Thread: Scared Smithfield workers stay home

Published on Friday, January 26, 2007



Scared Smithfield workers stay home


By Jennifer Plotnick
Staff writer
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TAR HEEL — The 21 Smithfield Packing Co. employees arrested by immigration officials while they worked Wednesday are in the process of being deported.

The 20 men and one woman arrested were moved Thursday from the Mecklenburg County Jail to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., nearly 700 miles from Tar Heel.

Meanwhile, church officials within the region’s Hispanic community and spokespeople with the United Food & Commercial Workers union said the workers’ families didn’t know where they were and other immigrant workers were terrified of more arrests.

Production at the plant was substantially diminished Thursday as workers stayed away.

“There are hundreds of immigrant families who will have to decide, ‘Do I show up to work (Friday) and risk being arrested by immigration?’” said Eduardo Pena, a spokesman for the union, which became an unofficial hub of information for workers Thursday, he said.

The workers are going through “removal proceedings,” said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Washington.

Because ICE officials arrested the employees on administrative rather than criminal charges, it will not release their names. Raimondi would not elaborate on whether the workers could also be charged criminally or whether other workers could be targeted.

“The investigation continues,” he said.

An ICE spokeswoman told The Associated Press that administrative immigration charges can include being in the U.S illegally or overstaying a work visa.

Because much of the cleaning crew didn’t show up for work Wednesday night, production was lower and got started late at the plant Thursday, said Dennis Pittman, director of corporate communication for Smithfield.

“We were so far behind because of getting started so late,” Pittman told the AP. “There were several hundred people who didn’t show up.”

The second shift seemed to have normal attendance, he told the Observer.

“It’s been a rough day,” Pittman said. “All we were trying to do today is get the product out the door.”

Pittman told the AP the company spent most of Thursday trying to persuade Hispanic workers who stayed home to return to work, an effort that included advertising on a Spanish language radio station.

Pittman has been told union members were in the parking lot Wednesday night telling workers to leave so ICE couldn’t detain them, but the union has denied that. ICE officials were gone from the plant by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Pittman said.

On Thursday, the workers were calling each other, the union and representatives from area churches.

“The wife of one of the workers who was picked up started calling his co-workers saying, ‘Don’t go to work, immigration officials are there,’” Pena said.

Salvador Salazar, Hispanic ministry coordinator at St. Francis DeSales Church in Lumberton, said several people contacted him in a panic asking for help looking for their loved ones. One was a mother with three children.

“They’re very concerned about how they’ll live,” Salazar said.

Likely on the minds of many immigrant employees is whether ICE officials will arrest more workers.

“We still have people thinking ICE is here, and they’re not here,” Pittman said. “ICE told us they got the group of people they were looking for.”

If employees don’t go back to work for three days without calling, “We would have to replace them,” Pittman said.

Not attending work is common in the region, he said.

“Everyone in the area is experiencing people not coming to work,” he said Thursday morning. “This has put a lot of fear in people in the area.”

IMAGE program
The arrests stem from information gleaned about the employees since Smithfield joined the IMAGE program last year. Under IMAGE — which stands for ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers — Smithfield must now cross reference all employees’ names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and genders.

Smithfield has been criticized for joining the program, but Pittman has said the company had no choice if it wanted to avoid immigration raids. He said ICE told the company it was coming on Wednesday and said it wasn’t a raid.

Immigration officials showed up in unmarked cars and plain clothes, Pittman said. The workers were then sent into a room with ICE officials, questioned and arrested, spokesman Raimondi said.

Union and church officials repeatedly pointed fingers at the pork processing plant for the arrests. Some people said the workers who were most vocal about unionization were some of those arrested.

There’s been talk of unionization at the plant for a decade.

A statement from the union Thursday said arrests are likely to continue and that ICE violated its own guidelines, “which preclude the agency from facilitating the use of immigration laws of enforcement to intervene in the course of a labor dispute,” the statement said.

“The entire community has been terrorized,” said Gene Bruskin, head of the Smithfield Justice Campaign, a national coalition backed by the union. “Parents are being torn from their young children who don’t know where they are. Many of these workers have given their life blood to this company for (years) and now are being summarily handed over to be arrested and discarded. It is unconscionable and continues Smithfield’s pattern of callous disregard for the wellbeing of its workers.”

Typically, the strongest investigative efforts by ICE are directed toward companies that have made employing illegal immigrants a “business model,” ICE spokeswoman Jaime Zuieback said Wednesday night. But Smithfield is not one of those target companies, and she commended it for cooperating fully.

Because of discrepancies with employee records found through IMAGE, about 500 more immigrant workers are expected to lose their jobs starting the second week of February, Pittman has said.

Employee unrest
In November, hundreds of workers walked out of the plant, protesting the firing of 75 employees who were unable to provide verifiable documentation that they were working legally.

After mediation with the Rev. Carlos Arce, of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Red Springs, Smithfield rehired the 75 workers and gave them 60 days to provide verifiable documentation, or they’d be fired.

For months, Smithfield has been running employee information through the IMAGE program. Each of those workers gets 60 days to provide proof they are eligible to work in the U.S.

Zuieback said Wednesday she was unaware if the arrested workers had received letters from Smithfield telling them they would be terminated.

Some mismatches in documentation are simple to fix — such as proving a new last name because of marriage.

Those employees are in the clear, Pittman said. About 500 others are not because they likely won’t be able to provide proof.

Because about 75 reviews were conducted per week, it will take a couple of months for all the employees’ 60-day review periods to expire and for them to be terminated.

“The last thing we want to do is lose trained people,” Pittman said. “But we have to comply with federal regulations to make sure they’re eligible to work.”

Self-policing its workforce through IMAGE is supposed to reduce the company’s chances of immigration raids.

Smithfield will immediately look to replace the terminated workers, Pittman said.

“I’m hoping every one of them gets it fixed,” he said.

While there seem to be plenty of applicants who could be hired as replacements, the terminations will slow production and cost the plant substantially for new training, he said.

Any employee who leaves the company on good terms and who gives at least two weeks’ notice is eligible for COBRA health benefits and unused vacation pay, Pittman said. The workers facing termination aren’t excluded from that.

Fired workers will certainly be in a tight spot, but the local economy shouldn’t take a substantial hit, said Chuck Heustess, executive director of the Bladen County Economic Development Commission.

“You feel sorry for the individuals, but at the same time, Smithfield would be crazy to employ illegally when the federal government is cracking down,” Huestess said. “They’ll find 500 new people.”

Rumors were flying in the plant about the terminations before the arrests Wednesday.

“What is clear is there’s a lot of misinformation and fear among the workers about what’s going to happen,” Pena said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Staff writer Jennifer Plotnick can be reached at plotnickj@fayobserver.com or (910) 323-4848 ext. 343.
http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=252975

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There are hundreds of immigrant families who will have to decide, ‘Do I show up to work (Friday) and risk being arrested by immigration?’” said Eduardo Pena, a spokesman for the union, which became an unofficial hub of information for workers Thursday, he said.

Big Lie Eduardo. ICE doesn't arrest immigrants. Immigrants may safely attend work. Illegal aliens need to head for the homeland.

If they were here leaglly to work, they wouldn't have anything to fear. Its pretty obvious that the ones in hiding are illegal.

Say your Dad was a pot dealer, and that's how he supported your family.

But one day he gets arrested.

What did you expect?

Seriously.

Duh.

“Everyone in the area is experiencing people not coming to work,” he said Thursday morning. “This has put a lot of fear in people in the area.”

Well, this is what to expect when you hire people not here legally, as well, what were these people expecting by coming here illegally, taking jobs to which they were not entitled to as illegal aliens?

But....I suppose they assumed that when they boycotted and marched May 1st, the American people would just lay down and give them all amnesty by now, so they would not have to worry about being here illegally and getting arrested. Guess they have sorely understimated Americans.