Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said that the plant could not facilitate a large prayer facility without disrupting operations. He also disputed that any of the workers were told that if they wanted to pray that they should go home. “Cargill plant supervisors have been very clear that such a statement was never made,” Martin told The Daily Caller, adding that Cargill’s policies regarding religious accommodation “have not changed.”

A Cargill beef processing plant in Fort Morgan, Colo. has fired nearly 200 Somali Muslims who walked off the job last week in a dispute over the company’s accommodations of their prayer rituals.

The workers’ complaints were vague, but seemed to center on the amount of space and time that Cargill had made available for them to pray at the meat plant, which is located in northeast Colorado. Devout Muslims pray five times a day.

More than 200 workers, mostly Muslims from Somalia, either walked off the job before the second shift was set to begin at the plant on Dec. 21 or failed to show up to work the next day in protest of what they claimed were Cargill’s new, restrictive policies.

Jaylani Hussein, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights group that is representing more than 100 of the workers in the dispute, claims that the workers were told on Dec. 18: “If you want to pray, go home.”

After the employees failed to show up to work for three days, Cargill fired them, in keeping with the company’s policies.

Cargill spokesman Mike Martin said that the plant could not facilitate a large prayer facility without disrupting operations. He also disputed that any of the workers were told that if they wanted to pray that they should go home.

“Cargill plant supervisors have been very clear that such a statement was never made,” Martin told The Daily Caller, adding that Cargill’s policies regarding religious accommodation “have not changed.”

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