Harkin demands Postville explanation

*I can tell you that there will never be an explanation, for a certain lobby will never allow such questions to be answered.*

Washington, D.C. – Sen. Tom Harkin wants the Bush administration to explain why the Agriprocessors slaughter plant in Postville was allowed to operate when it couldn’t pay for the livestock it was buying.

Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, says it was clear by the middle of October that Agriprocessors was not fully paying cattle and poultry sellers.

The plant was processing poultry up to two weeks ago, Harkin said in a letter Monday to Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer.

“Companies that are insolvent or in breach of their obligation to pay promptly are not to continue operating,” Harkin wrote.

The USDA enforces a federal law that’s meant to protect farmers in the event that a packer gets in financial trouble. The law requires packers to hold livestock and proceeds from meat sales in trust until their cash suppliers are paid. But Harkin said unpaid claims against Agriprocessors “evidently far exceed” the amount in trust.

USDA spokesman Keith Williams disputed that statement, saying that the company has a bond as well as trust assets to cover claims and that the value of the claims is yet to be determined.

Williams also said it would be up to the courts to decide whether the plant was operating while it was unable to pay its suppliers.

The plant, which was once the nation’s largest supplier of kosher meat, went into decline after an immigration raid in May and then filed for bankruptcy protection and stopped operations in November.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20081202/BUSINESS01/812020366/-1/ENT05

Federal Charges for Ex-C.E.O. at Meatpacker

*Lock him up and throw away the key.*

Federal immigration agents on Thursday arrested the former chief executive of Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s biggest kosher meatpacking company, accusing him of harboring illegal immigrants at a plant in Postville, Iowa, where about 400 immigrant workers were arrested in a raid in May.

With the arrest of the former chief executive, Sholom Rubashkin, federal authorities extended their criminal prosecution to the highest level of management at the plant. Some 300 workers, mainly immigrants from Guatemala, were convicted of felony document fraud charges after the raid, and Iowa prosecutors had faced mounting criticism for punishing those workers but not Agriprocessors’s executives and owners.

Mr. Rubashkin is the highest-ranking executive to face arrest in stepped-up immigration raids at packinghouses nationwide since late 2006.

The son of Aaron Rubashkin, the owner of the family-held company, Sholom Rubashkin had been the top manager of the kosher plant since 1987. He was forced by his father to step down as chief executive shortly after the raid.

Mr. Rubashkin was arrested Thursday by immigration agents at his home in Postville, prosecutors said, and was released on $1 million bail after a hearing.

He is also accused, in a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday, of abetting aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory two-year minimum sentence. Many of the immigrant workers were charged with that crime.

Mr. Rubashkin and his father, both Lubavitch Hasidic Jews, built Agriprocessors into a kosher giant. Kosher consumers faced meat shortages since the raid, and the scandal fueled a debate about kosher ethics.

According to the complaint, Mr. Rubashkin participated directly in efforts in the days before the raid to obtain fraudulent documents that could pass immigration agents’ scrutiny for dozens of illegal immigrants working in Postville.

The complaint suggests that plant managers had heard a raid was coming and had initially informed many workers they would have to present valid identity documents or be fired. But two floor supervisors told investigators that they met with Mr. Rubashkin at the plant to request a $4,500 loan to “help the employees who were to be terminated.” On May 9, Mr. Rubashkin agreed to give them the cash loan.

One supervisor said he had lent $200 each to about a dozen workers, who paid a line foreman to buy fake documents, the complaint says.

On May 11, the complaint charges, human resources managers worked all day under Mr. Rubashkin’s supervision to fill out job applications for workers with new fake documents.

One human resources manager told investigators that she had protested to Mr. Rubashkin that employees who had been scheduled for termination were applying under new names. Mr. Rubashkin said “the IDs looked good to him” and told her to accept them, the complaint says.

While the complaint names no employees, two supervisors, Juan Carlos Guerrero Espinoza and Martin de la Rosa, have pleaded guilty to harboring charges. A human resources manager, Laura Althouse, pleaded guilty on Wednesday.

Mr. Rubashkin and his father also face state charges for child labor violations. And Iowa labor authorities on Wednesday levied $10 million in fines against the company for wage violations.

Mr. Rubashkin faces a maximum of 22 years in prison if convicted on the federal charges.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/us/31immig.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Postville Plant Charged With 9,000 Child Labor Violations

*Children working, illegal immigrants, animal abuse…WHAT IS NEXT FOR THESE MONSTERS???*

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa attorney general’s office has filed child labor charges against the owner and managers of the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville.

The complaint filed Tuesday alleges more than 9,000 violations of Iowa’s child labor law at the plant. The attorney general’s office said the violations occurred from Sept. 9, 2007, to May 12, 2008.

The complaint indicates the violations involved 32 children under age 18, including seven who were younger than 16.

The plant was the site of one of the largest single-site immigration raids in the nation, with nearly 400 illegal workers being detained.

http://www.kcci.com/news/17429807/detail.html

Kosher meats firm cited for child labor violations

*HA. These people are absolute SNAKES. Is there ANYTHING proper at Postville??*

DES MOINES, Iowa – Iowa labor officials said Tuesday that they had uncovered dozens of child labor violations at the nation’s biggest supplier of kosher meat.

Officials from the state’s Labor Commissioner’s Office said their investigation, which spanned several months, uncovered 57 cases of child labor law violations at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, where nearly 400 workers were arrested this spring in the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history.

The types of violations included minors working in prohibited occupations, exceeding allowable hours for youth to work, failure to obtain work permits, exposure to hazardous chemicals and working with prohibited tools.

“The investigation brings to light egregious violations of virtually every aspect of Iowa’s child labor laws,” Dave Neil, Iowa Labor Commissioner, said in a statement. “It is my recommendation that the attorney general’s office prosecute these violations to the fullest extent of the law.”

Juda Engelmayer, an Agriprocessors spokesman, declined to comment.

Federal immigration agents arrested 389 illegal-immigrant workers, mostly Guatemalans, in a May 12 raid at the Agriprocessors plant. Most of the arrested workers pleaded guilty within a week and are serving sentences in federal prisons outside Iowa before being deported.

Allegations of child labor violations were included in an initial affidavit and a search warrant that led to the raid at Agriprocessors, which also operates a plant near Gordon, Neb.

Kerry Koonce, a spokeswoman for Iowa Workforce Development, the agency that oversees the labor commission, said Iowa’s child labor investigation into Agriprocessors began before the federal immigration raid and was independent of the raid.

Under Iowa law, it is illegal for children under the age of 18 to work in meatpacking plants.

Koonce said the number of violations is much larger than what is typically found in the state of Iowa.

“Typically, when we have child labor issues it’s an issue of one or two individuals,” she said. “From our point of view, with this investigation, it’s a large-scale violation of the law.”

Koonce said the full report was not being made public because it is a part of a criminal investigation but she confirmed that 57 children were involved.

Labor officials say the child labor violations would normally be turned over to the county attorney’s office, but in this case will most likely be handed over the Iowa attorney general at the county’s request.

The attorney general’s office said it could not comment on what penalties are possible, but Koonce said any charges would be filed against the company and would generally include fines.

Several underage workers who said they were employed at the plant have spoken out since the raid about their experiences.

At a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus last month in Postville, 17-year-old Noel Castillo Ordonez said he had worked long hours at the plant to support his family in Guatemala.

“I needed money for my family, because I could not help them,” he said in Spanish.

At the same meeting, 17-year-old Gilda Yolanda Ordonez Lopez openly wept as she described being forced to work shifts as long as 12 hours with no overtime pay.

“They asked me how old I was, and I told them the truth,” Lopez said.

Sister Mary McCauley of St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Postville has been working closely with the workers’ families. She said she was “heartsick” over the stories of child labor violations that she heard after the raid.

“My first response is it doesn’t surprise me because of all that I have heard,” she said Tuesday. “Therefore, I am grateful that this was brought to the attention of the proper authority and my hope would be that some sanctions would be taken because I do think that these young children were not treated with respect and they should not have been there in the first place.”

State labor officials say they are still investigating some wage violations at the plant.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080805/ap_on_re_us/kosher_slaughterhouse_child_labor