BREAKING! Agriprocessors From The Inside – As Told By An Agriprocessors New Hire

I heard from an Agriprocessors new hire – a man brought in by OneForce, one of Agriprocessors staffing agencies, about a month or so ago.

Here is what he said:

1. The contract he was given says rent is $100 the first week and then $60 each additional week for a mattress on the floor in a house with other OneForce workers. (The normal arrangement is two to four mattresses per room, 10 per house.)

2. But despite the contract, OneForce charges him $100 per week every week – even though he protests.

3. Why does he pay? The $100 is automatically taken from each paycheck by Agriprocessors, but this deduction is not marked rent on his pay stub from OneForce – his pay is simply $100 less than what it would otherwise be.

4. His pay is given to him on a debit card.

5. Residents of at least one of the OneForce "dormitory" houses still do not have keys to the house, even though workers have lived there for at least a month.

The house is always open.

Workers have come home from work to find the refrigerator empty and all the food missing. Because of this, they won't buy things like TVs (and they don't make large cash withdrawals from their pay cards).

6. He said he works 11 to 12 hour shifts.

7. He's been shorted pay but thinks this might be OneForce's problem, not Agriprocessors, but he's not sure. He's still trying to get his shorted pay back.

8. Workers can only use the bathroom when the line is stopped for department or plant-wide breaks (which in practice means three times per shift). One of the workers near him was denied a bathroom break and wet his pants. The man kept working in urine-soked cloths for the rest of the shift.

9. Workers scrape meat off the floor with shovels and put it right back on the line.

This is a violation of both USDA regulations and the kosher policy of Agriprocessors rabbis.

The fallen meat is supposed to be taken to a point backward in the line to be reconditioned. But it gets tossed back on the line at the place where it fell anyway, even when supervisors see it, because the pressure to keep increase production is so high.

10. A worker cut himself badly and needed stitches. A supervisor (orange hat) told the worker to go get it stitched up and then take the mandatory drug test before coming back to work. The worker, who smokes a lot of marijuana, told the supervisor he'd never pass the drug test. The supervisor told the worker that for a bribe of $100, the drug test could be skipped.

11. A female worker passed out in the locker room. Supervisors immediately challenged her about drug use but did not attempt to rule out any of possible cause for her collapse. If it is drugs, Agriprocessors doesn't have to pay for her medical care, and that was all the supervisors cared about.

Comments

[Isa]

Please describe dormitory house
One bed in each room or more?
How many beds in a house?

[Shmarya]

Several mattresses per room, about 10 per house. I edited to the post to clarify this.

[the other dk]

Is there a way to bring this information to the attention of the appropriate civil authorities?

Have you tried to submit this to the OU?

[Shmarya]

The OU isn't interested. Past that, as we saw with the rabbis who staged that visit to Agriprocessors a couple weeks ago, protecting workers from retaliation or firing is not their strong suit.

Remember, the OU had a couple of senior rabbis on the trip, and the OU was perfectly fine with not meeting former workers, etc.'

The OU has never tried to contact any of the clergy working with those former workers, either. Not ever. Not even once during these last three months.

[WoolSIlkCotton]

Listen to the tour of Postville, as seen on the BBC, and you'll hear more of how Rubashkin routinely screwed new employees.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7545663.stm

[Archie Bunker]

"One of the workers near him was denied a bathroom break and wet his pants."

Don't laugh but I wonder if Rubashkin owns shares in that company from Israel that produces the Pee Pee Potty videos.

[ybd]

Getzel Rubashkin's comments are abound in other posts, but he remains silent here. Why?

[Archie Bunker]

"Have you tried to submit this to the OU?"

Weissmandel is the party that the OU relies on to collect their licensing fee. Weissmandel has told independent rabbis that they should not heed any reports on blogs, which of course completely denies, because "the internet is full of lies".

Lubinsky has also launched attacks on figures such as Rabbi Shain by sneering that bloggers are not trustworthy figures to talk about kashrus.

[state of the Jews]

Minimally their are two people per room, six to twelve people per house. I interviewed people last week in Postville who told me the house they were in had two people on mattresses in the dining room.

An investigation into housing regulations in Postville found that there are no city ordances requiring fire escapes or fire extinguishers in housing w multiple, unrelated occupants. According to those who spoke to the mayor, such regulations are being considered but are not a priority issue.

[Aaron]

No more Rubashkin's for us. In fact, I'm going to let my Meat guy know that I won't buy even if it comes in. It could sell for 0.01/lb, and I won't buy it. Now I know why my grandmother became a vegetarian when my father was so young. It's stuff like this. I have heard things like this from my mother's mother as well when she worked in a kosher chicken factory in Brooklyn in the late 1960s. The line moves so fast that how can you be sure that anything is done right. We eat like 4 oz of chicken a person in my house. We rarely eat red meat. And, I think that perhaps that it's time to revisit why we eat it at all, because this whole fiasco sounds like it could be happening at the other butcher houses. I think fish and cheese is fine by me.

[Getzel Rubashkin]

What in particular would you like me to comment on?

[Getzel Rubashkin]

2. I am aware of one person who told me they were being told they needed to stay the month, I was told by the staffing rep that this is not their arrangement and I am looking into it.

5. Possibly an issue, although I cannot imagine why this would not be addressed.

7. It is possible that an error may have resulted in a shorted pay. I don't have a name so I cannot help with that at this point, although there are processes in place to deal with this kind of issue.

8. There are no plant-wide breaks, they are done by dept. It is possible that a supervisor did not allow the worker to go to the bathroom, although I would imagine he did not realize the urgency of the workers need. I would be interested in whether the worker asked to leave to change his clothing and was denied. In that event it would be impossible to claim that the supervisor was well-meaning, and I would attempt to have him disciplined. I don't believe this kind of thing is a common occurrence. Workers often leave the line to use the bathroom.

9. I don't believe it. It is possible that meat was shoveled off the floor and put onto a conveyor that removes unusable bones etc.

10. If I can get names I can look into it and take corrective actions. Right now, this is just an incendiary anonymous story, which may or may not have happened.

11. Subjective analysis and interpretation.

[Getzel Rubashkin]

I said "I would be interested in whether the worker asked to leave to change his clothing and was denied."

That leaves a bit of a callous impression, but my point is it may have been a situation in which the supervisor was unaware of the urgency of the situation and he was already covering for someone else, so he told the guy to wait. Unless it can be established that the supervisor was acting in a callous and insensitive manner, in which case he or she is deserving of disciplinary measures.

[Jackie Aldridge]

Urine contains viruses, including viruses that cause tumors. Some human leukocyte antigens are specifically directed against such viruses. I have two of the right kind to deal with one such virus but the same HLAs make me a celiac(unable to eat wheat). Your HLAs depend on your heritage. There should be no urine or other body fluid near food.

Getzel Rubashkin, pay attention.

[Jackie Aldridge]

After reading much of the discussion on this blog...I have a few more comments.

You can certainly require your accounting staff show you analysis of all deductions made over time for all your employees. Given the simplicity of your paycheck printouts your database is obviously not sophisticated. If you are making deductions for the housing provision companies then I'd argue they are captive entities and part of your company, not independent providers of services.
I'm surprised you have mass rest breaks on your lines because this means you must have start up and stopping time for each break. How do all your employees process through the bathrooms during each break ? Is each person turning the water on and off at each sink themselves during each break? You would do better to have the water run while the bathrooms are busy. I'd suggest scented soap, something pleasant like almonds, so that people are encouraged to wash their hands. You should have videos on sanitation and cleanliness during training for your employees. People from other countries often have parasites from those countries, hookworms being a case in point. Ugly to think how much contamination there can be from people who do not wash and dry their hands properly. Paper towels are better than air drying. The friction rubs particles off, moisture carrying bacteria and viruses aren't blown into the air (to be inhaled), and the hands end up drier.
I just read "Customs and manners of the Egyptians..." by Wilkerson, 1837. Pasturalists were despised by the Egyptians, even before the Jews were enslaved. Because the Hebrews weren't brought as slaves to Egypt, they came voluntarily to a "great" civilization. Where Joseph advised them to go out into the hinterlands, because they would be despised in the cities (as unsophisticated pasturalists). Does that sound familiar? We don't have a good history of what happened next in Egypt. We do know of Latifundia slavery in Roman times, where the slave based industries and farms won out over the freeholder enterprises. Eventually most of the "free" population of the Romans were enslaved. Your enterprise, depending on illegal, immigrant labor is a slaving operation. So, your company is a direct contributor to the destruction of a free United States. I don't think the fact that other corporations are also corrupt is a good reason for your company to operate in the same way.