Thread: Meatpacking industry providing education to workers

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Friday, June 10, 2005 · Last updated 2:36 p.m. PT

Meatpacking industry providing education to workers

By JOE RUFF
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

OMAHA, Neb. -- Terri Gomez worked for $8.40 an hour trimming beef on the floor of an IBP Inc. meatpacking plant when she started there seven years ago.

Now she earns more than $50,000 a year at the same Pasco, Wash., plant.

Gomez credits a program offered through her employer that helped her improve her education and advance without having to find a new job.

She took classes offered at the plant, before she started work each day. The program, which Tyson Foods Inc. expanded into a learning center when it bought IBP four years ago, allowed Gomez to earn her high school degree.

"It was very convenient for me because at the time I had two children at home, and no time to run out and be working in the morning and attend full-time in the evening," said Gomez, 25.

Four months after earning her degree in 2001, Gomez was promoted to production supervisor and her salary more than doubled, going from nearly $18,000 a year to just under $40,000. She has had pay raises since and is using a tuition reimbursement program Tyson offers its workers to take more classes at a nearby college.

"It will assist in further promoting me in the company," Gomez said.

Gomez is one example of a growing number of workers at meatpacking plants across the country being offered education opportunities by the companies that employ them.

Many industries offer education packages to workers. Some tuition reimbursement programs in the meatpacking industry go back at least to the 1980s.

The push toward more education has been fueled in part by the growing number of non-English speaking minorities working in the plants, an influx that began in the 1990s, said Gary Mickelson of Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson Foods and Mark Klein of Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc., two of the nation's largest meatpacking companies.

Companies increasingly have teamed up with community colleges and high schools to offer classes in English, finances and other life skills, as well as courses toward high school degrees, they said.

Programs vary depending on the meatpacking plant and the companies involved, and precise numbers of participants and the kind of retention rates they provide are not available.

"In general, we can tell you hundreds of workers have taken advantage of the programs we've made available," Mickelson said.

Tyson's education assistance plan, consolidated and expanded this year, pays 75 percent of tuition, books and fees - up to $3,500 a year - for coursework done toward a degree that would help meet the company's business needs.

Labor advocates say increased education opportunities are a good step, but meatpacking companies may be responding to years of bad publicity over worker injury rates, hiring of undocumented workers and communities asking companies to be better corporate citizens.

"Meatpacking plants, particularly the very large companies, are sensitive to those kind of public relations scandals and issues," said Lourdes Gouveia of the Office for Latino/Latin American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Milo Mumgaard, executive director of the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law and the Public Interest, said there have been significant education improvements in the last five to seven years and it was a sign of the industry responding to criticism.

"It hasn't generally been because the industry sees this as a need in their plants," Mumgaard said.

However, Cargill's Klein said labor advocates may hold stereotypes about the work. Starting wages at meatpacking plants can be $11 an hour, turnover rates are on par with other industries and while many Hispanics fill the jobs, they are not necessarily illegal workers, Klein said.

"It's in our interest to have a safe workplace," Klein said.

Cargill's promotions also largely come from within the company and well-educated employees are needed, Klein said.

Curt Coffman, a business management consultant with The Gallup Organization in Omaha, said technology is affecting meatpacking as well as other industries, so employees need to be educated.

"In the mid-1950s, you just hired a pair of hands," Coffman said. "Today, it's more what's between the ears."

Cargill, for example, is working with Central Community College in Columbus, Neb., on a training program to help meatpacking workers run computerized production lines and automated warehouses.

Using a three-year, $1.64 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, the college is lining up Cargill and nine other businesses for training, as well as 10 high schools where industrial automation can be taught, said Doug Pauley, director of training and development at the community college.

Training will be delivered to some of the companies this fall and January is the primary target date for the programs, Pauley said.

Some forms of automation have been in meatpacking plants for at least 10 years, but the technology continues to improve, Pauley said.

"I would say there is a lot of opportunity for people at these meatpacking plants," Pauley said. "To compete in the global market it is necessary for these companies to provide the latest training."

In Grand Island, Neb., Swift & Co. built a two-classroom school near its plant so workers could attend high school classes before and after their shifts. The school opened in 2002 and is staffed full-time with a teacher from the local school district and a teacher's aide.

Funding comes from the plant, the school district and grants from a state migrant worker education program.

The program was set up to help Grand Island public schools reach young men and women who dropped out of high school and entered the work force, said Steve Joel, superintendent of the school district.

About 10 workers, many of them Hispanic as well as some Sudanese and at least one American Indian, have earned their high school diploma over the last three years, school officials said.

"It's been a great partnership," Joel said. "We wanted kids to feel they could get a high school diploma while they are working."

In Crete, Neb., Farmland Foods is offering two $2,000 college scholarships for children of workers at its meatpacking plant who participate in a four-day summer program at Doane College. The program is geared to attract Hispanic and other immigrant workers to higher education.

People attending will meet with faculty, talk with other immigrant students and tour Doane's campus in Crete, as well as the campuses of other schools.

"We just want to help educate the future work force," said plant manager Todd Gerken. "Not that they'll come work at Farmland."

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On the Net:

Tyson Foods Inc.: http://www.tysonfoodsinc.com

Cargill Inc.: http://www.cargill.com[/b]

Is this person legal? Why do they not offer education to Americans? 50,000 is a damn good salary for a person with only a high school degree. This seems very unfair.

Starting wages at meatpacking plants can be $11 an hour, turnover rates are on par with other industries and while many Hispanics fill the jobs, they are not necessarily illegal workers, Klein said.

Hmm, that is what he says......

Boycott Tyson! Smother them with letters! Throw chickens at em!

Here is where to go to send a complaint. I just did. I told them that if I find any of their plants in Alabama are hiring illegals (duh, like they DON'T) I would report them to ICE. I also told them I would never buy their products because they are putting ALL of us at risk for disease by hiring illegals who have not had health screenings which is PART of the LEGAL immigration process! I told them they were jepordizng our food chain!



http://www.tysonfoodsinc.com/Contact.aspx