See the update from the Tennessean below. Labor Day restored back
as a paid holiday. They want you to buy there chicken.

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FROM:
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080809/NEWS01/808090368

Tyson Foods plant in Tennessee shifts gears, reinstates Labor Day

Company will let workers take Muslim holiday or another day next year

By ROSE FRENCH, Associated Press
and DARRYL D. SMITH, Staff Writer
August 9, 2008

Union workers and officials at a Tyson Foods plant in Shelbyville,
Tenn., said Friday they have agreed to reinstate Labor Day as a
paid holiday, and the plant also will observe the Muslim holiday
Eid al-Fitr this year.

Tyson had previously agreed to drop Labor Day and substitute the
Muslim holiday as part of a new five-year contract to accommodate
Muslim workers at the plant in Shelbyville, which is about 50
miles south of Nashville. Eid al-Fitr, which falls on Oct. 1
this year, marks the end of Ramadan, a holy month of fasting,
abstinence and prayer. Muslims make up nearly 700 of the 1,200
employees at the plant.

The decision to recognize the Muslim holiday sparked widespread
criticism, from local politicians to talk radio.

The Springdale, Ark.-based company said it requested reinstating
Labor Day after complaints from plant workers and the public.

The union membership voted overwhelmingly Thursday to reinstate
Labor Day as one of the plant's paid holidays, while keeping
Eid al-Fitr as an additional paid holiday this year only.

Gary Mickelson, director of media relations for Tyson Foods,
said that means there will be nine paid holidays for the
Shelbyville plant employees in 2008. For the remainder of the
contract, workers will have eight: New Year's Day, Martin
Luther King Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day,
Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and a personal holiday,
which could either be the employee's birthday, Eid al-Fitr
or another day approved by a supervisor.

Muslim civil rights advocates criticized Tyson Foods, and
a union official said the company's response was disingenuous.
"This wasn't something imposed. It seems that this
backtracking would be the result of the backlash from
anti-Muslim hate (Web) sites and Islamophobes on the Internet,"
said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on
American-Islamic Relations.

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the union, which has
headquarters in New York, said he was surprised by reaction to
the company's original plan to accommodate the Muslim holiday.

"I would have thought that people would have been more
sensitive and sympathetic to the concern to the members of
our community, who want to celebrate their religious faith,"
he said. "It's a little disingenuous to say that they (Tyson)
were responding to employee concerns. The proposal came from
workers themselves."

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