Hansen: Professor raises money for Postville workers
by MARC HANSEN • mahansen@dmreg.com • September 11, 2008

Robert Savit decided he had to do something for the workers at Agriprocessors and their families.

He doesn't live anywhere near Postville. A physics professor at the University of Michigan, he doesn't live real close to Iowa.

But geography isn't the prime concern here. Savit says he has a "strong personal interest." That's why he got together with some other members of the congregation at the Ann Arbor Orthodox Minyan and started a relief fund.


A relief fund for illegal workers. If you find the idea disturbing, you should know that Savit is disturbed, too. He's disturbed with what's been happening at Agriprocessors, the notorious kosher meatpacking plant in northeast Iowa.

Even before Tuesday, when the state and the feds came down on the owner and his top executives with 9,000 child-labor violations, Savit had problems with the place.

Criminal charges had yet to be filed against the company, but one thing seemed clear: Conditions inside the plant were abysmal.

State health inspectors, when they were allowed in, filed numerous complaints. Think severed or smashed limbs and fingers, broken ribs, chemical burns. You want safety gear or clothing? Buy it yourself.

Last spring, the state cited Agriprocessors for 39 safety violations.

Then came the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in May, which Savit calls a "cruel, ill-considered" way to enforce federal immigration policy.

More than that. In his eyes, the "dismissive and uncharitable response" of the company to the plight of the undocumented workers, many who'd been with the company for years, was reprehensible.

But that isn't why he finally decided to do something. An Orthodox Jew, Savit is ashamed of the Orthodox Jews who own and run the company.

"This isn't a question of public relations," he says, "but we're trying to do what we can in some small way to counterbalance a misperception. Imagine you're sitting in Iowa and you're seeing this big Jewish concern involved in these unethical practices. What do you come away with?"

An impulse to stereotype, perhaps?

"You can find unethical businessmen every place," Savit says. "That doesn't bother me so much. What does bother me is the hesitation of some parts of the Jewish community to be more forthright in their statements. We thought it was important that this initiative come from the Orthodox community."

Savit has an interest, remember. He also has a unique perspective - an outsider's look from the inside. His wife, the former Kathleen Byers, grew up in Newton. Her sister and husband are teachers who live near Postville.

Savit was visiting in the late 1980s around the time the plant opened. When his sister-in-law told him he didn't have to go far to find a great kosher hamburger, he didn't believe her.

He came to believe the stories about the tense, go-along-to-get-along relationship between the little town and the big employer.

The sister had been in the homes of the Guatemalans who worked there. "These were really solid, hardworking people," Savit says. "What happened to these families was terrible. I was disturbed globally for the way in which this presented Jews to the non-Jewish world. I was disturbed locally for my family, which added to my motivation to do something."

He talked with the people in his congregation and congregations around Postville, and raised $5,000, much of it through www.annarbor minyan.org/index.html.

Eight years ago, Stephen Bloom, a University of Iowa journalism professor, wrote the critically acclaimed "Postville." The book was about the cultural clash and the mutually assured mistrust that existed between the community and the meatpacker that was supposed to save it.

By the end of the story, Postville had annexed the land around the plant - much to the disappointment of the plant's bosses - giving the town more control over the business. The reviewers praised the book, leaving at least one to wonder what happens next.

More good than bad, some would say. The raid didn't change everything for the better. The streets weren't safer. The kids weren't brighter.

Savit responded to Tuesday's news with an e-mail that said: "I am deeply distressed by the charges. Distressed, not surprised. It is, of course, possible that those charged won't be convicted, but the fact that these serious charges have been brought just adds to the growing implications of unsavory, and possibly illegal, business practices."

Now we know what came next, and Savit had it right. It's no surprise.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/p ... 010/NEWS08