I think if I was a Christian in this type of workplace, I would use this as an excuse to stop and pray also....see how long my co-workers/boss tolerate it.

I think coffee/prayer/cigarette/whatever breaks should all be treated the same. If you want to allow employees a certain amount of paid-break time it should be up to them how they spend it.

If you clock out for cigarette breaks, then you should clock out for prayer breaks. If you get paid cigarette breaks, paid prayer sounds fair.

If you smoke and pray and drink coffee, tough, you need to pick which is most important during your break.

"If you smoke and pray and drink coffee, tough, you need to pick which is most important during your break."

Unless smoking and drinking coffee were sacramental acts in your religion, in which case it would be a win-win. Otherwise, I think I agree with NicoleK -- religion breaks ought to be treated like any other break, and such treatment will vary from company to company.

I completely agree with Hertz's position on this topic. however, I would be careful against conflating Muslim attitudes held in theocracies and those Americans who are Muslim.

Once again, I look forward to the day when the comment system here allows email notification when new commentators add their input.

No company or individual should be required to financially support someone's religion or pay for time some individual or group spends practicing their religion. The same should apply to someone's caffeine and nicotine habits, health care needs, child care responsibilities, or whatever.

Last time I checked, most workplaces forbid any show of religion. If you have to leah 6 times a day, you are a moron following a slave mentality, Fuck them

Damn spell correct, leah-pray

I'm betting they're seriously abusing their "breaks" and that's why the company cracked down.

I'm reminded of when I worked in a specific building about 10 years ago that was a very large building with 4 entrances around the four corners. As someone in IT, I tended to have to go around the building most days and so saw the entire thing vs being in just one area each day. After a few months I realized there was this group of 4 women that would take at least 8 smoke breaks a day.. rotating around the 4 entrances and wasting at least 20 minutes each time. I think they would rotate around the building thinking people wouldn't notice how often they did it. Realize if it was just the 8 or so times I saw, that was 4 people wasting at least 1:20 a day each... each and every day. On top of lunch times and such (I'd see them in break rooms or the cafeteria daily too).

I like to think if I ever ran a business I'd be pretty lenient, but people clearly abusing breaks like that would be enough to piss me off into being a lot more strict about them. With the people that actually abuse it of course.

My own job allows us to work from home when needed for personal issues as long as one still gets their work done and doesn't use it too often. Every now and then, someone will abuse the system and managers will crack down a bit.

Andrew: ...however, I would be careful against conflating Muslim attitudes held in theocracies and those Americans who are Muslim.

Amy: Islam is Islam.

So Amy, you think every Muslim thinks and feels exactly the same way?

*

Ironically, this comes from people who practice the least "tolerant" religion in the world.

I don't know how tolerant or intolerant Muslims, in general, were in the past. An example that is typically given to show how tolerant they were vis-a-vis Christians is the fact that Jews were permitted to live in Spain under Moorish rule, while after the reconquista, the Christians expelled the Jews. But that's just one example. There could be other examples where Muslims were more intolerant.

It does seem today, however, that countries with a Muslim majority are more intolerant of other religions than countries where people of another religion are the majority. And I also feel that, in general, Muslims are more intolerant of any criticism of their religion -- and specifically of their "holy" book or "holy" guy than -- than are people in other religions. Contrast, for example, the Christian anger over Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" photo with the Muslim anger and rioting and killings over the Danish Muhammed cartoons.

Hey everybody, there's an episode of South Park where they did indeed show a cartoon version of Muhammed, it was back in 2001. The Super Best Friends episode. Same disk as "Scott Tenorman Must Die" and "Cripple Fight"... I guess they were late on the fatwa....

Holler!

I love how those signs say "respect me respect my religion", They were respecting it by allowing them to do their prayer. Hertz just got tired of paying for it, they can pray, just not on the companies dime.

Most people dont know it but in addition to the 'madatory' prayers many muslims, depending on the various scets, also do one or two additional volentary paryers.

Now they have to get up,
log out of their work station,
grab their prayer rug from where ever its stashed,
set it up in an area where the sound of their prayers will not interfere with everyone else working,
spend upwards of 10 minutes praying,
put their rug back where ever its stashed,
log back into their work station

Dependig on where they keep their floor mat and how far away thy need to go to set up for their mindless droning, by the time they are done it could possibly take more than a half an hour, and depending on their wrok schedual they are doing it at least twice if not three time durring a work shift.

That is anwhere between 45 to 90 minutes to set up, pray, and break down -every day.

Why should any employer pay anyone for not working for an hour or so every day?

Jim:

An example that is typically given to show how tolerant they were vis-a-vis Christians is the fact that Jews were permitted to live in Spain under Moorish rule, while after the reconquista, the Christians expelled the Jews.

Uhhh... they let Jews and Christians live as "dhimmi" - with little real legal recourse against Muslims in business or property matters, required to pay a punitive tax, and at the mercy of local mobs, who were often stirred to anti-dhimmi violence by their princes as a diversionary tactic.

Not much different from how Christendom treated Jews most of the time - or how most Islamic states now operate.

Do take note that government is ALSO a business, and would be subject to the same ridiculous loss of productivity if religion were allowed to affect any part of it.