Members of a Muslim advocacy group said they will be filing discrimination claims against the JBS Swift Meat Packing Plant in Grand Island. It all stems from a prayer dispute between Somali Muslim workers and the company last month.
Chicago based representatives from the Muslim Advocacy Group were in Grand Island Tuesday and earlier Wednesday morning.
The group met with Somali residents to address the prayer dispute that left many Muslim workers jobless after they walked off the job repeatedly in protest.
Representatives from the American–Islamic Relations said they plan to file more than 20 discrimination claims against the company.
Guled Ismail and many other Muslim Swift employees said they are still disappointed in the way the Meat Packing Plant in Grand Island dealt with their request to pray on the job.
“Prayer is something that is obligated for Muslim people so somebody has to pray 5 times a day Islamic is a peaceful religion and we want to pray,” said Ismail.
Muslim workers began to protest last month, but were fired for walking off the job. Ismail is on medical leave, but said he no longer wants to work for the company and plans to leave Grand Island.
“Every person who came from Africa, we came here to find a better life. We could not find that better life and it is very stressful life,” said Ismail.
It is the reason Muslim advocates from Chicago are here to help.
“We took down the information of each employee that came to us we took down specific circumstances, incidents that happened throughout their employment at Swift so that we could draw up these charges of discrimination,” said Civil Rights Director Christina Abraham.
Abraham said they are also disappointed in Mayor Margret Hornady’s remarks in the New York Times. Hornady said that after the 9–11 attacks the headdress many Somali women wear quote “gives some of us a Turn.”
“To condone bigotry the way that she did through her comments we think is just so ignorant we think she should rescind her comments, issue an apology and reach out to the Somali community to try to create understanding,” Abraham said.
But even an apology will not cut it for Guled and the Somali community.
Ismail said they plan to take action against the mayor as well.
“If she apologizes we are going to sue her because she already did what she did,” said Ismail. “Terrorists is somebody evil or doing something evil and we are very disappointed in the Mayors comments.”
Mayor Hornady was not available for comment Wednesday.
When News 5 talked with her about the remarks last week she told us she did make the comments but said they were being misinterpreted.
As for the discrimination claims against Swift, the muslim advocacy group says it plans to file another dozen charges on behalf of the workers.