MINNEAPOLIS — Muslim cashiers at some local Target stores who object to ringing up products that contain pork are being shifted to other positions where they don’t need to, the discount retailer said Saturday.
The Star Tribune reported this past week that some Muslim cashiers at local Targets had declined to scan pork products such as bacon because doing so would conflict with their religious beliefs. They would ask other cashiers to ring up such purchases, or sometimes customers would scan those items themselves, the newspaper reported.
Minneapolis-based Target Corp. has now offered its local Muslim cashiers who object to handling pork the option of wearing gloves while cashiering, shifting to other positions or transferring to other nearby stores.
“We are confident that this is a reasonable solution for our guests and team members,” Target spokeswoman Paula Thornton-Greear said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press on Saturday.
Greear said it as a localized problem and that it would be handled on a case-by-case basis.
“It is not an issue in most of our stores in the Twin Cities,” she said in separate comments via e-mail. “There is also no indication that this is an issue in the Minnesota market overall or nationwide.”
Islam teaches that pigs are unclean and eating pork is a sin, and some Muslims feel selling or handling pork is also forbidden because it would make them complicit in the sins of others.
