Thread: 2 meatpacking plants are turning to Puerto Rico for labor

New, willing workforce
In a search for affordable workers, two Downstate meatpacking plants are turning to U.S. citizens in impoverished areas of Puerto Rico


Meadowbrook Farms workers process and package pork. Plant managers say they turned to Puerto Rico for new employees as they battle a monthly turnover rate of about 12 percent. (Tribune photo by José Moré / December 18, 2007)



By Vanessa Bauza | Tribune reporter
February 11, 2008

RANTOUL, Ill. - Gisela Alcover rises before dawn six days a week to stand at a stainless steel bin slicing gallbladders from livers and sorting the hearts of freshly slaughtered hogs. The organs feel warm to the touch, even through three layers of gloves, and she says they splatter blood on her apron as they tumble from a chute above.

"The type of job I have, no one wants it," she said.

That's a big problem for meatpacking plants, which scramble to staff their production lines, and for years have relied on immigrants to fill jobs local workers won't take. As immigration agents have cracked down on businesses across the nation, arresting thousands of illegal workers and sending others into hiding, two Downstate pork processing plants have turned to Puerto Rico, which offers a willing workforce without the legal hurdles of a foreign country.




Meadowbrook Farms Photos

Over the last seven months, recruiters from Meadowbrook Farms in Rantoul and the Cargill plant in Beardstown have made several trips to Puerto Rico, hiring more than 130 workers, though roughly a third have returned to the island.

Those who remain, like Alcover, say the meatpacking jobs offer higher salaries and more stability than they had in Puerto Rico. Unemployment in Alcover's hometown of Jayuya (pronounced ha-you-ya), nestled in the island's central mountains, hovers around 13 percent. She was making $6.25 an hour doing construction work when she heard about Meadowbrook's $9-an-hour starting salaries. A day after getting the job, Alcover, 38, packed her bags, kissed her teenage sons goodbye and boarded a flight toChicago.

"In Jayuya there's no future for anyone," Alcover said. "The economy there is so depressed. It's always the same, you try to get ahead and you can't."

Many meatpacking plants are in constant hiring mode, scouring for workers in inner cities, reaching out to agencies that resettle refugees and recruiting in rural communities where factories have shut down.

The Cargill pork processing plant had never gone outside the continental United States before, but Puerto Ricans' U.S. citizenship, coupled with the island's soaring unemployment, make it an attractive spot to scout for workers, said spokesman Mark Klein. So far, the Beardstown plant has added about 50 Puerto Rican workers and a dozen more were expected to start last week, Klein said.

"We're encouraged that we have been able to find people who are going to take the offer," Klein said. "It's working out well for us."

Meadowbrook Farms employs about 550 workers to slaughter and process 3,300 hogs a day. It produces just 1 percent of the nation's pork, but like its larger competitors, turnover is high: Meadowbrook loses 12 percent of its workforce every month. The plant recently added a second shift, making hiring needs more urgent. Puerto Ricans have helped fill the gap.

"It's a huge response," said Heather Daly, Meadowbrook's human-resources manager who recruited workers in Puerto Rico. "The first trip, we came home with over 100 applicants' resumes."

Depressed region

Most have come from the heart of the coffee-growing region known as the high country, where pastel-colored concrete homes cling to the sides of lush mountains. News of the jobs spread quickly among longtime friends and relatives who later moved together to Rantoul, a mostly blue-collar town of 13,000 people surrounded by farm fields.

Ricardo Lopez, a high school dropout, was washing cars, doing odd mechanic jobs and occasionally picking coffee on his family's 3-acre farm when he heard about the Meadowbrook jobs. Though he regrets leaving Puerto Rico before earning his high school diploma, Lopez, 21, says there's not much more he misses. Working at the pork processing plant is the only steady job he's ever known. He recently bought a usedMitsubishi Eclipse and now is saving for his first home, a trailer.

"I changed my life," Lopez said. "I feel different inside. I'm going to get ahead and help my mom."

Jaqueline Irizarry, 38, was on welfare before moving to Rantoul with her son Angel Rafael, 21. He said he lost his job at Meadowbrook Farms after being absent, but she still works there, enjoying a newfound independence and making plans to settle into her own apartment.

"It's quiet here, there's work and I'm not worried," she said.

Meadowbrook advances workers the price of airfare to Chicago and two months' rent in temporary apartments until they find their own housing. The most recent arrivals sleep on air mattresses, watch a television they pulled from a garbage bin and bundle up in parkas fromWal-Mart. In the mornings they commute a few miles to the plant.

Meadowbrook's cut floor is chilled to 40 degrees. Workers stand shoulder to shoulder carving cuts of pork at conveyor belts while wearing white overcoats, hard hats and earplugs to muffle the hum of the saws. Man and machine transform the flow of hanging hog carcasses into vacuum-sealed, oven-ready dinners, ready to be shipped to the supermarket.

Hector Santana, 23, packs bacon into cardboard boxes. With nearly $2,000 in bills and credit card debt, he decided to try his luck in Rantoul even though he doesn't speak English and had never left the island.

I had never seen trees without leaves before," he said of his first Midwestern winter. "All this flatness, you miss the mountains."

Despite being homesick, Santana feels lucky to have a job.

But not all has gone smoothly with the new recruits. Some returned to the island because they missed their families, others flew back fearing reprisals after a knife fight at a party injured a fellow worker. Still others were fired for "unacceptable behavior," including lateness and absenteeism, said Jim Altemus, Meadowbrook Farms' vice president of marketing.

In December, when plant managers gave the fired employees 24 hours to leave the temporary apartments, which were leased to Meadowbrook, some workers complained they were being treated like illegal immigrants.

Since then tensions have subsided and Altemus said new Puerto Rican workers have come for employment at the plant.

"We have had a lot of people going through that plant that needed a paycheck and didn't really want to learn a trade," Altemus said. "We looked at this program and said ... we made some mistakes and we are learning from those. Of all the employees that have gone through the plant, the Puerto Ricans that have stayed with us are at the top."

Long-standing history

U.S. companies have been dipping into Puerto Rico's labor pool since the late 1940s, when an industrialization program shifted the island's agrarian economy to manufacturing and tourism. Police departments, school districts and hospitals travel to the island for skilled bilingual workers. But several large meatpacking companies said they don't see the need to go that far afield.

Smithfield Packing Co., which employs 14,000 workers in factories and warehouses from Maryland to Florida, looked into recruiting in Puerto Rico years ago but never followed up, said spokesman Dennis Pittman. Instead, the company runs ads in local newspapers and works with state employment agencies. It also wants to add more automation to reduce the demand for workers, Pittman said.

"I think everyone has been impacted by the increased [immigration enforcement] activity that was going on," Pittman said. "It has just made it more difficult for all employers."

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vbauza@tribune.com



http://tinyurl.com/2ya4bv

those born in Puerto Rico are american citizens since its a terrotory of the USA

Originally Posted by jamesw62

those born in Puerto Rico are american citizens since its a terrotory of the USA

Now it is. Did you know that the "OFFICIAL LANGUAGE" adopted by Puerto Rico is "Spanish"?

This is a really good website to visit to learn about the history of Puerto Rico.

http://welcome.topuertorico.org/history6.shtml