Tyson Holiday Compromise
Last week, I wrote that Tyson should compromise on the holiday uproar.
Southern Beale is reporting that they have.
But this actually looks more like a reasonable holiday plan to me:
[M]any anti-immigrant groups and right-wing bloggers called for a boycott of Tyson, saying the contract betrayed an important American holiday and was an improper concession to Islam.
In a news release on Friday, Tyson said it had asked the union to revise the plant’s contract and restore Labor Day as a paid holiday because some Shelbyville employees had expressed concern about the contract’s provisions.
The revised contract again makes Labor Day a paid holiday but also keeps Id al-Fitr (pronounced eed-al-FIT-tr) — which marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting — as a paid holiday for those who want it.So those who want to take off Labor Day can, and those who want to take off the Muslim holiday can. So what’s the problem?
I’m with Beale on this. It’s reasonable.
Let’s all have cupcakes now.
It’s just odd that non-religious and religious holidays are tied together. To call Labor Day an important American holiday is a farce. First, a small percentage of the workforce is unionized (typically referred to as “labor”.) Second, retail and service business are open.
Next up: St. Patrick’s Day!
I agree, GLS. I haven’t had a Labor Day off since, forever.
But I’m in news. We just work.
Dangit.
I agree. Cupcakes. With sprinkles.
The obvious solution would be to give employees the choice between Christmas and the Id as paid holidays. Speaking as someone who has spent her entire adult life using “vacation” time for religious observances and not actually getting any vacations as a result, what bugs me about the whole thing is that no one has even suggested that since the majority of the plant’s workers aren’t Christians, that’s the way to go. No establishment of religion, right.
@newscoma
FYI, it’s not likely that a production environment would ever be able to operate efficiently nor a company profitably on any day when a large percentage of its employees are not present. There would be huge bottlenecks where employees normally work, though the line would presumably still be moving since the rest of the employees were showed up that day…..so……that’s probably not a viable solution. It’s all too obvious, and it it were workable, it probably would have been the route they took.
@nm
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion….”
This is possibly the most misunderstood clause in the Bill of Rights, or possibly the Constitution as a whole. As you can see, it doesn’t pertain to the public servant’s personal beliefs, shouldn’t be referenced in judicial rulings unrelated to legislative oversight, it doesn’t mention or therefor pertain to Executive branch….and it most certainly does not pertain to private meat packing plants or labor unions.