A Somali Influx Unsettles Latino Meatpackers

[kskiska]

Source: NYT

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Like many workers at the meatpacking plant here, Raul A. Garcia, a Mexican-American, has watched with some discomfort as hundreds of Somali immigrants have moved to town in the past couple of years, many of them to fill jobs once held by Latino workers taken away in immigration raids.

Mr. Garcia has been particularly troubled by the Somalis’ demand that they be allowed special breaks for prayers that are obligatory for devout Muslims. The breaks, he said, would inconvenience everyone else.

“The Latino is very humble,” said Mr. Garcia, 73, who has worked at the plant, owned by JBS U.S.A. Inc., since 1994. “But they are arrogant,” he said of the Somali workers. “They act like the United States owes them.”

Mr. Garcia was among more than 1,000 Latino and other workers who protested a decision last month by the plant’s management to cut their work day — and their pay — by 15 minutes to give scores of Somali workers time for evening prayers.

After several days of strikes and disruptions, the plant’s management abandoned the plan.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/us/16immig.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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Unintended consequences. The anti-immigration wingnuts got rid of the Mexicans only to see them replaced by Muslims.

[Poll_Blind]

1. It's amusing to me how each successive immigriant population is eaten alive by the previous one.

  Never ceases to amaze me how the previous immigrant population can sometimes forget that they're hurling the same invective that was all-too-recently hurled at them. Oh, the issues change. But the theme is there.

PB

[AlphaCentauri]

2. I remembered reading about some union members laughing when some latino immigrants were taken away

[Jim Sagle]

3. What's a "union"?

:cry:

[LeftyMom]

4. Racism, once again, is a tool to divide the working class. nt