$1.5M settlement for Muslim workers fired from Colorado meatpacking plant in prayer dispute

By The Colorado Springs Gazette September 14, 2018 | updated 8 years ago

In this Jan. 8, 2016 photo, a sign advertises job openings at the meat processing plant owned and run by Cargill Meat Solutions, in Fort Morgan, a conservative rural community on the eastern plains of Colorado. Many of Fort Morgan's roughly 1,200 Somali immigrants, many who are refugees who fled war, work at Cargill. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) (Brennan Linsley)

DENVER — A U.S. meatpacker has agreed to pay $1.5 million to 138 Somali-American Muslim workers who were fired from their jobs at a Colorado plant after they were refused prayer breaks.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Friday that Wichita, Kansas-based Cargill Meat Solutions also pledged to accommodate Somali-American workers’ prayer breaks at its Fort Morgan plant.

The EEOC says Cargill denies wrongdoing but agreed to settle to avoid further litigation.

Last year, the EEOC found that the workers were fired in 2016 after protesting a decision by plant management to stop permitting Muslim employees to take short breaks for prayer.

Hundreds of Somali-Americans work at the plant in Fort Morgan, located 75 miles (115 kilometers) northeast of Denver.

In this Jan. 8, 2016 photo, a sign advertises job openings at the meat processing plant owned and run by Cargill Meat Solutions, in Fort Morgan, a conservative rural community on the eastern plains of Colorado. Many of Fort Morgan's roughly 1,200 Somali immigrants, many who are refugees who fled war, work at Cargill. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) (Brennan Linsley) — In this Jan. 8, 2016 photo, a sign advertises job openings at the meat processing plant owned and run by Cargill Meat Solutions, in Fort Morgan, a conservative rural community on the eastern plains of Colorado. Many of Fort Morgan’s roughly 1,200 Somali immigrants, many who are refugees who fled war, work at Cargill. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) (Brennan Linsley)

In this Dec. 18, 2015 photo, worshippers observe the weekly Friday Muslim prayer inside a makeshift mosque in Fort Morgan, a small town on the eastern plains of Colorado. With a population of roughly 12,000, Fort Morgan has about 1,200 Somali immigrants, themselves mostly refugees, who make up the largest number of recent arrivals to this small, traditional community. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley) (Brennan Linsley)

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$1.5M settlement for Muslim workers fired from Colorado meatpacking plant in prayer dispute

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