source: http://webpages.charter.net/maxflack/A295.htm

Call it a surprise. It was all of that. The Somalis were left at the
altar—jilted—and after all those promises! Of course, they had asked
for the store—the Union Hall, the Global Human Resource office. They
had almost succeeded in changing the second shift 9 pm lunch break
into a 7:30 pm prayer call. It would have made Ramadan o-so-joyous an
occasion and would have tweaked the dhimmi’s nose at the same time.
But the Prophet was not a signatory to the contract between JBS Swift
& Co and the United Food Commercial Workers Union.

Somali Muslims are accustomed to asking (or demanding) and receiving.
They ask for footbaths and they get footbaths; they ask for prayer
rooms and they get prayer rooms; they ask for exceptions to this and
that work rule and they get the exceptions. But they didn’t get the
prayer break. It was within their grasp but at the last minute JBS
Swift changed its mind. Was it some kind of engrained dhimmi hostility
to Muslims or a normal corporate response to the demands of a minority
group? No collection of workers had ever asked for anything quite like
what the Somalis had wanted. It was a first. It is difficult to find a
parallel universe.

Suppose a group of die-hard Chicago Cubs fans had told Swift they
wanted to switch their lunch break from the usual 9 pm to 7:30 pm so
they could watch the first inning of the 2008 World Series? This is
not as outlandish as it might seem. A die-hard Chicago Cubs fan has
the faith of a dozen martyrs and has suffered far more than the
average Muslim. They have been waiting for the Second Coming since
1945. Such zeal should not go un-rewarded. Of course, if the Cubs ever
get to the World Series no serious die-hard Chicago Cubs fan will be
caught anywhere near anything that could be considered work on that
day.

The Somalis were convinced they had it in the bag. They would break at
7:30 instead of 9 o’clock. And they did—at first. But then came Friday—
Black Friday. And when the hands of the clock reached 7:30 pm they
were kept on the job. There was shock; there was consternation! Some
of the Somalis walked off the job, some stayed. One Somali woman
claimed she was lying on the floor when a supervisor stepped on her
back. A Somali man said he was drinking from a fountain and was not
allowed to use the bathroom for a regular bathroom break. There were
other ‘horror’ stories.

About 250 Somali Muslims were suspended for walking off the job.
Muslim representatives met with some of the suspended employees at a
downtown Greeley park. The mood was somber. No employees would be
allowed to break for prayer at 7:30 pm they were told. There were
cries of, “No prayer; no work!” They would sue! Swift had bitten off
more of the Qur’an than they could chew!

How would the great 19th Century industrialist, Henry Clay Frick—once
the most hated man in America—have handled this? Would Henry have put
on his kid gloves? Not at all! He would have fired the whole lot of
them and then hired them back at half-pay. Frick was a Bob Barr-Pat
Buchanan type of employer—a no nonsense fighter. Even Hulk Hogan would
have approached Frick cautiously. But Frick was Frick and Swift is
Swift. And one might add, Muslims are Muslims.

The current contract between Swift and its employees expires in late
2009. There has been a substantial increase in the number of Somali
employees since the last time union and management got together to
hammer out an agreement. Swift officials are aware of this and Global
Human Resources has promised to promote more Somalis to management
positions and to provide interpreters for those with English
deficiencies. “JBS Swift desires to accommodate the religious
practices of all employees, provided it can do so reasonably, safely
and without undue burden,” Swift said. If this sounds like a
retrograde movement, a fallback to Bataan, it is.

Manny Gonzalez, a spokesman for Local 7, said the Union objected
because “the company was trying to sidestep the Union to make this
deal with workers.” Not that the Somalis weren’t guilty of some fancy
footwork themselves. It takes two to tango and the Somalis appeared
more anxious to fill their dance card than management.

Nonetheless, if the Somalis are unjustly terminated the Union will see
to it that they get their jobs back. It would not be the first time
Somali workers have been fired for walking off the job in a meat
packing plant. There was an episode in the Swift Grand Island,
Nebraska, plant not too long ago. Somali employees insist company
managers and supervisors constantly discriminate against them.

Somalia was the scene of Black Hawk Down. On October 3, 1993, two US
Black Hawk helicopters on a raid into Somalia to capture the notorious
Somalian rebel, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, were brought down in Mogadishu
and during the course of a two-day battle 18 Delta Force Rangers were
killed and 73 were wounded.

By all descriptions, Somalia is a nasty place. The Christian minority
is persecuted with an intensity and a ferocity that would have made
Daniel’s stay in the Lion’s Den seem like a trip to Disneyland. Ali
Mustaf Maka’il, a Muslim college student who converted to
Christianity, was shot and killed when he refused to join a crowd of
Muslims chanting verses from the Qur’an. Somali Christians who have
fled to Kenya have had their children kidnapped and taken back to
Somalia for ‘rehabilitation.’ Five hundred Christians have been killed
in Somalia over the past decade for being nothing other than
Christians.

Sheikh Nur Barud, vice chairman of Kulanka Culimada, an influential
Somali Islamist group, pulls no punches when he talks about the future
of Christianity in Somalia. “…all Somali Christians,” he says, “must
be killed according to the Islamic law. A Muslim can never become a
Christian but he can become an apostate. Such people do not have a
place in Somalia and we will never recognize their existence and we
will slaughter them. Somalis are 100 percent Muslim and they will
always remain so.”

Piracy is rampant along the coast of Somalia. As bad as that may seem
it is worse inland. On September 10, 2008, four civilians were listed
among the dead when Islamists screaming “Allahu akbar” attacked an
Ethopian patrol in Mogadishu. On September 8, 2008, children were
among those killed in a terrorist attack in Mogadishu. The day before
five civilians were ‘wasted’ during an Islamist Militia ambush in
Beletwein, Somalia. And the beat goes on. Forward…backward…Somalia is
a dark and bloody land.

Somalis have been immigrating to the United States in large numbers
for more than a decade in search of a better life, one free of pain
and misery where the specter of violent death doesn’t hover constantly
at one’s elbow waiting for an unguarded moment. They want jobs, money,
security, education, maybe a house in the suburbs. That’s what most
immigrants want—ask Pablo, Luis, Ramon, Maria or Rosita. Sure. So why
in the name of God—or the Devil—does Mohammed and Abdul and Mahmoud
from Mogadishu and Beletwein and Jowhar want to recreate in the United
States the one thing that above all else is responsible for the anger,
hatred and horror back home—Islam.