After
By JULIA
The New York Times
Published: July 27, 2008
POSTVILLE, Iowa — When federal immigration agents raided the
kosher meatpacking plant here in May and rounded up 389 illegal immigrants,
they found more than 20 under-age workers, some as young as 13.
Now those young immigrants have begun to tell investigators
about their jobs. Some said they worked shifts of 12 hours or more, wielding
razor-edged knives and saws to slice freshly killed beef. Some worked through
the night, sometimes six nights a week.
One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he
started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts,
six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not
have time to do anything but work and sleep. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I
felt like I was a slave.”
At first, labor officials said the raid had disrupted
federal and state investigations already under way at Agriprocessors
Inc., the nation’s largest kosher plant. The raid has drawn criticism for what
some see as harsh tactics against the immigrants, with little action taken
against their employers.
But in the aftermath of the arrests, labor investigators
have reaped a bounty of new evidence from the testimony of illegal immigrants,
teenagers and adults, who were caught in the raid. In formal declarations,
immigrants have described pervasive labor violations at the plant, testimony
that could result in criminal charges for Agriprocessors
executives, labor law experts said.
Out of work and facing deportation proceedings, many of the
immigrants say they now have nothing to lose in speaking up about the
conditions in the plant. They have told investigators that they were routinely
put to work without safety training and were forced to work long shifts without
overtime or rest time. Under-age workers said their bosses knew how young they
were.
Because of the dangers of the work, it is illegal in
In a statement, Agriprocessors
said it did not employ workers under 18, and would fire any under-age worker
found to have presented false documents to obtain work.
To investigate the child labor accusations, the federal
Labor Department has joined with the Iowa Division of Labor Services in
cooperation with the state attorney general’s office, officials for the three
agencies said.
Sonia Parras Konrad,
an immigration lawyer in private practice in
“Some of these boys don’t even shave,” Ms. Parras Konrad said. “They’re
goofy. They’re teenagers.”
At a meeting here Saturday, three members of the House
Hispanic Caucus — including its chairman, Representative Luis V. Gutierrez,
Democrat of Illinois — heard seven immigrant minors describe working in the Agriprocessors plant.
“We don’t normally have many under-age folks working in our
state,” said Gail Sheridan-Lucht, a lawyer for the
state labor department, who said she could not comment specifically on the Agriprocessors investigation.
Other investigations are also under way. The Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission is examining accusations of sexual harassment
of women at the plant. Lawyers for the immigrants are preparing a suit under
the federal Fair Labor Standards Act for wage and hour violations.
Federal justice and immigration officials, speaking on
Thursday at a hearing in
While federal prosecutors are primarily focusing on
immigration charges, they may also be looking into labor violations. Search
warrant documents filed in court before the raid, which was May 12, cited a
report by an anonymous immigrant who was sent to work in the plant by
immigration authorities as an undercover informant. The immigrant saw “a rabbi
who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.”
Jewish managers oversee the slaughtering and processing of meat at Agriprocessors to ensure kosher standards.
In another episode, the informant said a floor supervisor
had blindfolded an immigrant with duct tape. “The floor supervisor then took
one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatemalan with it,” the informant said,
adding that the blow did not cause “serious injuries.”
So far, 297 illegal immigrants from the May raid have been
convicted of document fraud and other criminal charges, and most were sentenced
to five months in prison, after which they will be deported.
A spokesman for Agriprocessors, Menachem Lubinsky, said the
company could not comment on an active investigation.
“The company has two objectives in mind: to restore its
production to meet the demands of the kosher food market and to be in full
compliance with all local, state and federal laws,” Mr. Lubinsky
said. Reports of labor violations at the plant “remain allegations only, that
no agency has charged the company with,” he said.
The Agriprocessors kosher plant
here has been owned and operated since 1987 by Aaron Rubashkin
and his family. His son Sholom was the plant’s top
manager until he was removed by his father in May after the raid. The plant’s
products are distributed across the country under brands including Aaron’s Best
and Aaron’s Choice.
Most of the young immigrants were hired at Agriprocessors after they presented false Social Security
cards or other documents saying they were older than they were.
But in an interview here, Elmer L. said he had told floor
supervisors that he was under 18. He asked that his last name not be published
on advice of his lawyer, Ms. Parras Konrad, because he is a minor in deportation proceedings.
“They asked me how old I was,” Elmer L. said. “They could
see that sometimes I could not keep up with the work.”
Elmer L. said that he regularly worked 17 hours a day at the
plant and was paid $7.25 an hour. He said he was not paid overtime
consistently.
“My work was very hard, because they didn’t give me my
breaks, and I wasn’t getting very much sleep,” he said. “They told us they were
going to call immigration if we complained.”
Elmer L. said that he was clearing cow innards from the
slaughter floor last Aug. 26 when a supervisor he described as a rabbi began
yelling at him, then kicked him from behind. The blow caused
a freshly-sharpened knife to fly up and cut his elbow.
He was sent to a hospital where doctors closed the
laceration with eight stitches. But he said that when he returned, his elbow
still stinging, to ask for some time off, his supervisor ordered him back to
work.
The next day, as he was lifting a cow’s tongue, the stitches
ruptured, Elmer L. said, and the wound bled again. He said he was given a
bandage at the plant and sent back to work. The incident is confirmed in a
worker’s injury report filed on Aug. 31, 2007, by Agriprocessors
with the
Gilda O., a Guatemalan who said she was 16, said she worked
the night shift plucking chickens. She said she was working to help her parents
pay off debts.
Another Guatemalan, Joel R., who gave his age as 15, said he
dropped out of school in Postville after the eighth grade and took a job at Agriprocessors because his mother became ill. He said he
worked from 5.30 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. in a section called “quality control,” a job
he described as relatively easy that he got because he speaks English.
But he said he and other workers were under constant
pressure from supervisors. “They yell at us when we don’t hurry up, when we
don’t work fast enough for them,” said Joel R. He and Gilda O. did not want
their last names published because they are illegal immigrants and they were
not arrested in the raid.
Most of the young immigrants have been released from
detention but remain in deportation proceedings. Ms. Parras
Konrad said she will ask immigration authorities to
grant them special four-year temporary visas, known as U visas, which are
offered to immigrants who assist in law enforcement investigations.
Agriprocessors executives said
they had begun an overhaul of hiring and labor practices, starting with hiring
a compliance officer, James G. Martin, a former
Mark Lauritsen, a vice president
for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has tried to organize
the plant, said he remained skeptical. “They are the poster child for how a
rogue company can exploit a broken immigration system,” Mr. Lauritsen
said.
Correction: July 28, 2008
An article on Sunday about a raid at a meat packing plant in
Postville, Iowa, in May that captured more than 20 under-age illegal immigrant
workers misstated part of the name of a union that has tried to organize at the
plant. It is the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, not the
International Food and Commercial Workers Union.
nytimes.com