DAR AL HARB - U.S.A.: JIHAD VIA LAWSUIT

US Muslims suing employers on religious grounds
By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: More Muslims in Minnesota and across the country are suing employers, alleging religious discrimination, while businesses respond that they’re only trying to get their job done.

According to a report in Pioneer Press, St Paul, Minnesotta, Seham Nabry, a Sudanese Muslim woman, says her boss confiscated her prayer mats and complained that her ritual hand and feet washing messed up the office bathroom. She also says he blared Christian music and taunted Muslim workers as they prayed. Nabry said giving up her daily prayers was not an option. She has now sued her employer, a growing practice among Muslims that can only deepen the chasm that already exists between them and the larger non-Muslim community.

Somali taxi drivers who refuse to take passengers carrying alcoholic drinks are also based in Minnesotta. She told Pioneer Press, “I came to America for freedom. Why should I walk away?”

In Minnesota, the number of Muslims filing federal complaints about being targeted at work because of their faith climbed from four a decade ago to 66 last year. Nationally, the number has more than doubled since the mid-1990s. Federal officials point to a rising number of Muslims in the country and a post-September 11 backlash as reasons for the increase. US federal law clearly bars religious discrimination and requires employers to provide a “reasonable accommodation” of all faiths. However, the line can be thin as courts try to decide when accommodating a worker’s faith puts an undue burden on an employer’s business requirements.
“The legal standard is a little bit loose,” University of Minnesota law professor Steve Befort told the newspaper. “Employers are not to discriminate on the basis of religion. There is a duty to accommodate, but the undue hardship regulation is not very high.”

According to the press report, since October, 40 Muslims in Minnesota have filed three federal lawsuits alleging their employers discriminated based on faith or didn’t accommodate their faith. At the same time, some Muslim cab drivers are facing potential penalties at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport for refusing to carry passengers with dogs or alcohol, which some Muslims say violates their faith.

“The issue of religious accommodation has been pretty dormant. It’s just rearing its head again in the last four or five years,” said Karen Schanfield, a labour attorney. “The two taboo topics at work used to be politics and religion. They are not taboo anymore. Certainly with this influx of immigrants and workers from other countries who bring different culture and religions, courts are going to have to grapple with this.” In October, nine current and former Muslim workers sued a poultry processor and an employment agency, alleging they were prevented from praying at work; forced to handle pork while working on the factory line; and given dirtier, less desirable jobs than their non-Muslim counterparts. The plaintiffs allege the employment agency that hires for the company requires prospective employees to sign a form consenting to the handling of pork in an effort to screen out Muslims.

The company’s attorney said that allowing factory line workers to take multiple breaks at their leisure erodes safety, decreases morale among all workers and jeopardises food quality. “Life doesn’t stop five times a day even in Islamic countries,” he said. “Islam understands supporting one’s family is critical. There is flexibility in that faith, like other faiths, where they can make it up later. To suggest this interferes with their religious freedom is ludicrous.”


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