Central Nebraska has become the latest stage for an unfolding American drama. Tensions over Muslim workers’ request for prayer time erupted into worker walkouts, protests, counterprotests, a brief plant shutdown and employee firings at a meatpacking plant in Grand Island.

A group of the more than 120 Muslim employees fired last week at the Swift plant in Greeley met with an attorney representing the Council on American-Islamic RelationsWednesday, hoping that the advocacy group can help them find a resolution.

Rima Kapitan, with CAIR’s Chicago office, on Wednesday met with Muslim workers recently fired by JBS Swift. She said CAIR is coordinating with an attorney retained by about 60 of the fired workers.

An agreement between Muslim workers and a Nebraska meatpacking plant reached late Tuesday could be an outline for an accord in a similar dispute in Greeley, people involved in the discussions say.

But a major hurdle in any agreement over Muslim prayer times will be whether 103 workers who were fired for walking away from the JBS Swift & Co. slaughterhouse in Greeley are rehired, said Christina Abraham, civil-rights director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago.

A volunteer attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations said Wednesday thatCAIR has been negotiating for a year with JBS Swift & Co. about break times for Muslim workers.

A civil-rights group holds little hope that a week-old dispute between Muslim workers and their bosses at a Greeley slaughterhouse will end quickly, based on the company’s recent response in a similar standoff in Nebraska.

OMAHA, Neb. – Meatpacking plant officials accused of discriminating against dozens of Somali Muslim workers have offered to tweak break times to help accommodate the workers’ prayer demands.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Supervisors at a meatpacking plant have fired or harassed dozens of Somali Muslim employees for trying to pray at sunset, violating civil rights laws, the workers and their advocates say.