Can a U.S. Company Ban Muslim Prayer Breaks?

Should a U.S. company be coerced into installing Muslim foot baths, pray rooms and prayer breaks to appease their Muslim employees?

Muslim employees can only leave work to pray during meal breaks, according to a new policy imposed at Ariens Manufacturing in Brillion, Wisc.

“It is absolutely discrimination on its face,” employee Adan Hurr told WBAY News. “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.” 

Islamic faith requires Muslims to pray five times a day. Until the new policy was announced Thursday, Muslim employees at Ariens were permitted to leave their station at the production line to pray twice during their shifts. While practicing the five-minute prayer, the Muslim employees would allocate their duties amongst coworkers.

The policy change affects 53 workers, and only ten of these employees have indiciated that they would like to continue working at Ariens under the new policy. 

“We pray by the time,” a former Ariens employee Ibrahim Mehemmed told WBAY. “So they say, ‘If you don’t pray at the break time,’ they give us this [unemployment] paper to just leave.” 

Advocates say employees at the company, which makes lawn mowers and snow blowers, and is located about 25 miles south of Green Bay, are being forced to quit.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) states that employers do not have to accommodate a religious practice if it causes “undue hardship” to the company by decreasing “workplace efficiency." 

"Unless they can prove 'undue hardship,' and that is definitely what is at the heart of the matter," then the policy change is illegal, Center for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview Monday. "What one company thinks is an undue hardship is not actually. It is always a matter of debate and compromise." Mr. Hooper notes that federal law requires employers to offer “reasonable religious accommodations” to workers of all faith. 

But Ariens has thus far stood by their policy change. 

“We are open to any of the employees returning to work under the new policy or will look for openings in shifts that do not coincide with prayer time,” the company said in a statement. “We respect their faith, and we respect their decision regardless of their choice to return to work or not.” 

Hooper says that Ariens' claims of "undue hardship" accusations are unfounded.

"In this case, it seemed that things were going well. Ariens obviously had Muslim employees that were taking their prayer breaks and operating efficiently. What changed?" asks Hooper. Regardless of Ariens' reasons for the policy change, Hooper feels it wasn't urgent enough to leave almost 50 employees without a job.

"While we're working this out, let's go back to your original policy that seemed to work and then we can talk about some resolution that meets the needs of all parties," says Hooper.

Some fear Arien’s policy may cause a mass exodus by Green Bay’s Muslims. 

“If someone tells you, ‘you pray on your break,’ and the break time is not the prayer time, it will be impossible to pray,” employee Masjid Imam Hasan Abdi told WBAY News. “If they got fired now, there’s no way they’ll get to stay in Green Bay. They’ll have to move to find work.” 

Here;  http://news.yahoo.com/us-company-ban-muslim-prayer-breaks-just-did-193255402.html

Where does it all end?

At the Minneapolis airport a few years ago the Muslim cab drivers refused to carry passengers who had been drinking or were carrying alcohol.

Then at some Target stores some Muslim cashiers refused to check out customers who had purchased pork products.

St Cloud State University recently installed Muslim Foot Baths to appease their Muslim students and the public high schools in St Cloud have also allowed Muslim prayer rooms to be built.

I wonder what would happen if Christians tried to use the public foot bath to wash feet like Jesus did?Or how about if they asked to pray to Jesus using the Muslim prayer rooms at the schools?

What about the folks who worship the god Baal?  One of their worship practices is to have Temple prostitutes, male and female, and have sex with them as worship to Baal.  Would employers and public schools set aside a special place for Baal worship....so the men could "worship" and then get back to the assembly line with their minds clear and their god worshiped?

It's so ludicrous....I don't know where to start.

Sadly the world is turning upside down but there are SO FEW PEOPLE on planet earth who have a Biblical worldview that everyone else doesn't even realize they are upside down.

"Narrow is the path that leads to eternal life and FEW will find it."