Thread: Agriprocessors turns to homeless for help

June 20, 2008

Agriprocessors turns to homeless for help
By Ben Harris

NEW YORK (JTA)—In an effort to restore lagging production at its plant in Postville, Iowa, the country’s largest kosher meat producer has been hiring workers from homeless shelters in Texas to replace employees detained in a massive federal immigration raid last month.

According to a spokesman for the meat producer Agriprocessors, workers are recruited by a firm in Amarillo, Texas, and sent to Postville. Once there, they are processed by Jacobson Staffing, a Des Moines-based company that screens them for drugs and alcohol and ensures they are legally permitted to work in the United States.

Several officials in Postville say the new arrivals have created problems for the town.

Postville Police Chief Michael Halse told JTA that his officers had arrested four plant workers for disorderly conduct this week.

Father Paul Ouderkirk, leader of the local Catholic church, which has played a lead role in helping former workers and their families after last month’s raid, said a mentally challenged woman from Texas had come to his church looking for help with prescription medications.

And in an interview Friday with Postville’s local radio station, Diana Morris said she spent three days on a bus from Amarillo only to discover she was expected to live with 10 men in a four-bedroom house that had no electricity or hot water.

[b]“Amarillo’s homeless problem has become Postville’s homeless problem,â€

If you can't pay a decent wage and have safe working conditions then I guess you should not be in business in the USA.

Agriprocessor should be shut down anyway for all the violations they have already been sited for.

This is a great idea to hire homeless and unemployed Americans to work in Agriprocessing.

What an outstanding idea!

But we have laws here and it's incumbent upon these employers to honor their deal, to respect women who want private quarters from men in living arrangements, and ensure decent living quarters with electricity and hot water.

How can our food be processed by workers with no access to hot water? That is required for sanitation.

As to the Catholic Church that spoke of someone who needed help with prescription medications, did they help her find a doctor or to buy them? Where is their humanity? Only for illegal aliens, but none for Americans?

And what of this Jewish Rabbi whining about prices? He would rather have his meat processed by illegal aliens with no hot water and no sanitation preparing the food he wants to feed to his family and children?

This is a dark day for some religious organizations in my opinion who by this article demonstrate they have no respect for American Humanity and no concern for health and sanitation in the American Food Supply.

Agriprocessors, is recruiting homeless workers through a firm in Amarillo, Texas...hope this doesn't mean Agripocessors does not want to impliment safe work conditions, follow safe practices handling the meat, increase salary or give benefits.

Were the homeless hired given health screenings--these poor people lived in terrible conditions probably without health care.

Probably the same as they give to illegal aliens which would be ... uuummm .... zero!

This company has no concern for health or they would provide their workers with hot water so they can wash their hands and take baths before handling our food supply.

I BET THEY COULD HIRE MORE LOCAL PEOPLE IF THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY AND IMPROVE CONDITIONS. BUT IT SEEMS LIKE THEIR WORKERS LEAVE ALMOST AS SOON AS THEY GET THERE. THEY DONT PROVIDE A GOOD WORK ENVIRONMENT AND THEY DONT PAY ENOUGH. LET THEM GO OUT OF BUSINESS. THEY ARE A SUBSTANDARD COMPANY. OTHER PACKING COMPANIES WILL PICK UP THEIR BUSINESS AND EXPAND TO MEET THE DEMAND.

Look at this:

http://www.agriprocessor.com/media/pdf/ ... 060508.pdf

Tried to copy and paste it but they have it locked.

They've hired former US Attorney, Jim Martin to be their new Compliance Officer for immigration law compliance and are looking for a new CEO.

I guess we'll see what happens now.

Can you trust a former US Attorney?

I guess we'll find out.

Why aren't the company managers locked up alongside the illegal immigrants they hired ?

"Within weeks of the raid, a Waterloo staffing company withdrew an estimated 150 replacement workers from the plant, citing safety concerns."

When jobs in meatpacking plants were unionized, high-paying jobs, union safety inspectors were in the plant physically every day to ensure that the safety of the workers was protected. Evidentally one of the primary motivations behind massive increased illegal immigration to the U.S. over the past 30 years has been the desire of business interests to "break the backs" of unions, with their protection of wages and benefits--and physical safety--for their workers. Their ability to buy influence evidentally has ensured that our own government has effectively looked the other way for several decades to facilitate this. I read that work "on the line" in U.S. meatpacking plants is now so dangerous that USDA inspectors will no longer go "on the floor" during operations like they previously did. Thus U.S. businesses policies now are endangering the safety of immigrant and illegal alien workers in addition to that of citizens.

While admitting that high union retirement benefits have resulted in bringing U.S. automobile companies GM and Ford "to their knees" in their inability to compete financially with Asian auto companies, there must be some workable middle ground here!

Great idea. Lord knows we have plenty of homeless here in Houston not to mention all of those Katrina people still living off the government 3 years later. Put them to work!