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Saturday, 8 October 2011

Getting paid to recite Muslim prayers

Counter Thirty-four Muslim car transporters were caught praying on the job. And they got in big trouble for it--but not because Hertz has anything against Muslims or anyone else praying while they work. The problem was that these workers weren't working while they prayed. And that wouldn't have been a problem, either, if they had managed to whip through their memorized prayers in 10 minutes or less each of the 5 times a day they recite them. The problem was that:

1. Hertz hired drivers who were observant Muslims.
2. The drivers asked that Hertz accommodate their religious need to quit work for a few minutes 5 times a day.
3. The Teamsters Union, which takes a cut out of the $9 or so an hour Hertz is paying the drivers to drive, demanded that Hertz comply, and pay them to pray every day instead of driving.
4. Some drivers took advantage of these paid prayer breaks and extended them past the allotted 10 minutes.
5. Hertz warned drivers who didn't drive when they were supposed to be that they couldn't work for Hertz.
6. The drivers still took over-long prayer breaks, expecting to get something out of their union dues.
7. Hertz suspended 34 drivers for breaking their agreement with Hertz.
8. The shocked drivers looked to Teamsters to get them reinstated with back pay.

You can see that Christians have a distinct advantage over Muslims, Bhuddists, and Jews when it comes to getting a driving job: Christians can, and often do, pray while on the road (with their eyes open of course). Muslims and Jews can't. This makes the Christians much more employable as drivers than the Muslims, and slightly more employable than Jews (who can typically get their prayers in while off the job).

The solution: either discriminate against employers who prefer to hire workers who actually work, or discriminate against the more employable workers by not employing them as fully.

There are no other options.

3 comments:

  1. Don't count on there being no other options. King Barrack may mandate one!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, I suppose "Both" is always one.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Something I hadn't counted on is all the people coming to this post in search of an Islamic prayer that will help them get a job. I've got news for them: there aren't any.

    ReplyDelete

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