• March 28, 2024

Wisconsin Lawn Mower Factory Threatens to Fire Muslims Over Prayer

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Ariens Manufacturing has decided that they can no longer afford for all of their Muslim employees to leave the floor for prayer twice a day.  Now, their 53 Muslim employees are up in arms over the change in policy.  Looking at it from the company’s standpoint, they simply cannot afford to stop a production line an additional 2 times a day, while Muslims say their prayers.  Although the Muslims claim it’s only five minutes twice a day, it’s really not.  Prayer takes five minutes but getting to and from the prayer room takes time.

The company already provides all employees with two breaks a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon.  Ariens has asked their Muslim employees to pray during their break.  Forgoing breaks in order to have their prayers is not an answer because all of the other employees are not at their stations, making the trade off moot.

A company representative told the local media that the “manufacturing environment does not allow for unscheduled breaks in production.”

Comments by some of the employees includes:

“I have been 35 years in America and I’ve never heard of a company that is not allowing its employees to pray five minutes. It is absolutely discrimination on its face.”

“Allow me to pray so that I can go back to work and do what I love to do, which is working for Ariens. But we are not allowed to do that. Yesterday what happened was just a travesty.”

A couple of employees decided to challenge the company’s new rule and were handed pink slips and instructions on how to apply for unemployment benefits.  The Muslims have cited a rule from the  Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) which states that an employer cannot tamper with the religious beliefs of their employees.  They seem to have ignored the second part of that rule, which says:

“An employer does not have to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices if doing so would cause undue hardship to the employer… [such as] decreased efficiency.”

 

 

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