August 13, 2008--Id al-Fitr

It still makes me proud of Americans to remember that after 9/11 there were so few incidents of violence against Muslims living in the United States.

As best as I can recall there were just a handful and even fewer of those were seriously violent. Among the various responses that day and through the weeks and months that followed that display of tolerance was high on my personal list of things to feel good about. Though we had been viciously attacked by men who were Muslims, Americans did not see all of the Islamic faith to be guilty by association.

So it came as some surprise to me that so many workers at a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Tennessee are in a rage with the company because management agreed to allow Muslim workers there to take Id al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, as a paid holiday.

Catching in the caw of those is the requirement that in order to celebrate the Muslim holy day, the plant’s hundreds of Somali workers--at least one quarter of the workforce--if they opt to take the day off, must make it up by working on Labor Day.

As reported in the New York Times, they have been flooding the union, which initiated this, with letters expressing their ire. One wrote:

“You had no right to drop Labor Day. Muslim employees must integrate Labor Day into THEIR lives if they are going to live in America.” (Article linked below.)

And just as I was wondering why I, as a Jew, have been expected to not only “integrate” Labor Day into my life, which I am happy and proud to do, why must I also integrate Christmas, which is also a national holiday? As I was thinking about this, from another who wrote in fury to the union, I received my answer.

“You are a union that is proud of achieving a Muslim holiday? A union in the U.S.A., a country based on Christianity? You call yourselves Americans? Have you forgotten 9/11?” (My italics.)

I guess this means that since I and the Islamic Tyson workers live in a Christian country we should just shut up and play by those rules. Of course, ironically, aren’t we as Americans currently occupying two Islamic countries in part to help them form democracies where freedom to practice various religions is to be protected? But maybe I am reading too much into this and should calm down and go back to contemplating all these cows up here in Vermont.

But before I do, let me say a word about the union that negotiated this right for its Muslim members—who, by the way, at the Shelbyville plant constitute a significant percentage of the total workforce.

The president of the union did not back down when confronted. He said, “We in the labor movement have always understood that unions are only strong when we work to protect the dignity of all faiths, and that includes Muslims.”

Two more things to note—at the plant for the past 23 Labor Days workers who wanted to could work, and hundreds did. Of course, for extra holiday pay. So there was nothing sacrosanct about it. And, a Tyson spokesman noted, in Shelbyville, the company for years has provided three Christian chaplains for employees and prayer rooms for Christians and Muslims alike.

Footnote--Three days after this controversy surfaced in the press, Tyson, bowing to criticism and the threat of a boycott of its chickens, changed its mind about Id al-Fitr. Muslim workers who want to take the day off cannot substitute it for Labor Day but rather must use one of their personal days. There was no word about the fate of the three chaplains.