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Lords of the Meatpacking Manor Busted for Exploiting Immigrants
The list of allegations against the Postville, Iowa, slaughterhouse, recently raided by federal officials for its use of illegal immigrant workers, reads like a story collectively written by Upton Sinclair, Charles Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, is at the center of page after page of sickening accusations. These are contained in an affidavit for a search warrant filed by a federal agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
* Undocumented workers from Guatemala and Mexico were paid as little as $5 per hour -- below minimum wage. * A supervisor made a side business of selling the workers used vehicles, sometimes threatening them with loss of their job if they didn't purchase one. * A supervisor duct-taped the eyes of an employee, who was then hit with a meat hook. The employee declined to report the incident for fear of being fired.
Then there are the safety issues that have dogged the operation. The Des Moines Register reviewed the latest available worker-injury reports. It found that in 2004 there were 120 injuries, such as workers suffering chemical burns and broken ribs. In 2005, there were 103 injuries, which included hearing losses.
Also in 2005 there were three amputations by Agriprocessors machinery. The paper reported on Carlos Torrez, a father of four, who was working a 60-hour week when a mechanical saw used to cut up chicken parts took off a finger.
For these multiple amputations, the company was fined $7,500 by state regulators.
Safety equipment was another way to extort money from workers. According to the Register, a memo from the company's vice president included an ''equipment price list.'' Workers were charged $30 for pants and $30 for jackets if they wanted to protect themselves from the caustic chemicals they handled.
Women workers were particularly at risk. A Catholic nun reported that females were told that sexual favors were the barter for a promotion or shift change.
Company officials routinely refused to allow safety inspectors on the property without a court order.
Then, on May 12, an immigration raid occurred and more than a third of Agriprocessors' workforce were detained as suspected illegal aliens. There are now some 270 workers, most from rural Guatemala, in federal prison on charges of using false identity documents.
Federal agents have also arrested two low-level supervisors, including one who is alleged to have charged workers $200 for new documents so they could continue working at the plant.
This is a start, but the arrests need to continue up the chain to the plant's top managers and owners. These overseers have been running a modern-day plantation or workhouse -- or whatever one might call today's hell-on-earth equivalent.
Their denials about knowing they were employing an illegal workforce are implausible. For years Agriprocessors has been receiving letters from Social Security Administration telling the company of discrepancies between employee names and their stated Social Security numbers. In 2006, the plant was told that at least 500 workers had such discrepancies.
''Agriprocessors is a poster child for how to use a broken immigration system to exploit workers,'' notes Scott Frotman, a spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
Company officials were able to keep their workforce helpless due to the undocumented status of so many. The result was inevitable: lousy pay, a disregard for safety, and workers cheated at every turn.
This is why I support the federal government's newfound vigor in investigating industries that rely on illegal-alien labor. This is why we need to mandate that employers verify the legal status of their workers, with tough penalties attached for those found with undocumented employees.
Meatpacking at a unionized facility was at one time a ticket to a middle-class life. Today, thanks to absurdly lax enforcement of immigration laws, the same type of work buys a peasant's existence.
Illegal aliens are peasants-for-hire, and their exploitation is something too many companies relish when given the chance. We have to stop giving them that chance.
--Robyn Blumner
© 2008 Salt Lake Tribune
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32 Comments so far
Show AllI wonder where the Rabbis (who are required by jewish laws to observer the slaughtering of animals and to thereby affirm that the meats are kosher) look while these cruel and inhumane practices are done.
I guess as long as the paycheck is there, who worries about human suffering.
Note: I am no vegan. But I thought I understood that kosher meant obtained without unnecessary pain and suffering. I guess the employees don't count. I doubt the ones doing the slaughtering are Jews anyway.
As a vegan--- the kosher slaughtering method aint compassionate. The animal's throat is cut and the blood is allowed to drain out. Its a slow cruel practice and the victims--livestock-face way way way more misery than the workers. Its an insult to suggest workers suffer more. That's like being worried about Nazi camp guards getting throat ailments from using Zyklon B.
They have a choice--they dont have to work there or move to the US. The livestock have no such choice due to selfish immoral meat eaters.
Remember too, that according to gail Eisnitz's book Slaughterhouse as well as recent secret videos, it is the workers who engage in the worst forms of abuse. They gouge the eyes out of animals, beat them, torture them with cutting instruments, castrate them for fun, just because they are frustrated on their job.
The more immigration raids the better if you care about the bigger picture, i.e. water and resource waste, compassion, justice etc.
But if that doesnt swing you then enjoy your hamburger since it isnt unknown for workers to go to the bathroom on the killing floor.
Yummy.
Kosher slaughter methods are particularly cruel, involving hanging animals upside down and bleeding them to death. I have seen videos of these animals, hanging by one leg, having their throats cut and their tongues cut out. They writhe in agony until they die. It is interesting to me that the treatment of these powerless workers mirrors the cruelty that they in turn practice on the animals that they have power over.
I expect the usual misguided efforts to discredit concern and compassion for animals because this supposedly degrades or deemphasizes concern and compassion for humans. I disagree and believe that until we adress ALL cruelty and brutality, and until we understand how power is deployed to reinforce hierarchies of violence against the less powerful, we will never get to the root of our most pressing and destructive problems.
This is very much like Abu Ghraib. JUST a few bad apples at the bottom. Nobody of any importance had ANY involvement. See? Isn't that simple? "Show's over. Nothing to see. MoveOn.org."
And yeah, "GET OVER IT."
Fat Freddy of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers couldn't kill the thanksgiving turkey in the bloody usual way, so he overdosed him with barbiturates.
In the same way, maybe animals could be anesthetized before they're killed.
These mega-corporations operate on fairly thin profit margins. The choices that we make as consumers are critical.
What can you do?
(1) MOST IMPORTANTLY: Eat less meat.
(2) Buy meat from local farmers in your area, NOT giant corporations. (Farmer's Markets, Community Supported Agriculture, etc...) (http://www.localharvest.org/csa/)
(3) Choose not to consume food "products" (fancy colorful boxes, dozens of ingredients, stuff you can't pronounce, man-made chemicals). Choose to eat whole foods instead. Stay close to the edges of the grocery store.
(4) Find out which corporations are the worst abusers (immigrant rights, pollution, cruelty). CHOOSE not to support those businesses.
(5) Write to the businesses you choose not to support and tell them why.
(6) Consider adopting the eating philosophy of the author of "In Defense of Food": Eat whole foods, not too much, mostly plants.
Unfortunately, Blummer does not name names of the criminals who run Agriprocessors. Here is their website, which is really a hoot to read -- and in addition to naming names, names markets which can be boycotted:
http://www.agriprocessor.com/agriprocessors_postville_home/kosher_slaughtering_plant.php
Also, here is the URL for a UFCW website that is trying to keep track of this criminal enterpeise:
http://www.eyeonagriprocessors.org/
Google the company name and you can find all kinds of stuff.
This is news? We didn't already know that this was going on?
And, are we more outrgaged by the treatment of the animals or the humans? Is it newsworthy because it happened in *GASP* our own country??
It just shows that we treat our immigrants just as bad as the overseas factories treat the workers that make the items we purchase daily from the big retailers.
ezeflyer, aren't the meaties already anesthetized enough?
"Xan July 14th, 2008 2:36 pm"
These aren't immigrants. They are mostly illegal aliens brought in so big business can exploit them for higher profits with no responsibility for their well being. Many suffer horrible injuries in this industry, others die trying to get here.
I hope I misread some of these comments, some seem to indicate there is more concern for animals than these people. And they are people, not scum like business and their helpers treat them.
"Meatpacking at a unionized facility was at one time a ticket to a middle-class life. Today, thanks to absurdly lax enforcement of immigration laws, the same type of work buys a peasant's existence"
The unions are helping business. They are encouraging illegal's by letting them join the union even while they are drivivng down wages for all working men.
Great article. Its about time Liberals quit helping big business just like the GOP and Bush.
We gotta do better than this. That FISA vote convinced me that a new government is no luxury.
We must do whatever it takes to change, and if we have to give up some freedoms in return for less meat consumption, that is better than giving up freedoms so the executive branch can have more power.
Kelmer right on the money. Illegal immigrants produce a lot of problems in this country and they all must be deported. I'd like to deport those who employ them too, after long prison sentences.
What an utter disgrace. I've eaten a lot of kosher meat from that plant, and therefore been supporting illegal immigration.
That infuriates me.
Most of the posters here seem to have missed the point here. The ICE raid picked up the workers and put them in prison immediately. Why not arrest and detain the upper management who clearly have a policy of hiring at the lowest possible wage, ie below the Federal Minimum Wage, and likely know that the workers have false documents. These are the true criminals here and it infuriates me that most seem to focus on the people who came north to get a job so they could support their families back in Guatemala and other Latin American countries whose economies have been decimated by US policies like NAFTA and CAFTA. Wake up folks, we are closer to being like those workers than like the corporate bigwigs and we all should realize it.
Blaming "illegal immigrants" for the problems in our country is just absurd. I thought that readers of Common Dreams were more intelligent.....
Lover, I don't hate the immigrants and I understand that they want to escape the crappy countries they come from. However, they need to be stopped in some way and if this is the way then so be it. Though I would favor immediate deportation.
Upper management should face serious jailtime for this, no doubt.
Let's get that wall finished too.
"Blaming "illegal immigrants" for the problems in our country is just absurd. I thought that readers of Common Dreams were more intelligent….."
I don't think anyone is blaming these poor folks, at least not that I see and I certainly don't. Texans know them far too well. Its not their fault that big business and racist organizations and the pseudo "human rights" and "humanitarian" organizations combine to exploit them. They mostly leave when the jobs are gone, some will be deported, especially the criminal aliens. The best will eventually become citizens. By the way, a lot of the Mexicans and other Latino's don't want to become Americans, they love Mexico, their own countries are proud of them as we are proud of ours. They only came for the money.
That said,
"Why not arrest and detain the upper management who clearly have a policy of hiring at the lowest possible wage, ie below the Federal Minimum Wage, and likely know that the workers have false documents. These are the true criminals here and it infuriates me that most seem to focus on the people who came north to get a job so they could support their families back in Guatemala and other Latin American countries whose economies have been decimated by US policies like NAFTA and CAFTA."
Spot on. Its these people that are the real criminals. And its this bunch that try to maintain the focus you spoke of. Keeps the heat off them.
I would also say that no matter how hard it is back home and its not just Latinos, there are illegals from all over, they may not come here illegally and stay. Not after 65 and 86.
"decimated by US policies like NAFTA and CAFTA."
Right again, these policies and agreements are for the benefit of one group no matter the country. Hint....it isn't the American worker or citizen and its not the workers, farmers and citizens of the other countries.
Anytime you see a politician saying we need guest worker programs or a "pathway to citizenship" you can be assured they are owned by Corporate interests. same thing goes for most other groups, though there were a few folks these boys foooled for a while and there are still some people that believe illegal aliens are here for a "better life".
I hope we can put the people responsible for this fraud and deception, this exploitation of uneducated poor from outside our country in the deepest prison we have.
And if any of you guys want to send a few of the "leaders" we've had for the last 12 years along with these boy's, please don't be bashful.
This, as you can tell is something I care deeply about and I am ashamed we have allowed these people to be treated like this for the last 4 or 5 generations.
"though there were a few folks these boys fooled for a while and there are still some people that believe illegal aliens are here for a "better life".
Let me clarify that the illegal aliens did come for a better life, what I was trying to indicate was the lie that lured them here and the lies that exploit them. (got to watch that context)
A huge step in stopping this activity would be the rise of a real Labor movement, with legal backing to give it teeth.
Lover of Peace is entirely correct.
Arrest ALL the Mangement immediately. It is painfully obvious that they manipulated SocSec numbers. Talk about conspiracy. Corruption all the way to the Top. No prison sentence is too long for these Corporate Criminals. Confiscate all their Assets - distribute to the ones victimized. The rest to the Public coffers.
"ezeflyer, aren't the meaties already anesthetized enough?"
Yes, we like to wash that steak down with red wine.
The only way we can allow people in this country to work for an extended time is to make sure they have the rights of full citizens in all situations. It used to be required that all immigrants sign an affidavit that they were loyal subjects of their original countries and that they renounce all attachment to foreign potentates and countries.
I have seen these documents for some of my ancestors.
These guest worker programs and H1B visas are legalized slavery. We should set up a system to bring in people. Have them all sign up jump through the necessary legal hoops to be assigned a number. Congress should then pass a law to allow a specified number in. Now serving. Every bit of it in the open, above board and subject to the people.
"These guest worker programs and H1B visas are legalized slavery."
Thats pretty much exactly what some of them are. Others are simply a way for companies to get labor at cheaper rates and push American workers out the door.
I agree. If we need labor (which we don't in most cases, then allow legal immigrants in that want to become citizens and allow them the rights and protections they would then have. No more exploitation.
The sad thing is, we don't even need to engage in all of this. Proud to be a vegetarian here (very nearly vegan). It is now common knowledge in the health field that eating putrefying dead animals is not conducive to human health or planet health.
The easiest way to stop such nonsense (besides going vegan which is the ultimate solution on the demand side of this problem)is to arrest top management AND the board of directors, and to sieze all assets of the company pending further investigation.
I know this sounds and feels and smells totalitarianm, but (as Chris Hedges points out) the only way to deal with intolerant people is with intolerance lest they use your tolerance to destroy you).
To quote the late Rev. Shuttlesworth when asked about the advisability of civil rights legislation since no law can change a person's heart, he said,"that's true, but sometimes you gotta make people feel the heat before they see the light."
Yes the top management should go to jail. If they didn't know they were hiring illegal aliens they were not performing the managerial function completely.
Most union contracts have a provision that allows the company to hire off the street if the union is unable or unwilling to provide qualified, legally employable workers within 24 hours of the employer's request for workers. What happened ? It would be interesting to hear the union side of the story. Was the union unable to provide workers Or did it just look the other way?
Poet July 15th, 2008 6:33 am
Excellent post. Especially this part.
"I know this sounds and feels and smells totalitarianm, but (as Chris Hedges points out) the only way to deal with intolerant people is with intolerance lest they use your tolerance to destroy you)."
This is the real danger to our country in most instances.
skinnycat July 15th, 2008 7:09 am
The AFL-CIO and the largest service union are fully engaged in taking illegal aliens as members. They are well aware of what is going on. Something thats very clear if you read their position on illegal aliens. The convienient "we aren't immigration agents" argument.
If you all go vegan the slaves will be picking vegetables. If we all go organic vegans the slaves will be working the compost piles and picking vegetables. Diet has nothing to do with greedy bastards exploiting people.
A few facts for the knownothings. The cattle in a normal slaughterhouse are supposed to be knocked unconcious by a blow from a capture bolt to the forehead. It doesn't always work the first time if the animal happens to move. After being knocked unconcious, then they are killed by cutting their throats. In a kosher slaughterhouse, the capture bolt stage is dispensed with. For what it's worth, within less than four seconds after their throat is cut they have flat brain waves. That cannot be said about people being executed by lethal injection.
I doubt very much that management had no idea what was going on. Their criminal charges shouldn't be for evading the rules against undocumented workers, but for not paying a legal wage, for the conditions under which people worked, for the sorry way they took advantage of their workers. In a just world, they would spend the rest of their sorry existence working under the same conditions.
I saw nothing in the article that said that this was a unionized plant. I doubt very much that it was. Otherwise there is no way they could have gotten away with this crap, which means that unions are more and more necessary to protect people since the present administration won't. Given that the Republican administrations and congress critters have shown a distinct antipathy towards unions, this is one more argument for a change.
A few facts for the knownothings. The cattle in a normal slaughterhouse are supposed to be knocked unconcious by a blow from a capture bolt to the forehead. It doesn't always work the first time if the animal happens to move. After being knocked unconcious, then they are killed by cutting their throats. In a kosher slaughterhouse, the capture bolt stage is dispensed with. For what it's worth, within less than four seconds after their throat is cut they have flat brain waves. That cannot be said about people being executed by lethal injection.
I doubt very much that management had no idea what was going on. Their criminal charges shouldn't be for evading the rules against undocumented workers, but for not paying a legal wage, for the conditions under which people worked, for the sorry way they took advantage of their workers. In a just world, they would spend the rest of their sorry existence working under the same conditions.
I saw nothing in the article that said that this was a unionized plant. I doubt very much that it was. Otherwise there is no way they could have gotten away with this crap, which means that unions are more and more necessary to protect people since the present administration won't.
To chastise the unions for supposedly encouraging undocumented workers is illogical. Their motive is to protect workers from abuse by the bosses, and whether or not a person has the proper papers is irrelevant to whether or not they can be abused. Someone has to protect them, and the unions have taken on that humanitarian role. Given that the Republican administrations and congress critters have shown a distinct antipathy towards unions, this is one more argument for a change.
dkm July 15th, 2008 12:19 pm
I'm sorry to tell you that the unions and that include's the meatpackers are involved in aiding the Corporations. They are not protecting their members.
Employing illegal aliens doesn't help anybody. Not the illegals, certainly not the Americans whose jobs they took.
"In a just world, they would spend the rest of their sorry existence working under the same conditions."
Works for me. I hate these people. You should have seen a plant that was raided the next town over. Slave like living conditions and the girls were abused. Scum, utter scum.
"guest worker"=Bracero Same story. Different words. End of comment.
In January of 1970 I became a member of the "AMALGAMTED MEAT CUTTERS & BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH AMERICA AFL-CIO". At that time the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour and union members were making slightly more. That was 38 years ago when you could buy a second hand, reliable Dodge Dart, slant-six engine for $200. and pay $80-$100. per year for compulsory car insurance. Gas was somewhere around 28-32 cents per gallon.
The $5.00 an hour wage 38 years later couldn't even pay for the gas to run a car; forget about buying and insuring one!
"Meatpacking at a unionized facility was at one time a ticket to a middle-class life. Today, thanks to absurdly lax enforcement of immigration laws, the same type of work buys a peasant's existence."
The elitist pigs running this country are intent on destroying the middle class with their "trickle-up" trade agreeements, economic policies, and "cheap" human labor imports and exports.
sojrnrz [July 15th, 2008 5:44 am] wrote: "The sad thing is, we don't even need to engage in all of this. Proud to be a vegetarian here (very nearly vegan). It is now common knowledge in the health field that eating putrefying dead animals is not conducive to human health or planet health."
To kelmer, sojrnrz, et al: While I would never endorse cruelty toward animals, I have to point out that it is NOT 'common knowledge in the health field' that eating dead animals is 'not conducive to good health.' As a matter of fact, I've known several strict vegans and all of them eventually became weak and decidedly unhealthy from their diet. One in particular, a close friend, ate a strict vegan diet -- no dairy, no fish -- for 12 years and followed a regimen of preparing stews and soups wherein beans were supposed to make up for the loss of meat protein. She ended up barely able to get out of bed and her skin turned a translucent sickly white. She looked like a walking ghost. She finally consulted a doctor and it was discovered she had a serious case of anemia, so serious she was on death's door from it. The anemia was the result of her vegan diet. A month of eating meat a few times a week and she was healthy again. The fact is, we are carnivores and the proteins from meat which stimulate red and white blood cell count cannot be obtained from beans or other protein substitutes. While we should reduce our intake of red meat, treat meatpackers better, kill animals humanely and put such wage-slave plantations as Robyn Blummer notes out of business, we still need to have meat a few times a week -- beef, chicken or fish -- to maintain good health. Ideology, in this case, does not defeat biology.
AddYourVoice [July 14th, 2008 1:44 pm], I agree with your prescription but, in many urban areas, such as where I live, whole foods and the like are very pricey compared to fruits and vegetables available at the local chain store. On top of that, there's no way of knowing these days which products are the result of genetic modification [1]. Also, many brands are labeled 'organic' or 'natural' but, thanks to the Bush corporatists making the rules, those terms are now essentially meaningless -- under their definitions high fructose corn syrup is 'natural'.
[1] http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/19/7769/
lover of peace [July 14th, 2008 6:17 pm] is correct; if the plant owners went to jail first, rather than the lower-rung overseers and immigrants, things would change overnight. Of course, as long as the GOP has any power that will never happen: a large portion of its donor base would then be cooling their heels in the Graybar Academy.
Ariel_Sharon [July 14th, 2008 6:35 pm], the wall is a gigantic waste of money. If you build a wall 10-feet high, the immigrants will bring an 11-foot ladder. And it is not affordable or practicable to position enough guards to police a 2,000 mile-long border. Aside from that, there is so much money in bringing immigrants over the border that the 'importers' will simply use small boats to bypass the land border entirely. This 'War on Immigrants' is nothing more than a gussied-up 'War on Drugs' -- another monumentally expensive failure. This is just a 'Southern Strategy' issue the GOP invented to draw out the jingoists and racists in an election year.
Ironically, many of these problems could have been solved if the progressive Manuel López Obrador had been elected president of Mexico in 2006. He had a plan to put people back to work at good wages. Instead, Felipe Calderón was installed after some Ohio-2004 vote chicanery and Calderón, like his neocon predecessor Vicente Fox, has done nothing for the poor, so they come here. Perhaps it was planned that way so that American corporations like Agriprocessors would have a guaranteed flow of illegal immigrants available for cheap labor.