U.S. firm fires 30 Muslim workers for praying on job

3/10/2005 5:00:00 PM GMT

Source: www.tennessean.com

Thirty Somali Muslim workers lost their job at Dell Computer’s Nashville plant for praying during their working hours.

One of the fired workers, Abdi H. Nuur, said that there were forced to choose between their religion and their job.

''They told us that we cannot pray at sunset,'' Nuur said. ''They told us that we would have to wait for our break.''

Nuur explained that while some of Islam's five daily prayer times are somewhat flexible, the sunset prayer is not.

Mark Drury, a Dell spokesman refused to comment on the incident, saying that the company didn’t receive a specific complaint.

The fired workers gathered at the Somali Community Center on Thompson Lane earlier this week to discuss their situation.

Some want to return to their job while others are angry, saying that they were forced to leave suddenly and wouldn’t consider a return, even if the company offered.

''They told us, if we pray, we're going to be fired,'' Nuur said.

Abdishakur Ibrahim, The imam at a Nashville mosque who as interfered in similar cases, said that “Islam is a religion where there is no separation between faith and life. In Islam there are specific times when you must pray. And for Muslims, not to pray is to disobey God.”

The Metro Human Relations Commission hopes that it can solve the problem. ''It would be great if they could reach a conciliation agreement,'' said compliance officer Perez.

Perez will send a complaint to Metro government, based on the report from the Muslim workers. If the government panel classifies the complaint as a violation of Metro discrimination codes, the company could be fined.

The workers could also file discrimination complaints with state and federal agencies.