Workers strike over prayer dispute

Thirty Muslims walked off the job at a Tennessee plant after alleging the company refused to let them pray at sunset – the latest dispute over prayer between an American business and its Islamic employees.

The Muslim workers, who were packaging Dell computers through a temporary labour agency, are taking the dispute to mediation, both sides said yesterday. Most of the employees are from Somalia.

Abdirizak Hassan, executive director of the Somali Community Centre of Nashville, said the workers walked out of the company’s Nashville plant last month because they were not allowed time for prayers.

The question of how to integrate Islamic prayers into the American workplace is becoming far more common, with many companies using a “tag out” system to accommodate the prayers, said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The policy allows workers to step away a few at a time for sunset prayers.