Brillion, WI (WTAQ) – After Ariens was thrust into the national spotlight last month, CEO Dan Ariens, said work at the Brillion manufacturing plant is returning to normal.
“The original story said we terminated them and we forced them not to prayer, which was not the case”
Last month about 53 Muslim employees left work when the company said it was going to start enforcing it’s onsite prayer policy.
Ariens said those employees were taking unscheduled break to prayer which disrupted the production line.
“A lot of our Muslim employees have figured out how to prayer within our break times”
Since enforcing the policy 32 Muslim employees have returned to work but the company said it did have to terminate seven others.
“They continued to take a prayer off their normal break time. We’ve tried to work with them, we’ve given them several warnings, and talked to them every time about why this doesn’t work, and it just came to a termination for those seven,”said Ariens.
Jaylani Hussein is the Executive Director of the Minneapolis-based Council on American Islamic Relations, and says his organizartion has been working with several of the employees that left Ariens.
“We are still looking at all of our legal actions”
He added more needs to be done so a situation like this doesn’t happen again.
“The company needs to look at all the reasonable options and right now they have come up with nothing, even though these employees tried to offered a number of ways to accommodate”
Ariens says the entire ordeal has been a learning experience and the company is just looking to get back on track.
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