Somali workers in Colorado file EEOC complaint against Cargill

Fired Somali workers say Muslim prayer breaks were improperly curtailed at a Colorado plant. Cargill denies it.

March 9, 2016 at 3:48AM
Muslims praying at the Islamic Center in Fort Morgan, Colo., Feb. 27, 2016. After top managers said that religious breaks would be severely curtailed, dozens of employees walked out of the Cargill Meat Solutions plant in December thrusting the livelihoods and the fate of a business into limbo. (Nick Cote/The New York Times)
Muslims prayed at the Islamic Center in Fort Morgan, Colo., last month. Fort Morgan is the site of a Cargill plant at the heart of a complaint. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Muslims who worked at a Cargill beef processing plant in Colorado have filed discrimination complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after a December dispute over prayer breaks.

Minnetonka-based Cargill fired 150 Somali workers at its sprawling Fort Morgan beef plant in December. The employees didn't show up for work for three consecutive days, saying Cargill wasn't allowing some Muslims to take prayer breaks. Cargill, which claims it has long accommodated prayer breaks, cited job abandonment for the mass termination.

Since then, there have been religious discrimination complaints filed with the EEOC on behalf of "many" Muslims who worked at the Fort Morgan plant, said Jenifer Wicks, litigation director for CAIR, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization that is representing former Cargill employees. Wicks on Tuesday didn't have an exact number of EEOC complaints that had been filed. A Denver law firm that specializes in workplace and civil rights issues filed the EEOC complaints along with CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The EEOC could not be reached for comment, but typically the agency doesn't comment in the early stages of the complaint process.

The complaints from Somali workers primarily allege violations of a federal law that calls for employers to "reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer's business."

Some Somali workers claimed that on Dec. 18 they didn't get a chance to leave the production line to pray, which CAIR has said was the culmination of long-standing tensions over prayer breaks at the plant. Cargill, the workers claim, had changed its policy and put restrictions on prayer breaks.

Cargill says that's not so. "There was absolutely no change in our religious accommodation policy," said Mike Martin, a Cargill spokesman. "The vast majority of [prayer] requests are granted."

After the December walkout, Cargill changed its beef operation's hiring policy, allowing workers who had been terminated for job abandonment to reapply after 30 days — not 180 days, as was previously the case. Cargill acknowledged it was "challenging" to find workers to replace the fired Somalis; Fort Morgan is a town of 12,000 people with a limited labor pool.

Cargill has hired just over 100 workers since the mass termination, not enough to keep the plant running at full capacity. Only 10 of those people were Muslim employees who had been terminated, although about 30 new Somali workers were among the hires, Martin said. Somali workers number about 450 at the Fort Morgan plant, which altogether employs around 2,000.

Mike Hughlett • 612-673-7003

The Cargill Meat Solutions processing plant in Fort Morgan, Colo., Feb. 27, 2016. After top managers said that religious breaks would be severely curtailed, dozens of employees walked out of the factory in December thrusting the livelihoods and the fate of a business into limbo. (Nick Cote/The New York Times)
The Cargill Meat Solutions processing plant in Fort Morgan, Colo., employs about 2,000 people. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
about the writer

about the writer

Mike Hughlett

Reporter

Mike Hughlett covers energy and other topics for the Minnesota Star Tribune, where he has worked since 2010. Before that he was a reporter at newspapers in Chicago, St. Paul, New Orleans and Duluth.

See Moreicon

More from Business

card image

A small acquisition five years ago has spurred innovation and new products across Graco’s business lines and a possible new revenue source.What’s the power behind a bevy of new products from Graco? A new type of electric engine

card image
Gas was $2.39 at the BP gas station ay 46th Street at Lyndale in South Minneapolis. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Friday September 4, 2015 Pre-Labor Day gas prices in the U.S. are the lowest in 11 years, and under $2 per gallon in many states, though Minnesota's average is nearly 40 cents higher. Just one station, in Brainerd, was selling at $1.99. Checking on whether that is a promotion. Costco and Sams Clubs, usually the low price leaders, were 15 cents more. With some motorists' tho