RUBASHKIN WORKERS PAID $5 Per Hour

That's right. Chabad rabbi and former shaliach…

… Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin and his family paid hundreds of illegal workers $5 per hour.

The Des Moines Register reports:

…According to search warrants, ICE agents interviewed a former plant supervisor – identified as “Source 1” – in November 2007, who told them that the plant employed foreign nationals from Mexico, Guatemala and Eastern Europe. Roughly 80 percent of those workers were living illegally in the U.S., the supervisor said.

“Source 1” told federal agents that some employees were running a methamphetamine lab in the plant, and were bringing weapons to work. The supervisor confronted a higher-level manager about the drugs, and shortly after was fired.

The supervisors also described an encounter with the plant’s human resources manager about three separate Social Security cards from different employees with the same number. The human resources manager "laughed when this matter was brought to her attention," the supervisor told federal agents.

In February 2008, a confidential informant identified as "Source 7," who has worked with federal agents in past immigration cases, detailed several incidents of alleged worker abuse at the plant.

The source, who was lawfully employed at the plant, told authorities that a floor supervisor duct-taped the eyes of an illegal Guatemalan employee and struck him with a meat hook. The blow caused no serious injuries.

"Source 7" asked the Guatemalan to report the incident, but the employee said doing so could jeopardize his job.

In another alleged incident, Source 7 said, a floor supervisor identified as a Hasidic Jew pushed another illegal employee because he did not like the way the employee was moving meat.

A plant employee identified as “Source 11” told authorities that he/she was hired without presenting employment documents or filling out any forms. The worker’s first paycheck had a different person’s name on it, which was then cashed at another part of the plant.

Undocumented workers were paid $5 an hour for their first three or four months on the job, the employee said, and then received a salary increase to $6 per hour.…

Comments

[Isa]

At $5.00 an hour.
One gets cheap 'kosher' meat
and a whole lot of ANTI-SEMITES!

[Carol Ann Varley]

I suspect the purchase of extra meathooks cut profits and slashed salaries.

[shmuel]

How much does Lakewood pay its guys? Is it competitive with this illegal meat-packing plant? At least, at Rubashkin, you don't have to wait 3 years before seeing a paycheck.
Just kidding. Close the damn hellhole down once and for all.

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

Close the damn hellhole down once and for all.

Kill it with fire.

[Carol Ann Varley]

Meathooks?!? I'm such a meat-head!
I meant to write meat hooks.

(Hope the USDA approves this second post)

[uncle joe mccarthy]

cheap kosher meat??? i havent noticed any dif between rubashkin and other brands

the savings were not passed onto consumers

and if i read on another blog about how rubashkin was such a baal tzedakah, im gonna puke

rubashkin has made a tremendous chillul hashem and needs to be placed in cherem

[People for The Ethical of Vegetables]

We should be thankful for the lives of all those heads of lettuce, hearts of palm and hands of bananas he has saved by providing us with steak!

[Shmarya]

Stop leaving comments under different names.

[People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables]

You bigotted against victims of multiple personality disorder?

[yidandahalf]

Who is going to place him in cherem? The lubavitchers will soon be totally outside Judaism with their own religion anyway. We Jews are doing nothing about most of these shandas. Most of his kosher meat will end up going to the goyim who will be his saviours because glatt=cleanliness. The anti-semites and neo-nazis will have target practice on us once again because of some wretched transplanted kikes from Iowa.

[Shmarya]

ou bigotted against victims of multiple personality disorder?

Stop it now or I'll delete all your comments.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

At $5.00 an hour.
One gets cheap 'kosher' meat
and a whole lot of ANTI-SEMITES!

so true isa.
in this case however, when the meat gets to us, it's not cheap.
it's cheap to the rubashkins.

[Milton Friedman]

And you would rather the plant close and those workers make $1.50 an hour in Mexico? Such wonderful liberal compassion!

[yidandahalf]

I really do not care what they make in Mexico. I am not a Mexican. I am an American and I am a Jew. The corruption occuring in our 'religion' is what concerns most of us here not the Golem's illegal alien workers. Oh, sorry, 'undocumented' workers.

[Yochanan Lavie]

There is a reason why they call it "illegal" immigration. It is against the law, and once the law is flouted, the rule of law is undermined. See Somalia for an alternative to the rule of law.

Most illegal aliens are fine people, and are law-abiding apart from their initial entry. I don't hate them- they want to better themselves. But a nation needs control over its borders, language and culture, and laws, or it will cease to be a nation.

[Anon]

Some of these allegations are quite serious, however, I would take these allegations by a, presumably, disgruntled former employee with a grain of salt. If they prove to be true the appropriate authorities will be all over it. Time will tell.

[yidandahalf]

This sounds reasonable. One disgruntled employee could be responsible for all the woes visited upon Sholem the Golem. Think up something better than this can't you?

[Yochanan Lavie]

Maybe Sholem's name should be Milchamah.

[Milty's Uncle]

And you would rather the plant close and those workers make $1.50 an hour in Mexico? Such wonderful liberal compassion!

Nice try.

Too bad that one issue here is that the workers are being paid a wage below that of the federally mandated minimum wage (which isn't much higher).

Also, with the cost of living being much higher here than in Mexico, paying them 5.00 per hour probably works out to 1.50 per hour if they stayed in Mexico.

When the issue turns to the workers facing the loss of 10.00 or 20.00 an hour jobs, we can talk about "compassion."

So, are you saying that pseudo-conservative compassion is letting workers work for below minimum wage in unsafe working conditions? I must say, that is VERY compassionate.

Thank you. Try again.