Recently, Tyson Foods said it would drop Labor Day as a paid vacation day and substitute the Muslim holiday Eid as part of a new five-year contract, in order to accommodate Muslim workers. In response, right-wing bloggers were enraged. Mark Krikorian of the National Review, for example, called it a “war on Labor Day.” Today, the company backtracked:
[M]any anti-immigrant groups and right-wing bloggers called for a boycott of Tyson, saying the contract betrayed an important American holiday and was an improper concession to Islam.
In a news release on Friday, Tyson said it had asked the union to revise the plant’s contract and restore Labor Day as a paid holiday because some Shelbyville employees had expressed concern about the contract’s provisions.
The revised contract again makes Labor Day a paid holiday but also keeps Id al-Fitr (pronounced eed-al-FIT-tr) — which marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting — as a paid holiday for those who want it.
Malkin took credit for the change in policy on her blog today.