Cargill has announced that it is changing its hiring policy to allow recently fired employees to reapply for their jobs as early as 30 days after termination, as opposed to 180 days. The move comes in the wake of a mass walkout by Somali staff at a meat-packing plant in Colorado after a dispute about prayer times led to 150 being fired.
Workers claimed that the company was not accommodating prayer times for its Muslim employees, although the company denied these allegations. Around 150 employees staged a three-day walkout in protest to what they considered to be discrimination, and this led to them being fired.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) claimed that employees had been told that they should go home if they wanted to pray. The organization has welcomed the change in policy, but noted that the dispute over praying at work had not yet been fully resolved.
“While we welcome the changes to the termination rehire process, because our clients want to return to work and support their families, this does not resolve the prayer accommodation denial and the ambiguity of the current policy on prayer,” CAIR’s litigation director in Washington, Jenifer Wicks said.
Cargill, the largest US private company, admitted that running the meat-packing plant in Fort Morgan, Colorado, has been challenging since the workers were terminated. Some new workers have been hired, but it is reported that there is not enough available labor in the small town.
