UPDATED: Agriprocessors New Workers Exploited

So say the people feeding and helping these new hires. And below we seem to have…

… proof. Please click to enlarge:

Note this new hire has only worked two weeks. This is his second paycheck. The first check had a gross pay amount of under $500. Deducted from that check would have been, at bare minimum, travel, set up and other fees. Also deducted would have been any cash advances received. And, most likely, rent, as well.

UPDATE 8-10-08 9:45 PM CST – State of the Jews writes:

To my knowledge there is no relationship between Jacobson on the one hand, and Lubavitch or Agriprocessors on the other - other then a business relationship.
The pay stub above is consistent with other pay stubs I have seen from current employees. Some have stated that they never asked for or received a "loan" from the company but found deductions for a loan on their pay stubs.

Many workers complained that recruiters told them their first month rent would be free only to arrive in Postville and find rent deductions from their first checks for rent. I understand that Jacobson is subletting apartments from the Rubashkin owned Nevel Real Estate Company and from Gal Investments. If this is incorrect, I'm sure Getzel will let us know.

The relationship between Gal and Nevel is not clear, however when the Director of Nevel went on vacation, Gal rented Nevel apartments.

Instead of furnished apartments, workers have generally found a mattress on the floor, one television set for everyone to share, and if they're lucky, one light bulb. People in town have helped new workers with pots and pans, lamps, etc. Reporters have I believe noted that some of these houses have 10 to 12 people living in them. At $100/person/wk that means such a property is producing $4,000/month, making them one of the more lucrative enterprises in Postville.

I will try and get copies of other pay stubs this week.

Keep in mind that we are still at the beginning of the legal charges, not the middle and no where close to the end.

GAL Investments is owned by a Chabad hasid, Gaby Menachem. The Rubashkins themselves are, of course, Chabad hasidim, as well.

Comments

[Getzel Rubashkin]

++Deducted from that check would have been, at bare minimum, travel, set up and other fees. Also deducted would have been any cash advances received. And, most likely, rent, as well.++

You managed to get the second check, maybe ask for the first and supply facts instead words.

You failed to explain how it is exploitative to allow people to live on your property for free until they get their paychecks and can pay for rent.

While you are at it, you can address the other facts I raised on this issue. Like the interest free $100 loans to people that get hit hard on the first paycheck, and other exploitative policies.

[Shmarya]

You're a spoiled child, Getzel.

1. Those workers were recruited to work for Agri and were promised things they have not received.

2. A bed for $100 per week is extremely exploitative.

3. No one is "allowing them" to live for free. They are promised housing and then dumped on a floor on a mattress for $100 per week, and that money is taken right from their paychecks, and the food shelf has to feed them.

That you think this arrangement is fine speaks to your lack of compassion an your lack of simple mentchlikeit.

[357]

whine, whine, whine, blah, blah, blah, complain complain, complain... i will be enjoyning my agri chicken and beef this shabbos - and i will drown out all the noise from above :)

Getzel you truley don't get peoples outrage. read the attached wiki entry which is rather mild.

What it does show is that you and your family have managed to tie judisim to a practice that even governments openly biased to corporate interests have been trying to eradicate for over 500 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_Acts

BTW - if this guys first paycheck is much better, why don't you post it.

[rebitzman]

++i will be enjoyning my agri chicken and beef this shabbos ++

You probably ate it all week too - didn't you?

[Aryeh G]

You should be able to derive the amounts on the first check by subtracting the current amounts from the YTD amounts on the right.

That would give a gross amount of about $500, various taxes, no rent, a $2 "Setup fee", and no other charges that went through ADP.

I'm not a Rubashkin supporter --- we haven't purchased Agri products for about eight months --- but in this case it does look like your assumptions are running a little ahead of the documentation, Shmarya.

[Shmarya]

$2 set up fee? They're taking a lot more than that, along with $75 for travel, and a whole slew of other deductions.

And then you have the "loans" many of these people say they never received but are still charged for.

[Getzel Rubashkin]

1. No one is promised things by company representatives and are not receiving them. If they have, and have notified the company about it, they receive it.

2. Again repeating that lie. Noone is paying $100 per week for a bed. The people who are paying $100 a week receive more than a bed and are on that arrangement voluntarily and temporarily because they do not have any money and someone else is laying out a deposit and rent for them.

You have the Chutzpah to portray that as exploitation. No one needs to lay out money for a house nor are they owed cash advances. They receive both, and often the one providing that loses money as a result - and you sit there in Minnesota calling them exploiters.

You ought to lay out, not lend, lay out the money for someone to pay less rent before you open your mouth to criticize people who are lending money to people with no guarantee they will see the money again, lose some of it, and still keep lending.

3. They are not promised free housing. They are provided housing for a fee, and that fee, when they do not have money to pay, is voluntarily given out of the paycheck, an arrangement not available everywhere and not owed to anyone.

The food shelf does not have to feed them. If they do not have money at the end of the week that is because they already spent it using cash advances. If the food shelf gives them food because they spent their money on other things, that is the food shelf's decision.

There is no need to spend $500 a month on rent. There are much lower rental arrangements, and if someone who cannot afford to chooses to rent a house beyond his means that does not qualify as exploitation.

Even if a full months rent of $225 is taken out of a weeks check, they should have enough money for food. And if they have other expenses that deplete their paycheck they can get an interest-free loan from the rental agency you malign.

You have some nerve, after the facts I shared with you, to keep calling these people exploiters.

[Getzel Rubashkin]

"many of these people" and other anonymous victims are easy to claim, impossible to refute. Provide names of people wronged, like Mr. Yusuf, and you all of a sudden find that not only was there no abuse or exploitation, the guy skipped town with a $50 loan unpaid.

[Getzel Rubashkin]

++$2 set up fee? They're taking a lot more than that, along with $75 for travel, and a whole slew of other deductions.++

You yourself said this is the second paycheck. As Aryeh pointed out YTD deductions do not bear out your assumed deductions.

He has worked two weeks, made close to $1000, is paid up on rent for the month, seems to have opted into a more expensive rental deal, and is down less than $500. Hardly the picture of exploitation.

[rebitzman]

Shmarya - here's a way to help settle this.

Surely if the guy gave you his pay stub, he can shoot you a picture of his living arrangements?

We see a bunch of beds in a room............

[Shmarya]

The little spoiled child speaks again.

Poor little Getzel. So hard to keep your story straight.

1. They pay $100 per week, per bed (actually $107, to be exact).

2. They get nothing else for that mattress (unless you count 1/10 of the cable bill, which seems to be what that extra $7 is for).

3. They also pay for transportation – it is deducted from their first check.

4. So is their set up fee, other fees and charges.

5. After taxes and before the Agri-approved usury, this man would have a check of about $400.

6. Subtract from that more than $100 in fees. You now have about $300.

7. Subtract from that his first week's rent. You now have less than $200.

8. Subtract cash advances given (remember there is a $5 fee per cash advance ATM withdrawal, and a worker has to withdraw the entire $100 each week or he loses it.

9. But the worker has no bank account or safe place to keep that money, and he lives in a house with 9 strangers.

10. So he withdraws smaller amounts than he other wise might, $20 per time x 4. So he gives Jacobson $20 in fees there, as well.

11. So, at best, his first check nets him about $180. And that is at best.

He still has to wash his clothes, buy his safety equipment, his boots, etc.

He's left with nothing or close to it.

And this is the best case scenario.

But Getzel "spoiled child" Rubashkin thinks Jacobson and Agri are doing these workers a favor.

That is the same thing the landed gentry thought they were doing for Europe's serfs.

[Shmarya]

Surely if the guy gave you his pay stub, he can shoot you a picture of his living arrangements?

I'll tell him to rush out and use this paycheck to purchase a digital camera and an Internet connection. While he's at it, he can buy a computer.

[Shmarya]

"many of these people" and other anonymous victims are easy to claim, impossible to refute. Provide names of people wronged, like Mr. Yusuf, and you all of a sudden find that not only was there no abuse or exploitation, the guy skipped town with a $50 loan unpaid.

Ooooooooooh! Master Getzel is upset people think he's running a pre-Civil War Southern plantation.

Don't want to look like a slave owner, Getzel? Stop owning them.

[rebitzman]

++I'll tell him to rush out and use this paycheck to purchase a digital camera and an Internet connection. While he's at it, he can buy a computer.++

He was able to get you a digital image of his pay stub. What's the issue and why the sarcasm?

[357]

my agri chicken is almost ready - the cholent is simmering. i have not had meat all week - and lookin forward to the high quality of agris products...
wah, wah, wah all the way to the market...

wah wah wah...

i have come to the conclusion, if the whiners on this website would start eating nutritous agri products, thier whining would instanly dissapear.

[sparky]

Don't choke on a chicken bone-or worse yet, contract some horrible disease from rotten Agri chickens!!!!!

[postville]

Arizona - Judge Rules: UFCW Unions [same union that fights rubashkin] Can Be Sued

heksher tzedek?? only for rubashkin?

[357]

yummy, yummy, yummy, scrumptious, scrumtious, tasty, tasty, tasty, juicy, juicy, juicy, clean, clean, clean, healthy, healthy, healthy, nutritous, nutritous, nutritous - agri products... i just can not get enough...

[postville]

before jacobson start deducting rent& expenses from the new workers, they work for a week or too & left town with out repaying any money lend to them or any of the bills, water, electric , gas ,etc.

so they didnt have another choose but to deduct all the money from the first weeks.

[Isa]

Mr. Rubashkin:

Your company is in a dark deep hole
Want to get out of it?
Hire Temple Gradin and implement what she suggests-will not cost you much either.
Then give her a free round trip air ticket -good anytime for a surprise inspection visit.

Here in Houston,Texas, saw a newspaper story about some evil company hiring minors in Postville Iowa,tsk tsk tsk.

[Shmarya]

He was able to get you a digital image of his pay stub. What's the issue and why the sarcasm?

Why do you assume he got a digital image?

[Shmarya]

before jacobson start deducting rent& expenses from the new workers, they work for a week or too & left town with out repaying any money lend to them or any of the bills, water, electric , gas ,etc.

False.

so they didnt have another choose but to deduct all the money from the first weeks.

False.

[Haemmet]

Query: What is the relationship between these entities? Who is this HR supplier? Are they yet another cog of the Hasidic community?

Knowing what rents are here on the East Coast, it seems to me that $100 per week in postville Iowa, a remote town in Iowa is rather exploitive.

[Mark Einhorn]

It would be nice to have more evidence on both sides to attempt to form an objective judgement. Such as:

1) An itemized breakdown of what is being deducted from Agri worker paychecks by Agriprocessors

2) Pictures of any goods or services (such as rental housing) that are transacted from any Agriprocessors deductions

3) Are deductions forced upon workers? Are the deductions mandatory for employment at Agriprocessors? Are the fees for the goods and services fair or unfair (e.g. for rent, are the rental costs misaligned with the local market)?

Is there any evidence beyond hearsay that workers were promised "X" (e.g. free housing) and did not receive "X"?

Shmarya,

You provide an "itemized breakdown" in an earlier comment, but is that your personal estimation?

You have done a good job of obtaining evidence and clearly and coherently connecting the dots as with the "sock puppeting". It seems as though you are in a position to obtain more here as well if it is available.

[R]

Actually if you deduct the net pay from previous week and compare to this weeks stub (that is above) you get a wage of $477.50. I don't call that $500.
Plus look at everything that is being taken out before the worker even gets the money....it's insane. Is it like that with every pay slip in the US? You pay about 3 different types of tax?? In the UK you only pay one tax and then the NI is towards your pension, which by the time you get to 70 will be about 50p a week.
I also think the rent was a bit steep. $0 for last week, but don't worry, they penalised for this week and made it over $400 with interest.
Also look at how many hours this person worked. Over 55 hours in the week and he ends up with $80?? How does that pan out? I get quadruple that working less than half the time and i get paid pittance compared with what i really should be getting.

As for Mr Numbers (aka 357) who loves eating meat all the time. I bet you are taking statins for all that high salt content and high fat calorie "healthy, clean" meat...btw you never mentioned your agri meat was kosher...i guess you don;t really know.

[state of the Jews]

To my knowledge there is no relationship between Jacobson on the one hand, and Lubavitch or Agriprocessors on the other - other then a business relationship.
The pay stub above is consistant with other pay stubs I have seen from current employees. Some have stated that they never asked for or received a "loan" from the company but found deductions for a loan on their pay stubs.
Many workers complained that recruiters told them their first month rent would be free only to arrive in Postville and find rent deductions from their first checks for rent. I understand that Jacobson is subletting apartments from the Rubashkin owned Nevel Real Estate Company and from Gal Investments. If this is incorrect, I'm sure Getzel will let us know.
The relationship between Gal and Nevel is not clear, however when the Director of Nevel went on vacation, Gal rented Nevel apartments.
Instead of furnished apartments, workers have generally found a mattress on the floor, one televsion set for everyone to share, and if they're lucky, one light bulb. People in town have helped new workers with pots and pans, lamps, etc. Reporters have I believee noted that some of these houses have 10 to 12 people living in them. At $100/person/wk that means such a property is producing $4,000/month, making them one of the more lucrative enterprises in Postville.
I will try and get copies of other pay stubs this week.
Keep in mind that we are still at the beginning of the legal charges, not the middle and no where close to the end.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Have an easy fast, FM readers.

[I-Gor]

This is check number 2. The base hourly rate is $10 (or $400 per 40 hour workweek). The year to date base pay is $877.50. Which means that check number 1 was for $477.50 of base pay. That means the employee worked 47.75 hours. Shouldn't the employee have been paid overtime (at $15/hour) for 7.75 of those hours?

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

5.167 hours * $15 / hour = $77.50

Yes, the time clocks at Rubbishcan are that accurate.

[Shmarya]

There was no overtime paid in the first check. Look at year to date and compare it to this check.

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

Just to be clear, I was being fatuous.

[Archie Bunker]

Rubashkin crimes are a source of aggravation for anyone with a conscience so this topic is definitely appropriate for Tisha B'Av.

http://www.forward.com/articles/13908/

Regarding past allegations, Lerner said he had asked that a file of worker complaints be prepared and that he would take up the issue with Agriprocessors. But Lerner stressed that the main issue now should be how to move forward.

Rael said he won’t be ready for that until various problems, like employee back pay, are worked out.

“The minute that I got through giving my little dialogue, they said, ‘That’s the past,’” Rael recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, but the past is what created the problem.’ If their intent is to move forward, I can’t move forward until this issue is totally, totally done.”

[Archie Bunker]

Rubashkin chilul Hashem at work.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/eating_bambi_20080805/

By Rob Eshman

Most of the anti-Semitic mail I get these days doesn't concern Israel, Hollywood or even the threat of a nuclear war in the Middle East -- it's about meat.

The largest supplier of kosher meat in America, Agriprocessors Inc., has been the subject of ongoing public investigation and criticism for two years now.

"Everything is a lie," Rubashkin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The company has taken out full-page ads in the Jewish press, including this paper, offering a point-by-point rebuttal of the charges.

Last week, it hosted a group of 25 Orthodox rabbis from the United States and Canada on a one-day visit to the plant.

"It's a different picture than what's been portrayed," Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie of Chabad of Yorba Linda told me. "We roamed the plant for hours, talked to anybody we wanted to. The working conditions, the safety benefits, I found them above par. It's not the reality the unions are telling."

The trip may have served to calm concerns among some kosher consumers, but judging by my mail, the damage is far more widespread.

"What will The JEWS Think of Next?!?!?" read a letter I received this week. Inside, the author had considerately attached a folded copy of Preston's New York Times article.

[Isa]

This place is spreading anti-semitism like crazy.
A real big story in the Houston Chronicle appeared.
Mr Rubashkin can talk and spin all he wants or have his paid puppets to do so but none of it is believable.
I think the press are doing stories so as to force the government to sweep in and make arrests of management. (do you know what the 'frog hop' is?)
" HANG THEM HIGH " cry the crowd.
The neo-nazi and the KKK will say "I told you so"
Quit talking and spinning!
Call in Temple Gradin and do all she requests and get out of this dark hole!

[yidandahalf]

Goebbels himself would have needed nothing more than the Rubbishclan to do his evil work. They indeed, have done more to foster anti-semitism than any one entity I can conveniently bring to mind. I have been commenting on this since January. Glad it's finally coming up from someone other than me.
BTW, Archie, your'e mopping the floor with Getzel. Keep it up. He loses every argument but he never gives up. The apple certainly doesn't fall far from the tree.

[Archie Bunker]

I will do the mop up job on Getzel when Tisha B'Av is over because I don't want to discuss learning now.

[Getzel Rubashkin]

Shmarya is in familiar and comfortable territory. Using literary license to create a neat little melodramatic fiction which his fanboys gobble up. Such gems as "Master Getzel" and "spoiled child" are a nice touch, and who needs facts. We're talking world-class genius, here. Of course, it's fictional, but what's wrong with fiction?

++1. They pay $100 per week, per bed (actually $107, to be exact).

2. They get nothing else for that mattress (unless you count 1/10 of the cable bill, which seems to be what that extra $7 is for).++

They get electricity, water, gas, any required onsite maintenance such as cutting the grass etc, and they are not required to provide a deposit. They also get this arrangement without putting any money down.

By the way, the "they" Shmarya is portraying here are the few dozen workers brought by OneForce.

++3. They also pay for transportation – it is deducted from their first check.

Is there a reason you think they are entitled to free transportation?

++4. So is their set up fee, other fees and charges.++

Specify charges, what they are for, and why you think they are unfair.

++5. After taxes and before the Agri-approved usury, this man would have a check of about $400.++

There is no usury. Any withdrawal fees go to the company which provides the ATM card. Most ATM cards have withdrawal fees, as you probably know.

++6. Subtract from that more than $100 in fees. You now have about $300.++

You have not specified, nor have you provided evidence, of $100 of fees.

++7. Subtract from that his first week's rent. You now have less than $200.

8. Subtract cash advances given (remember there is a $5 fee per cash advance ATM withdrawal, and a worker has to withdraw the entire $100 each week or he loses it.++

Notice, no credit is given for the fact that someone is providing a cash advance to someone with no cash in reserve. The fees are ATM withdrawal fees that go to the card company, and the worker is under no obligation to take that money. If he doesn't take out any money, none is subtracted from his check.

++9. But the worker has no bank account or safe place to keep that money, and he lives in a house with 9 strangers.++

And who is stopping anyone from opening a bank account. Once they do, they can give up the card, have the money deposited directly into their bank account, and be safe from being able to borrow any money through the card, G-d forbid.

++10. So he withdraws smaller amounts than he other wise might, $20 per time x 4. So he gives Jacobson $20 in fees there, as well.++

Again, Shmarya takes a literary license here. Fees do not go to Jacobson or any affiliate of Agri. No one is forcing anyone to borrow money and certainly not dictating how many times they do so, and no one is stopping anyone from opening a bank account.

++11. So, at best, his first check nets him about $180. And that is at best.++

Now firmly within our little fictional world, we can begin to feel great sympathy for Mr. Hypothetical Worker who lives here.

Shmarya, you are a piece of work.

[Shmarya]

The spoiled rich boy returns.

Process:

$5 per cash withdrawal is a lot of money for a poor worker. Whether that $5 goes to an ATM company or whether it goes to OneForce or Jacobson – or whether the $5 is splt between the ATM company and the staffing company, it is still too much.

Your family brought in poor workers and exploited them.

You could have given these people cash advances yourselves if you wanted to. You could have put $100 in a Postville bank for each of them.

But you did not do that.

Instead, you allowed your staffing companies to exploit these poor people.

The same holds true fro housing.

You $100 per week bed is about 4x more expensive than a bed in St. Paul – where housing prices and cost of living are much higher than Postville. And those St. Paul beds include electricity, water and heat.

But Master Getzel just doesn't understand this.

[Getzel Rubashkin]

Shmarya:

FACT: No one needs to take any money in advance and be subjected to ATM fees and no one is required to lend anyone money.

For you to claim that ATM fees are exploitation is ridiculous. ATM fees are a normal part of the American banking experience. They're good to avoid, but Americans paid over 4 billion dollars last year in ATM fees.

For you to argue that they need the money so therefore someone owes it to them is ridiculous. I know that GAL has already lent thousands of dollars to people who have been hit hard on their first paycheck, and if someone else is lending people money is utilizing a system from which they do not benefit which you do not approve of I invite you to provide those cash advances yourself in a manner which meets your standards.

And about those bank accounts... you're little fictional accounting calculation earlier added $20 in ATM fees because for some unexplained reason, your hypothetical worker can't make one. If they do make one, they can get their paychecks deposited there.

No one in this town is willing to rent to individuals besides GAL. He charges $225 a month, less than $60 a week. He requires a month's security deposits.

OneForce rents a few large houses from GAL. They then sub-let, without requiring a deposit, for $100 a week, and they provide some additional services such as transportation. The employees can move to cheaper accommodations whenever they wish to.

I apologize for intruding on your fascinating work of fiction.

Monsier Getzel says among the largesse bestowed upon the suffering worker/tenants is that of "required onsite maintainence such as cutting the grass" being taken care of by the management/owner of the property.
How is a person who rents A BED with the use of utilities in a house or apartment or dormatory, or trailer responsible for keeping the grass on the property mowed? I am a landlord and this is patently absurd.

[yidandahalf]

And will Monsieur Getzel be participating in Blog-O-Mania in Jerusalem? Or at least providing the hot dogs? Someone has to escort the Aaron's Worst there, so why not our own Getzel? What a platform for you, Getzel! How could they resist that Rubbishcan elan that you have shown the entire JBlogosphere? Especially on content stomachs full of rubash-in treif. Go for it, dude.

[Shmarya]

Getzel is a spoiled rich kid with no sense of reality. That's why he writes what he writes.

You brought in workers from afar, Getzel, men and women living paycheck to paycheck with no cash reserve – the working poor.

The you and your staffing companies exploited them.

You want workers to wait for their first paycheck and then open a bank account. What do they live on that first week?

You know very well your staffing companies promised them cash advances and a place to live.

What they got instead is ATM fees, loans they never received, and a mattress in a flop house at $100 per week.

Your a poster child, Getzel, for the illness that is the Rubashkin family.

[Shmarya]

*You are

[Getzel Rubashkin]

++How is a person who rents A BED with the use of utilities in a house or apartment or dormatory, or trailer responsible for keeping the grass on the property mowed? I am a landlord and this is patently absurd.++

They are not. That is inherent in a dormitory arrangement. It does explain, though, what other services are provided which lead to a higher cost than when people rent a house and do that work themselves.

++The[n] you and your staffing companies exploited them.++

Exploitation means gaining benefit from them. You fail to explain how an ATM fee is benefiting anyone but the card company, and how it is exploitation.

++You know very well your staffing companies promised them cash advances and a place to live.++

What is your basis for these promises? What were the details of these promises? Free room and board and cash in hand? I doubt it.

++What they got instead is ATM fees, loans they never received, and a mattress in a flop house at $100 per week.++

We've discussed ATM fees, you have shared no real information about those anonymous people who were charged for loans that were never received, and the people with OneForce that I spoke to told me that they were satisfied with the house, indicating that they were told what they were getting.

Also, it's pretty slick how you take one staffing agency who provided less than %1 of the workforce and paint the whole housing situation with the same brush.

[Shmarya]

And the 'workers' on the Rubashkin plantation go singing out to the fields every morning and come back singing every night, don't they Master Getzel?

[Getzel Rubashkin]

Har-Har. Is that what you do when you want to avoid having to discuss annoying things like facts, retreat into your little self-constructed fantasy world?

[Shmarya]

Nope.

Little master having some difficulty with facts, now aren't you, Master Getzel?

[Getzel Rubashkin]

Not really. The facts are, you feel its exploitation to lend people money if you do it through a debit card, you pretend that arrangement benefits OneForce somehow, you throw accusations around without providing any verifiable information, you post a paystub that is conspicuously missing $100 for fees, you present an arrangement that less than %10 of the workforce and smear Agri and staffing companies based on that, and you still haven't offered any loans.

Any facts I missed?

[Shmarya]

No, Getzel Rubashkin, the facts are:

1. These poor workers are charged $100 per week for a mattress on the floor or a bed – a rate far in excess of what could be considered market rate or fair.

2. You attempt to spin this by extolling the "extras" that come with that mattress – utilities and lawn cutting. But both are standard in these types of arrangements, not extras.

3. You also talk about transportation which, according to what I've seen involves a OneForce rep driving these poor workers to WalMart once every two weeks.

In your mind, these facts justify $100 per week rent for a bed.

For normal people uninvolved in worker exploitation and truck farming, these facts are viewed correctly as exploitation.