Muslims Denied Prayer Breaks
- Thread starter What Would Jesus Do?
- Start date
I would fire a muslim coach who prayed as some part of team event too. I would defend a coach who prayed on his own during his break or even with other adults. I bet you are referring to the first circumstance, not the second. I think you will need to work hard to make the cases analogous.
I wasn't aware my assertion was contentious, but of course I'm capable of backing up my position. I'm surprised you would admit to not knowing this, but it does explain your views. Read up.Where's your citation?
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/religion.cfm
Apparently that isn't a real problem, as they just need to get it near the time. Those flipping Muslims are looking more reasonable as this goes along.
I'm just holding you to your word. Personally, I'm talking about my views, not what the law is.
I think the key is what we know and that is entirely not enough to be able to make a decision.
This case has the added issue of the assembly line being shutdown and that may be enough for the employer to show as an undue burden.
This is my type of religion.
That's the thing though, the scheduling of the breaks would change on a daily basis based on when sun up and sun down is.
Employer's position seems reasonable assuming they are telling the truth. Also at issue here is that since everyone has to take a break at the same time, that means that the group of people at the company that is Muslim no matter how small would get to decide when all the breaks are. To other employee's this might seem like quite a bit of favoritism. Not only does the employer have to bend over backwards to accommodate their religious needs but every other employee must as well?
Obviously for Muslims praying at certain times is ideal, however I'm mostly curious as to how strict these rules are. One would have to think that there would have to be some wiggle room for people in a situation where stopping and praying at that particular moment is not ideal. Would a Muslim ambulance driver be sinning for failing to stop and pray at a particular time when they are currently en-route to hospital with a person in critical condition? Would a Muslim soldier in the middle of battle be required to stop and pray whilst taking fire from the enemy? (If so then the question is why battles with Islamic forces are not a cake walk. . . Just wait for their prayer time and go on a rampage before they can pick their rifles back up and fight again.)
Seems to me that they could do what the manager you described did. Also given that the company has a set aside place as a prayer room for it's Muslim employee's, it seems to me that the company has done quite a bit to accommodate their prayer needs.
What if the coach asked for his class room to be cleared so he could pray at a certain time. Suppose this time was in the middle of a normal class period.
This. If it was as simple as 630AM and 530PM everyday, maybe you say its reasonable for them to make the accommodation. But we're talking about a moving target here. Now a manager needs to know that not only does he have employees with different break times than everyone else, but that that break time changes every single week.
It seems like you haven't worked a line before. Unless those prayer breaks come almost exactly between start of your shift and meal, and then between meal and the end of the shift, it would be crappy to use the breaks for prayer time. Maybe people who work a line for a career will disagree, but when I worked a line in college, you watch that clock like a hawk for the next break. If your breaks don't evenly space out the day, it would make for some hellishly long work periods. As WWJD pointed it, people would start getting distracted or bored, and then you have safety issues. I just think you fail to recognize how important breaks are to a line worker to make that job tolerable.
And starting and stopping a line is not easy. It causes inefficiencies. A 15 minute break probably more accurately translates into 20 to 25 minutes of lost time for the employer.
It probably appears that liberals come to the defense of Muslims a lot, while criticizing Christians a lot, because Muslims are frequently the target of unfair bigotry that infringes on their basic rights, while Christians have all of the power in this country but frequently complain if their religious beliefs are not foisted upon the rest of us.
In this particular case, I tend to side with the company, in that breaks for assembly lines do not lend themselves to being adjusted upon the whims of a handful of workers' religious views. I also don't believe the Somali cab drivers in Minnesota ought to be able to refuse rides to people carrying alcohol or whatever silliness that controversy was about.
Actually the five daily prayers of Islam, or Salah times, each haveing a name(which I don't remember) are supposed to occur at the following times: 1st one occurs before sunrise, 2nd occurs right after noon, the 3rd occurs mid-afternoon, 4th at sunset, and the 5th at night.
However, when each occurs is not fixed by scripture and is influenced by the day light hours etc. There is also varying opinions between the Islamic Schools of Thought on what time each prayer should take place. The only agreement within the faith is that none of the prayers should occur before the accepted time. They can be conducted at anytime afterwards. So the prayers at noon and mid-afternoon can be conducted later in the day. So there is really no violation of these Muslim employees religious rights.
This is really much to do about nothing. If this were Catholics asking for time off during their work day to attend mass on holy days of obligations, the liberal left would be in an uproar in support of the employer because supporting the exercise of the Christian faith is not part of the progressive left's politically correct agenda and ideology.
Now we can move on to the next topic of selective outrage by the anti-religion progressives.
I doubt he would be allowed to do it. What exactly is your point?
And also, why wouldn't he leave to pray instead of making all the kids leave? The logistics of your hypothetical seem inefficient.
Seriously? You want to try again or are you really this ignorant?
FTR, no coach has EVER "been fired for praying".
It seems like this is the problem from your article:
The problem with unscheduled prayer breaks, according to the company, is that if even one person walks away from their work station, it can disrupt production.
"If I am on a team of 10 assemblers, and two of them clock out for a prayer break, all 10 people have to stop," Ariens said.
So scheduling breaks at sunrise and sunset seems reasonable but what about the rest of the day?
Okay, you have violated HROT form with this post. No snarky reply, no insults, no mindless political mantra. Unless you give me something to work with I can't continue this argument.
I don't think you know the left very well if you don't think they would come down on the side of labor being able to take time off work. Really, where do you come up with this stuff? Can you point to one instance of liberals siding with a company who wants to prevent workers from exercising more freedoms? I can point to several instances of the right doing as you suggest from the ADA, ACA, family leave and so on. Liberals like labor, cons don't. That's the dividing line on almost every issue.
Without providing my own speculation on your speculation of a hypothetical event, I think it's worth pointing that that
a) The progressives in this thread seem to be evenly split between favoring the company, favoring the employees, and looking for more information
b) I don't see anybody in an uproar on either side of this issue
So I'm not sure what relevancy your conjecture has in this conversation.
You mean like the right to practice Hisbath doctrine? Or maybe the right to consider the life of a women under Sharia Law equal to half that of a man's? How about stoning a women to death that has been the victim of rape or sex outside of wedlock? Or the right to prevent women from learning to read and gaining an education? How about the practice of crucifixion as a means of exercising the death penalty for any Muslim who converts to another religious faith? Are these some of those "basic rights" you are referring to.
If a prayer break was that important to these individuals, maybe its something that they should have looked at ahead of time before accepting employment..
just like with Kim Davis, if you cannot fulfill your responsibilities of your job due to religious discrepancies, then find somewhere else to work.
You have religious rights in this country, but you don't have rights to employment
just like with Kim Davis, if you cannot fulfill your responsibilities of your job due to religious discrepancies, then find somewhere else to work.
You have religious rights in this country, but you don't have rights to employment
If they were being reasonable and they only need to get it near the time then this wouldn't be an issue and 53 Muslims wouldn't have walked off the job and raised a huge stink about it. If they are being reasonablr and only need to get it near the time then they would pray once right before their shift starts to satisfy the sunrise obligation, a second time during their 10-minute morning break, a third time during lunch, a fourth time during their 10-minute afternoon break, and a fifth time after their shift ends to satisfy the sunset obligation.
Is that so difficult?
Have you read this thread? From the data other posters have listed here you can't go before the time, but you can go as much as 90 minutes after the time. It's not at all clear who the reasonable party is in this but I think I'm gathering more ground for my Religion is Cray Cray theme.
There are lots of employment rights in America. One of those is that your employer must reasonably accommodate your crazy beliefs. This isn't like Davis who refused even to allow others to do her job. These people can and will do the job, they just want discretion over 20 minutes of their day. What nation do you live in?
I specifically mentioned that Muslims are sometimes kept from exercising basic religious rights. Examples would be firing a women for wearing head covering, trying to prevent them from building mosques or prayer centers, being harassed in the workplace for their religious views, etc.
I am unaware of any lawsuits regarding the right to stone somebody to death, by either Muslims or Christians.
I will see how that flies when I go in tomorrow and start asking for special attention to some crazy belief i have...lol
yeah, and prayer breaks wont allow others to do their jobs. those people stop to pray and production, along with the rest of the workers stop. Per the OP:
"If I am on a team of 10 assemblers, and two of them clock out for a prayer break, all 10 people have to stop," Ariens said.
so, you want the other employees to have to alter their break times to accommodate a couple of people that want to pray?. I know if I have to stop an hour into my shift to take one of my breaks because there are others who want to pray, I am gonna be a little irritated.
there are plenty of jobs that let employees choose when to take their breaks. there are many jobs that have scheduled break times. it sounds like these individuals should look for the former.
That stopping is going to happen for 20 minutes anyway. They are just asking to be allowed to schedule those breaks. There are also 50 of them, so that's 5 assembly teams that all want to coordinate. And those crazy beliefs have to be religious. I too think that's objectively bizarre, but that is what it means to be American.
I imagine some non-muslims may have to take breaks at times that are different than they are doing it now. But that too is what it means to be a worker in a team environment in America. It may also be the case that the company simply says assembly teams 1-5 will take morning and evening breaks while other assembly teams will break in mid day. The fact that I can envision reasonable accommodations means crazy religion trumps efficiency and tradition as i survey the situation. That's the law. If you don't like it, you will need to change it.
