BRILLION, WI (WTAQ) – A follow-up to a story that started making news late last week. Muslim workers are being urged to go back to work at the Ariens Company, after the manufacturer decided to enforce a rule that bans unscheduled breaks.
About 50 employees have been using them for required daily prayers. Ibrahim Hooper, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says they should stay on the job, but keep up their fight for prayer breaks. He says it’s a constitutional issue.”Companies are legally obligated to offer reasonable religious accommodations, as long as it does not result in what’s called an un-do hardship”
And, Hooper says he does NOT feel that the prayer breaks are an undue hardship.”We believe that since the workers had been allowed an accommodation previously, there should not be a problem to continue that”.
Ariens Company CEO Dan Ariens says a five-minute unscheduled break costs the company about one million dollars in production over the course of a year.
He wants the employees to stay and says they’re good workers. Ariens also wants to handle this issue within the walls of the Brillion company, not in the court of public opinion.
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