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Union-busting by Any Other Name...
If this had happened in another country, many of us would condemn it as an effort by an authoritarian regime to smash a unionization drive. But it happened in Postville, Iowa, so we call the massive May 12 raid by the U.S. government's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant a "workplace enforcement operation."
by David L. Wilson, MRzine
July 20, 2008
The huge meatpacking plant had been cited by government agencies for numerous violations of environmental and labor laws and for "acts of inhumane slaughter" of animals. New inquiries were under way into allegations of wage violations and the illegal employment of minors. A large national union was trying to organize the factory's 970 workers. But all this was put on hold the morning of May 12, 2008.
Helicopters, buses, and vans encircled the western part of the tiny community where the plant was located. Hundreds of government agents surrounded the facility and then arrested 389 workers, including 76 adult women and 18 children between the ages of 13 and 17. The majority of the detainees were taken to a cattle association fairground, now converted into a temporary prison and courthouse. The shackled workers were processed in groups of ten through an assembly line of judges, prosecutors, and court-appointed defense lawyers. Faced with trumped-up felony charges, by May 23 a total of 297 workers had accepted plea bargains; 270 were sentenced to five months in prison, while 27 received probation. Almost all the adult workers were to be deported as soon as they had served their time.
Read the full article:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wilson200708.html
July 20, 2008
The huge meatpacking plant had been cited by government agencies for numerous violations of environmental and labor laws and for "acts of inhumane slaughter" of animals. New inquiries were under way into allegations of wage violations and the illegal employment of minors. A large national union was trying to organize the factory's 970 workers. But all this was put on hold the morning of May 12, 2008.
Helicopters, buses, and vans encircled the western part of the tiny community where the plant was located. Hundreds of government agents surrounded the facility and then arrested 389 workers, including 76 adult women and 18 children between the ages of 13 and 17. The majority of the detainees were taken to a cattle association fairground, now converted into a temporary prison and courthouse. The shackled workers were processed in groups of ten through an assembly line of judges, prosecutors, and court-appointed defense lawyers. Faced with trumped-up felony charges, by May 23 a total of 297 workers had accepted plea bargains; 270 were sentenced to five months in prison, while 27 received probation. Almost all the adult workers were to be deported as soon as they had served their time.
Read the full article:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wilson200708.html
For more information:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
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Slaughterhouses in the U.S. directly exploit undocumented immigrant laborers, and maintain the economic conditions to increase the rate of undocumented immigration through NAFTA/WTO free trade programs..
The ICE is the law "enforcement" arm of the corporations, attempting to fight the injustices of worker exploitation without prosecuting the slaughterhouse corporation as the entity responsible for maintaining these conditions of abuse is ineffective and misplaced enforcement..
Immigrant workers, (undocumented especially) need some sort of protection from the corporate industrial slaughterhouse conditions, and forming a union is one such way. It certainly appears that the ICE raid was aimed as busting the forming labor union, though there needs to be some alternative besides working or even operating industrial slaughterhouses for all of our collective futures, wherever we are coming from..
"Lured to the States
"Tempted by promises of a steady income, many workers are lured to the States to work in slaughterhouses. Slaughterhouses in the U.S. run radio advertisements in countries in Latin America to recruit workers, and the animal-processing giant IBP has a labor office in Mexico City.53 Some companies even bus workers from their homes south of the border to the slaughterhouses where they will work—GFI America, Inc., an animal-processing corporation that makes hamburger patties for chain restaurants—even bussed workers from the Mexican border to a homeless shelter in Minnesota. The company had told the immigrants that they would be given apartments, and it tried to make peace with officials at the homeless shelter by offering to donate some hamburgers to the shelter’s cafeteria. Understandably outraged, one county official said, “Our job is not to provide subsidies to corporations that are importing low-cost labor.”54
Meat industry giants have also been charged with smuggling undocumented workers into the U.S. to work at their killing plants. In 2001, Tyson, the world’s largest meat producer, was indicted for human trafficking following a lengthy undercover investigation that found that Tyson slaughterhouse managers plotted to bring undocumented workers into the States to work for low wages in its animal-processing plants.55
No Way Out
Immigrant workers are easy prey for the meat industry. After they are brought to the U.S., they’re often so desperate to make money to send to their families back home that they’ll take any job without complaint. If they’re being treated unfairly, they don’t have any choice but to continue working for the farmed-animal industry, and if they become injured and can no longer work, they are often stuck in the U.S. with no job and no money to buy a bus ticket home."
boycott factory farmed meat @;
http://www.goveg.com/workerRights_immigrant.asp
At some point this cycle of predation needs to end, and the simplest way to accomplish this goal is to repeal the free trade agreements NAFTA and WTO that enable these conditions to continue. ANY other measures, from border walls to attempts at mass amnesty programs, will fail and the exploitation of immigrants by industrial ag/animal farm corporations will continue. Repeal NAFTA and the WTO, they are only words and can be torn up like so many leaves of spinach..
The ICE is the law "enforcement" arm of the corporations, attempting to fight the injustices of worker exploitation without prosecuting the slaughterhouse corporation as the entity responsible for maintaining these conditions of abuse is ineffective and misplaced enforcement..
Immigrant workers, (undocumented especially) need some sort of protection from the corporate industrial slaughterhouse conditions, and forming a union is one such way. It certainly appears that the ICE raid was aimed as busting the forming labor union, though there needs to be some alternative besides working or even operating industrial slaughterhouses for all of our collective futures, wherever we are coming from..
"Lured to the States
"Tempted by promises of a steady income, many workers are lured to the States to work in slaughterhouses. Slaughterhouses in the U.S. run radio advertisements in countries in Latin America to recruit workers, and the animal-processing giant IBP has a labor office in Mexico City.53 Some companies even bus workers from their homes south of the border to the slaughterhouses where they will work—GFI America, Inc., an animal-processing corporation that makes hamburger patties for chain restaurants—even bussed workers from the Mexican border to a homeless shelter in Minnesota. The company had told the immigrants that they would be given apartments, and it tried to make peace with officials at the homeless shelter by offering to donate some hamburgers to the shelter’s cafeteria. Understandably outraged, one county official said, “Our job is not to provide subsidies to corporations that are importing low-cost labor.”54
Meat industry giants have also been charged with smuggling undocumented workers into the U.S. to work at their killing plants. In 2001, Tyson, the world’s largest meat producer, was indicted for human trafficking following a lengthy undercover investigation that found that Tyson slaughterhouse managers plotted to bring undocumented workers into the States to work for low wages in its animal-processing plants.55
No Way Out
Immigrant workers are easy prey for the meat industry. After they are brought to the U.S., they’re often so desperate to make money to send to their families back home that they’ll take any job without complaint. If they’re being treated unfairly, they don’t have any choice but to continue working for the farmed-animal industry, and if they become injured and can no longer work, they are often stuck in the U.S. with no job and no money to buy a bus ticket home."
boycott factory farmed meat @;
http://www.goveg.com/workerRights_immigrant.asp
At some point this cycle of predation needs to end, and the simplest way to accomplish this goal is to repeal the free trade agreements NAFTA and WTO that enable these conditions to continue. ANY other measures, from border walls to attempts at mass amnesty programs, will fail and the exploitation of immigrants by industrial ag/animal farm corporations will continue. Repeal NAFTA and the WTO, they are only words and can be torn up like so many leaves of spinach..
Better idea, raise wages and unionize these jobs for working class Americans.
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