Prayer Dispute Settled: Walmart Rehires Fired Muslim Worker
A major retail chain has rehired a fired Muslim employee in the Twin Cities and is now accommodating his right to pray in the workplace, an Islamic civil rights organization in Minnesota is reporting.
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced Monday that Walmart agreed to the accommodation after CAIR-MN intervened on behalf of employee Abdi Abdi, who was fired from his job in February as a stocker and loader at the Woodbury store.
CAIR-MN says that Abdi, a four-year employee with Walmart, was let go for violating a new supervisor’s ban on prayer during work breaks. A previous supervisor had allowed him to perform his daily prayers, the organization said.
Abdi was rehired last month at a Walmart in St. Paul and is now allowed to pray during breaks, following negotiations between CAIR-MN and local and national representatives of Walmart, the St. Paul-based rights group said.
“We appreciate Walmart’s handling of this case and its willingness to accommodate the religious practices of employees,” CAIR-MN Civil Rights Coordinator Zahra Aljabri said.
Abdi was rehired at the Walmart in the Midway area of St. Paul because it is closer to his home, his wife works there and managers at that store are “more familiar with the prayer schedule,” Aljabri said. “At least a dozen” Muslims work at the Midway Walmart, she said.
As part of the agreement, Walmart has agreed to send about 10 of their employees for diversity training next month that CAIR-MN is conducting, Aljabri said.
A spokeswoman for Walmart has been contacted for comment today, and a response is pending.
Aljabri noted that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Minnesota Human Rights Act protect the right of any employee with a bona fide religious belief to have accommodation in the workplace as long as that accommodation does not cause “undue hardship” for the employer.
This arrangement is the latest case involving Minnesota employers in conflict over the prayer requirements of Muslim workers.
In April, a federal judge gave approval for Gold’n Plump Inc. and an employment agency to pay $1.35 million to settle lawsuits alleging religious discrimination against Muslims at a chicken processing plant in Cold Spring. Somali Muslims claimed that St. Cloud-based Gold’n Plump violated their religious rights by refusing to allow them prayer breaks during work hours.
The nation has seen a surge of religious discrimination complaints from Muslim workers since the late 1990s. Complaints to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have more than doubled over the past decade, from 398 in 1997 to 909 in 2007.
Paul Walsh
Star Tribune.com