1.
The justified reason for EEOC to sanction JBS-Swift for breaching their workers civil rights by creating a work environment that was bitter was established on the fact that the workers of JBS-Swift were thought to be associates of a safe class because of their religion, cultural group and native origin. The objections declared that the people in higher authority and fellow workers took part in throwing meat, blood and bones on the Muslim employees and also called them distasteful names. It also declared that the Muslim workers faced injustice as they were not given permission to pray according to their religious beliefs. The staff members were also able to give evidence of unequal significance and treatment given to the Muslim workers. The firm reacted against them by dismissing the workers when they requested the management to shift their evening break so that during the month of Ramadan, a month when Muslims observe a fast from sunrise to sunset, they could break their fast and pray.
JBS-Swift did not make the desired adaptations for the employee’s religious beliefs when their work was being scheduled. They also denied the employees to use their personal leave for holidays that weren’t mentioned in the employee manual (Mathis & Jackson, 2011).
2.
The solutions used in the Tyson Foods situation and the JBS-Swift situation are contrasting. In order to look after employees who celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr, Tyson Foods gave those workers eight paid holidays that also included a personal holiday that they had to get approved by a person in higher authority. On the other hand, JBS-Swift set up a prayer room for the Muslim workers and gave them the liberty to pray five times a day.
I believe that JBS-Swift came up with a reasonable solution as they allowed the employees to pray on location because of which, after prayer time the production process can continue. Non-Muslim workers who do not need to pray should be given the option of using this time to take a little break from work, or they should be given an earlier leave. In both the cases, the production will be constant, and there will be no unequal number of hours worked by anyone.
The resolution put forward by Tyson Foods is also reasonable; however, if many employees ask for holiday on the same day i.e. on Eid-ul-Fitr, this will slow down the production process. Also, if not all the Muslim workers are granted the leave then this solution is not advisable. To fix this issue, the firm might have to consider either rotating the workers that would be allowed to take a holiday each year or review the workers schedule in order to keep the production smooth (EEOC.gov).
References
Mathis, & Jackson, .. (2011). Human Resource Management (13th ed., p. -). -: Cengage Learning.
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (2010). Retrieved 6 November 2014, from http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/8-31-10.cfm
