Hertz Global Holdings Inc., the second-largest U.S. rental car company, was sued by former employees who say its policy of allowing Muslims to take daily prayer breaks discriminates against non-Muslim workers.
Katie Barkley and Shirley Harris, who worked as part-time drivers moving Hertz cars from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to other locations, claim Muslim employees were given as many as three paid, 15-minute prayer breaks each shift while non-Muslim employees were denied equal time off, according to the suit filed Nov. 30 in federal court in Atlanta.
This could all be cleared up quite simply: Muslims get their 15 minutes every day, Christians get Sundays off, Jews Saturdays, agnostics split their time equally between Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and atheist readings of The God Delusion – which take place on Mondays. Alternatively, Hertz could stop giving Muslims time off to pray or stop hiring Muslims. Whatever they do, either Hertz will have a skeleton workforce most of the time or someone will be suing them; time to buy shares in Avis.
I demand equal time for my prayers of office. And while we are on the subject of time off how about all those “smoke breaks” smokers have whilst non-smokers have to keep slugging? Also nobody ever gives time off for thurible lighting. Discrimination to the hilt I say.