Excerpt:
Hertz rental car company, facing a religious discrimination suit by 25 fired Muslim drivers, said on Thursday it would "vigorously defend" itself in a dispute involving prayer breaks at its Seattle airport office.
Hertz says the drivers, all of them Somali natives, refused to clock in and out for the 10-minute paid breaks they took twice daily, as required under their union contract, and abused their breaks by failing to return to work promptly.
The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in King County Superior Court, accuses Hertz of intentionally creating a "hostile work environment owing to religious, race and national origin discrimination" by terminating the drivers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in late October.