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Hertz says Muslim workers
didn`t follow break rules
(Seattle, Washington, Oct 09, 2011
Ceegaag Online)
By Laura Myers
Hertz rental car company, whose workers protested after
34 Muslim shuttle drivers were suspended in Seattle over
prayer breaks, said it would reinstate the employees if they
agreed to clock in and out.
Hertz said the Somali Muslim employees at Seattle-Tacoma
International Airport were suspended not for praying but for
failing to clock in and out for 10-minute breaks as required
under a collective bargaining agreement, the company said in
a written statement Friday night. .
Washington state law allows employees two 10-minute
breaks during an eight-hour shift.
"This issue arose when breaks for prayers were extended
for unacceptably long periods beyond 10 minutes for
nonreligious activities," company spokesman Richard Broome
said.
"Individual warnings were communicated as well as a
written warning, both prior to the implementation of
disciplinary action," he said.
Workers protested the Seattle airport Hertz location on
Wednesday following the suspensions, which Teamsters Local
117, the union representing the Muslim workers, has called
discrimination based on religious beliefs.
The union said in a statement released earlier this week
that Muslim employees had complained of a hostile work
environment and said that, in one instance, a Hertz manager
tried to block a group of seven Somali women from accessing
a designated prayer room.
"This is an outrageous assault on the rights of these
workers and appears to be discriminatory based on their
religious beliefs," Tracey Thompson, secretary-treasurer of
Teamsters Local 117, said in a written release.
But Broome, in his statement, said Hertz had accommodated
the Muslim workers' prayer schedule for 15 years at the
Seattle airport location, creating a space for them to pray.
He said Muslim workers at the airport facility who had
clocked in and out for breaks had not been suspended.
"Several of our Muslim employees at the Seattle airport
are complying and are not affected by the disciplinary
action, which undercuts the false contention that this issue
is related to prayer or religion," Broome said.
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