Posted by Eugene Volokh:
"Tyson Plant Drops Labor Day for Muslim Holiday":
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_08_03-2008_08_09.shtml#1218058942
So reports [1]Fox News:
A 5-year contract approved by members of the Retail, Wholesale and
Department Store Union at the Shelbyville, Tenn., [Tyson Foods]
plant last November includes the change [of paid holidays to
exclude Labor Day and instead include the Muslim Eid al-Fitr
holiday] to accommodate Muslim workers....
The seven additional paid holidays are the employee's birthday, New
Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Independence
Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mickelson said....
Tyson officials said that approximately 250 of the plant's 1,200
employees are Somalis who entered the United States as political
refugees. Most, if not all, are believed to be Muslim ....
Tyson officials said the contract was agreed to by 80 percent of
the union's 1,000 members at the plant.
This year Eid al-Fitr falls on Oct. 1.
English First, in a seemingly non-English-related objection (or is it
that they just don't like the Arabic name?), [2]complains:
English First today denounced as multiculturalism run amok a
decision by a Tennessee Tyson Foods poultry plant to eliminate
Labor Day as a paid holiday for employees and replace it with a
paid observance of a Muslim holy day....
A new immigrant to America, legal or illegal, enjoys more rights
than taxpaying American citizens, Boulet said. The notion that
immigrants should adapt to America is being destroyed one bilingual
education class, one press one for English, and one ACLU-approved
Muslim foot-washing bath at a time.
[3]Bill Poser's post at Language Log brought this to my attention, and
I agree with him that this is entirely fine. "You might think that
this is the kind of thing that labor unions are supposed to do:
negotiate holidays that are convenient for their members." The
business wins, the Muslim members win, and it seems like the
non-Muslim members are generally quite happy, too, judging by the
vote.
But more importantly, America was expressly not founded on the notion
that immigrants should adapt to America's religious beliefs. Indeed,
some of the most important early colonies were settled by people who
didn't want to adapt to English religious beliefs, and while some of
them did promptly try to expel or exclude people who wouldn't accept
the colonies' new religious orthodoxy, thankfully that largely
disappeared by the Founding of the nation, and religious tolerance --
including accommodation of minority religious groups -- continued to
increase since then. Jews were allowed to come to America without
rejecting their own religious beliefs (for an early and surprising
legal accommodation of Jewish religious beliefs, see [4]here).
Quakers' and other groups' opposition to swearing oaths is expressly
accommodated by several provisions in the Constitution, which allow
affirmations instead of oaths. More recently, businesses and schools
with large Jewish workforces or student bodies have set up [5]some
Jewish holy days as days off. The same should apply to Muslims.
Not all religious beliefs, of course, have been accommodated, and
[6]not all should be accommodated. But requests from minority
religious groups (including recent immigrant groups) for accommodation
are a longstanding and respectable part of the American tradition of
religious freedom. Where religious pluralism goes, [7]multiculturalism
is indeed a traditional American value. And the union vote at the
Tyson plan is not "multiculturalism run amok" -- it's the American
tradition of religious tolerance and religious accommodation working
as it should be.
Finally, just to respond to the anticipated complaints about Islam
being special because of the violence of some Muslim extremists, or
even the endorsement of religious violence by substantial numbers of
Muslims around the globe: None of this has anything to do with whether
Somali immigrant Muslims working at a meatpacking plant should get a
day off. When someone suggests religious accommodations aimed at
letting people (of whatever religion) contribute to terrorist
organizations, or engage in suicide bombings, I'll happily agree that
they should be rejected -- just as religiously motived attacks on
abortion clinics and other sorts of religious violence should remain
fully punishable. But that some of the Somali-born meatpackers'
coreligionists are doing bad things based on bad ideas doesn't make it
the desire to have Eid al-Fitr off any less legitimate.
References
1. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,397645,00.html
2.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20080805/pl_usnw/_multiculturalism_run_amok__as_muslims_repeal_labor_day_in_tennessee
3. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=447#more-447
4.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTRkYTE5MmEzYWFlZjhiZTA1MTQ0ODljZTI0YjI5OGU=
5. http://www.americantowns.com/ct/newcanaan/events/2008-10-09
6.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTRkYTE5MmEzYWFlZjhiZTA1MTQ0ODljZTI0YjI5OGU=&w=MQ==
7. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1206651658.shtml
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
