBlues


I have no idea why you specifically directed your response to me. I was never angry at Muslims, i was angry at Tyson foods and the union.

As for your they handed off one day so that a fraction of the workers could have a day off, first off they all had the same days off. The truely important thing here is the fact that you don't take away from workers, a holiday that was made for the workers, so that a fraction of the workers can celebrate a religious holiday. If you want to give them their religious holiday, then give them an extra day, don't take away from one to give to the other and especially not a workers holiday. People fought and died for workers to have rights in this country.


As far as you giving me a for defending the workers in this country i accept that with pride.

reply to post by AshleyD


Bleeding heart preaching. Dramatic, much?


More like an armored eagle of justice and righteousness swooping down on the deaf dumb and blind who are in the midst of smiting each other into oblivion.


You know? If you wanted to play it up or whatever...

Originally posted by DeadFlagBlues

More like an armored eagle of justice and righteousness

Well if that's truely the case then you should be satisfied with the outcome as it was just and righteous. Both parties received what they asked for, and if you go back and read my other posts that's all i ever wanted to see from the beginning.

[edit on 9/8/08 by chise61]

reply to post by chise61


I believe you are correct and if DBF goes back to read what you and I actually said, he would retract his 'ridiculous' statement regarding our two posts.

reply to post by chise61


That was a joke.

But, really. I am glad that both parties involved were given what is due to them. A day off work for whatever reason is good for people. You can imagine how serious this situation was for the people at work, as you have seen how many people were up in patriotic arms about it here on ATS.com.

Originally posted by DeadFlagBlues
reply to post by AshleyD

 

More like an armored eagle of justice and righteousness swooping down on the deaf dumb and blind who are in the midst of smiting each other into oblivion.

Dude, I am a huge fan of yours....I don't get cable anymore but I too want to be America!

.....I think in one of my most early posts on this thread I said the people to blame were most likely lawyers and ACLU type groups and not the poor workers just happy to have a job.

.....I am going to be an armored eagle of justice and righteousness and while holding the Constitution tightly with one talon I will use the other to eviserate the pettifoggers that are destroying our Country one frivilous lawsuit at a time.....and then I will go to church.

reply to post by DeadFlagBlues


Yes i know how serious it was for those workers, which is why so many of us felt the need to contact Tyson foods and show our support of our fellow workers. That is the whole concept behind why we have labor day in the first place is it not, because workers banded together and supported each other. Which is something that i would think that a union above anyone else should be aware off and never suggest that that particular day ever be taken away form any American worker. A union that would suggest the removal of labor day for any reason is ultimately going against themselves.

I personally would hate to see the day that workers are no longer given a labor day holiday, and think it sucks that so many are not allowed that day off now.

And hey it gave some of us a real good feeling to know that we could help make a difference in something, even if it was something as simple as one group of workers being able to keep their holiday and another group being able to gain their's.