Tennessee Tyson plant to forgo Labor Day, celebrate a Muslim holiday instead

A Tyson Foods poultry plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee, will no longer celebrate Labor Day. Instead, the union that representing workers at the plant has negotiated a contract substituting a Muslim holiday as one of the plant’s eight paid holidays. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union pact has delighted the plant’s Somali workers, who account for hundreds of its 1,200 employees.

Many outside the plant, however, are infuriated. One person wrote: 'You had no right to drop Labor Day. Muslim employees must integrate Labor Day into THEIR lives if they are going to live in America.'

Under the five-year contract at the Tennessee plant, Id al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, is now one of the plant’s eight paid holidays.

Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), says it is outrageous that union employees at the Tyson processing plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee, will not have Labor Day as a paid holiday this year, but instead will celebrate the end of Ramadan on October 1. The plant has also provided a 'prayer room' to accommodate the 250 Muslim employees, mostly Somalis, who work at the plant.

“Tyson is giving all workers, Muslim and non-Muslim workers, an Islamic holiday off and replacing Labor Day. I mean it's really pretty outrageous.” Krikorian added.