Tyson Drops Labor Day for Eid al-Fitr

Very disturbing.... Story Here

BrianGa said: fixed link

Thank you

Sort of makes sense as 20% of the workers at that location are Muslims.

My wife, a Protestant, grew up in a city here in Massachusetts. Her schools were closed for all Jewish holidays since 1/4 of the students would not attend.

Fact is, it's in the company's best interest to close that day . . . if the 20% figure is correct, 1/5th of the employees will be staying home . . . in a production environment like food processing, that amounts to a shutdown.

So, what day would you rather they traded it for?

The only thing that bothers me is the irony that the union gave up 'Labor Day'.

From reading up on comments, other days off that they get are The Team Member's birthday, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

I'm sure Martin Luther King Jr. Day would have been a better choice than Labor Day.

Isn't Labor Day a federal holiday?

KayK said: From reading up on comments, other days off that they get are The Team Member's birthday, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

I'm sure Martin Luther King Jr. Day would have been a better choice than Labor Day.

Isn't Labor Day a federal holiday?

Labor Day is a federal holiday, and it is also a holiday in all 50 states . . . and yes, MLK Day is as Federal day as well.

moonbeam said: Although it would have been nice to give them the holiday off without taking another holiday away from them.

Couldn't agree more.

This is why Companies should give employees a certain number of personal days to use for holidays other than Federal ones. Taking away Labor day is a disgrace.

moonbeam said: scott1961 said: This is why Companies should give employees a certain number of personal days to use for holidays other than Federal ones.

ITA. I'm surprised a company as big as Tyson doesn't already do it.
They get their birthday, that's a personal holiday. Tyson doesn't want to have 9 days and insisted on 8 for whatever reason. The union could have given up the birthday and kept labor day.

scott1961 said: kamalktk said:
They get their birthday, that's a personal holiday. Tyson doesn't want to have 9 days and insisted on 8 for whatever reason. The union could have given up the birthday and kept labor day.
The option to remove a Federal Holiday should not have even been on the table. It's not a Religious Holiday just a nice traditional American Holiday.
Well, shouldn't that be between the workers and the management? Some people have to work holidays after all.

moonbeam said: kamalktk said: scott1961 said: kamalktk said:
They get their birthday, that's a personal holiday. Tyson doesn't want to have 9 days and insisted on 8 for whatever reason. The union could have given up the birthday and kept labor day.
The option to remove a Federal Holiday should not have even been on the table. It's not a Religious Holiday just a nice traditional American Holiday.
Well, shouldn't that be between the workers and the management? Some people have to work holidays after all.

<nodding solemnly> True. Corgs has to work weekends and holidays.
Sure people work Holidays and we listen to corgs whine about it, but at least it's still acknowledged, This just seems like they are making it disappear. Maybe it's just me but I like traditions and Labor day weekend is one of them

youngranny said: Very disturbing.... Story HereOutrageous move by Tyson, which should lose a ton of business (mine included) as this becomes known. Someone over there wasn't thinking too straight when they replaced Labor Day, a Federal secular holiday, with a religious day.

If this were a Christian holiday the ACLU would be in court arguing that Tyson violated the rights of the other workers.

bridgeforsale said: youngranny said: Very disturbing.... Story HereOutrageous move by Tyson, which should lose a ton of business (mine included) as this becomes known. Someone over there wasn't thinking too straight when they replaced Labor Day, a Federal secular holiday, with a religious day.

If this were a Christian holiday the ACLU would be in court arguing that Tyson violated the rights of the other workers.
So should they have replaced Christmas instead? Why Christmas is even considered a Federal holiday is beyond me. It IS a religious holy day, not a secular holiday.

youngranny said: kamalktk said: from the article
"However, the union leadership did request and receive Eid al-Fitr (which is apparently spelled various ways including Id al-Fitr and Eid ul-Fitr) as a paid holiday in place of Labor Day,"
So the employees asked for it, and were given it.

There are 1200 employees total, 700 of them being Muslim, it was the Muslim community that asked for this.
The union represents all employees, not just Muslim ones. The union did it's job, which is to represent the interests of the employees. From the article, the union rep is not named Osama Mohammad Hussein Bin Laden, but "Randy Hadley". It's telling you're not concerned as well about Chick-fil-a being closed Sundays because of the founder's religious beliefs.

Please take your bias elsewhere.

Sigh.

Even more disturbing..I read OP's name as Youngtranny...

My only issue is the irony of giving of Labor Day. To me, that day is set aside to honor workers, yet these people have to work. Couldn't they have yanked Presidents Day or MLK Day? It's also another day that working parents have to find and pay for childcare because their kid is out of school while they are working.

Kandykornhead said: momgoingbroke said: Couldn't they have yanked Presidents Day or MLK Day?

Yeah right.You may be correct. A few years ago, the policy in my school district was that if a snow day happened, the very next holiday would be forfeited to make up the time. So, it snowed one year and MLK was the next holiday but 'some' in our community complained so much, that the district scrapped the plans to have school on MLK day and instead we made up the snow day on President's day. Go figure.

The very next year, the district rewrote their snow day policy and MLK day is now way down the list of days that will be used for make-up days. Not to worry though, because we only average about one snow day every other year. MLK Day is basically untouchable.

Kandykornhead said: Personally, I don't believe Muslims worship the true God (how's that for intolerance?)

More ignorance than intolerance, actually. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all Abrahamic religions, descending from the same spiritual source. So, if you don't believe Muslims worship the "true god," then you don't believe Christians and Jews do, either.


but I sure don't begrudge them asking to have a particular day off. Tyson Foods can do whatever it wants (or whatever it's shareholders want) within the laws where it operates.

ITA. There's nothing disturbing about management giving the employees what they requested.

Pyeed for mod baiting. Sorry. I took that stuff to PM!!

Xnarg said: turtlebug said: Labor Day is back"Union officials have said at least a couple hundred of the 1,200 plant workers are Muslim...

Muslim civil rights advocates criticized Tyson Foods, and a union official said the company's response was disingenuous.

"...It seems that this backtracking would be the result of the backlash from anti-Muslim hate (Web) sites and Islamophobes on the Internet," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for Washington D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations."Hooper is an islamist provocateur, no sense paying attention to him or his organization. Of more importance are these facts from the article:

Tyson had previously agreed to drop Labor Day and substitute the Muslim holiday as part of a new 5-year contract to accommodate Muslim workers at the plant in Shelbyville, which is about 50 miles south of Nashville. The decision sparked widespread criticism, from local politicians to talk radio to the Internet.

The Springdale, Ark.-based company said it requested reinstating Labor Day after complaints from plant workers and the public.

Union members voted Thursday to reinstate Labor Day as one of the plant's paid holidays and keep Eid al-Fitr as an additional paid holiday for this year only. For the remainder of the contract, workers will have Labor Day and a personal holiday, which can be used to observe Eid al-Fitr or another day the employee's supervisor approves.