BREAKING! NY Times Confirms Forward Report On Agriprocessors Brooklyn Distribution Center – Agriprocessors Workers Paid 1/2 Of What International Glatt Workers Make, Agri Workers Do Not Get Health Insurance

Here's the key information:

1. Agriprocessors and International Glatt Brooklyn facilities are side by side in a row of warehouses that house 20 or so meatpackers. All but a few are unionized.

Agriprocessors' workers make about half of what International Glatt's workers make. International Glatt's workers also get benefits, including health insurance. Agriprocessors does not give its workers health insurance.

2. Agriprocessors has steadfastly refused to recognize workers' votes to unionize, claiming the workers are mostly illegal and their votes should not count. The National Labor Relations Board and the US Court of Appeals have both repeated riled that Agriprocessors is in violation of the law, basing this on a clear 1984 US Supreme Court decision that rules illegal workers can unionize. (The idea being in part that this unionization would stop employers from underpaying illegals. That underpayment drops wages for legal workers.)

Even so, workers at Agriprocessors' Brooklyn distribution center still include illegals.

3. Nathan Lewin's 'case' for Agriprocessors hoped-for US Supreme Court appeal is that there are far more illegal workers today than there were in 1984, and that it is now a crime to hire illegals.

Of course, none of that changes what the Supreme Court ruled or why it so ruled. More illegals makes it even more important for US law to prevent abuse and to keep wages earned by illegals higher.

The alternative is to drop wages for legal workers and make their workplaces less safe – just like what happened at Agriprocessors.

Here is the NY Times report (which does not mention the Forward's report that broke the story – or, for that matter, my earlier report that began that process):

Meatpacker in Brooklyn Challenges a Union Vote
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Agriprocessors, the Brooklyn-based company that is the nation’s largest kosher meat producer, is well known for the labor troubles at its meatpacking plant in Iowa — federal agents detained 389 of its workers as illegal immigrants in May, and labor officials in Iowa have accused it of employing 57 under-age workers.

But Agriprocessors is also having labor troubles closer to home, with the company asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn a vote to unionize at its distribution center along the Brooklyn waterfront.

If successful, the company’s appeal could have repercussions at companies across the country: it is trying to persuade the Supreme Court to rule that illegal immigrants do not have the right to join labor unions.

In September 2005, the company’s Brooklyn employees voted 15 to 5 to unionize, with one ballot challenged. The workers, most of them immigrants from Mexico, complained of low pay, not receiving time-and-a-half for overtime and not having health insurance or paid holidays.

“It was a dirty place to work, and they treated some of the workers real bad,” said Lucilo Brito, a former Agriprocessors truck driver.

Days after the vote, Agriprocessors stunned its employees by announcing that it would not recognize the union because, it said, it had just discovered that 17 of the workers were illegal immigrants.

The National Labor Relations Board nonetheless ordered Agriprocessors to recognize the union, Local 342 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, citing a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the right of illegal immigrants to join unions.

Agriprocessors appealed the labor board’s order, with one of its lawyers, Richard Howard, telling the board, “This should not be a valid vote for representation” because “they’re not documented workers and not allowed to work.”

After Agriprocessors refused to deal with the union, 14 of the workers went on strike for seven weeks. The company responded by firing the strikers. (During the strike, union officials said, management hired day laborers from a nearby street corner, many of them illegal immigrants.)

The labor board continues to insist that Agriprocessors recognize the union. Lawyers for the board and union argue that it is foolish for the company to appeal the 1984 decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that illegal immigrant workers fall within the definition of “employee” in the National Labor Relations Act and thus have the right to join unions.

“Whether people are undocumented or not, they deserve to have some union represent them,” said Lisa O’Leary, executive vice president of Local 342, which represents 10,000 meat, poultry and seafood workers in the New York area. “That will help reduce the abuses that undocumented workers face.”

The Agriprocessors distribution center is one of 20 or so meat wholesalers at the Brooklyn Terminal Market at First Avenue near 56th Street in Sunset Park, where there are two long rows of low-lying buildings with meat hooks hanging above the loading docks. All but a handful of the meat companies are unionized.

Connected to the Agriprocessors center are two refrigeration trailers that hum 24 hours a day, and parked outside are trucks painted with the company’s main retail logo, Aaron’s Best.

Ante Vulin, a butcher at International Glatt Kosher Meats, a unionized wholesaler directly across from Agriprocessors, said belonging to the union meant higher pay and better benefits.

“What’s the purpose of leaving here when you don’t get more at another place?” said Mr. Vulin, who earns $20.25 an hour after 20 years on the job.

David Young, an organizer with Local 342, said it was easy to get Agriprocessors’ workers to vote to unionize because they had talked with workers at other distribution centers and seen the fruits of unionizing.

The manager of the Agriprocessors distribution center refused to comment about workplace conditions or the litigation. A company lawyer, Arnold Kaufman, said it would be inappropriate to comment during litigation — the company is hoping the Supreme Court will hear its appeal.

During the organizing drive in 2005, Agriprocessors fought hard to defeat the union. One worker said managers told him: “The union is not good. Everything they say is a lie.”

The company, the labor board asserted, improperly fired two workers for supporting the union. Moreover, the board said, management sought to block the workers from voting for the United Food and Commercial Workers, by announcing one day that a majority of its drivers had signed up with a union known for working closely with employers, Local 17-18 of the United Production Workers.

Several workers said management representatives had pressured them to sign cards supporting Local 17-18, and had done so after management told the labor relations board that a majority of workers had already signed cards backing that union.

Labor board officials dismissed the company’s efforts to steer its employees into Local 17-18 as a charade. It ordered the secret-ballot vote to proceed, and the workers voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers.

When Agriprocessors said it would ignore the vote because it had discovered that most employees were in the country illegally, the union insisted the company was acting in bad faith.

“They knew all along they were hiring undocumented workers,” said Mr. Young, the organizer. (He wondered why, if the company was suddenly so concerned about employing illegal immigrants, it did not conduct similar checks at its Iowa plant.)

Agriprocessors officials said they had no idea their Brooklyn employees were illegal immigrants, insisting that they had been fooled because the workers presented fraudulent documents. Agriprocessors officials said the same thing after the immigration raid at its Iowa plant in May.

Mr. Howard, the company’s lawyer, said it should not be possible to join a union “if you are not legally allowed to work, if your working for this employer results from the perpetration of a fraud upon this employer and results from a crime against the country.”

The National Labor Relations Board in Washington and the United States Court of Appeals in Washington rejected Agriprocessors’ argument that illegal immigrants should not have the right to join unions. In a decision last January, the appeals court, echoing the 1984 Supreme Court decision, wrote that allowing illegal immigrants to join a union “helps to assure that the wages and employment conditions of lawful residents are not adversely affected by the competition of illegal alien employees.”

Nathan Lewin, the lead lawyer in Agriprocessors’ appeal to the Supreme Court, said the issue should be reconsidered because there are so many more illegal immigrant workers now than in 1984 and because a federal law passed two years after that ruling made it a crime for companies to hire illegal immigrants.

“The attitude of federal and local laws towards illegal immigrant workers has undergone a sea change,” the company’s appeal says. “Federal policy regarding the employment of undocumented aliens is far more prohibitive today.”

Alvin Blyer, regional director of the labor board’s office in Brooklyn, said he was not surprised by the company’s appeals.

“Many times employers are anxious to put off the day that they have to deal with a labor union and bargain collectively,” Mr. Blyer said. “Even in cases where their legal position is unlikely to succeed, they find it economically worthwhile to delay that day.”

Last Thursday, a butcher who had just finished the midnight-to-9 a.m. shift at the Agriprocessors distribution center said that the company had improved wages and conditions somewhat since the unionization vote three years ago. The worker said he was paid $8.50 an hour, got one week vacation a year and received time-and-a-half pay for overtime.

“We don’t get health insurance,” said the worker, who insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation. And in a candid moment, he acknowledged that he was an illegal immigrant.

Comments

[critical_minyan]

Agriprocessors is a scummy company. This is horrible story is another reason that the OU should pull its Hashgacha.
Nathan Lewin's tactics are unethical and disgusting. Instead of paying his hundred's of thousands of Dollars in legal fees, Agriprocessors should pay this money to their workers. His money is coming at the expense of the workers suffering.
The argument itself is not even logical. If the worker's are illegal, why are they even working for your company in the first place?
I hope the union arranges a picket line at a kosher restaraunt or catering hall that serves Rubashkin meat. Imagine if you go to a simcha and you have cross a picket line to get in. How many simchas would serve Rubashkin after that?
I think many Orthodox jews, including myself, would join the picket lines to protest if the Union arranged for a boycott.

[critical_minyan]

It is ironic that the OU is the Acronym for the Rabbis who give Kosher certification to this plant and is stamped on all meat coming out of this plant. The OU stands for Orthodox Union. Was the OU originally a Union?

[ybd]

Look at the next to last line in the article. 'A Butcher.....'. If there was a butcher working there, then Rubashkin has to be under USDA in that location, which he is not. Add unsafe meat charges to the Rubashkin list of misdeeds.

[critical_minyan]

According to the article there were only 20 employees at the brooklyn location and 15/20 voted for the union.
To prevent these 20 employees from unionizing they probably are paying Nat Lewin hundred's of thousands of dollars to try and get this case to the supreme court.
Not only is it not a good business decision to take a relatively minor case such as this to the supreme court instead of following the law, but all the facts of this case from 2005 will be used to prove that Rubashkin had full knowledge of what was going on in Iowa. Rubashkin's main argument is that he had no knowledge of what was going on in his Iowa plant, however 2 years earlier he was able to determine that the workers were illegal as soon as they decided to unionize. Rubashkin's mockery of the laws of this country are not defendable by any lawyer, let alone a shit one like Lewin.
Additionally, Nat Lewin is helping the government prosecute his clients by continuing to press this lawsuit forward, for his own pocketbook and his own legal reputation. Even if Lewin wins this case, the family is not better off in their criminal cases. If the Rubashkin's want to stop digging themselves deeper into shit, the first thing they should do is fire their incompetent consigliere.
Either way, they deserve whatever they get, because they are greedy and have made themselves the test case of U.S. immigration and labor policy and are the worst case of employers using bad government policy to exploit their workers.
Any prosecutor who takes them on is guaranteed positive press coverage which is the inducement for any politically ambitious prosecutor to be as agressive as possible.
The Rubashkin's have no chance. They will get many years in prison.

[Archie Bunker]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DCGOA_RlajQ/SLrO9kaBt_I/AAAAAAAACGw/pxnsn5Ox_VU/s1600-h/scan00021.gif

[Paul Freedman]

A classic example of chutzpah, the equivalent of the parricide claiming exemption due to orphanhood.

AgriP is appealing on the basis of a federal law that makes it a federal infraction to hire illegal aliens--their brief would appear to rest on the piquant thesis that because they, the company, have violated the law their employees have no right to unionize because their labor is the fruit of appellant's illegal actions.

This is a unique approach but something of a "Hail Mary" pass for the firm as they are advocating punishing workers by firing or non-unionization for the very owner sin of hiring them. The company is asking for their right to hire illegals and deny union membership, notwithstanding the prior Supreme Court ruling no the grounds that this very right now involves a federal crime.

It is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court, that has already affirmed the right of illegals to unionize precisely to avoid encouraging manufacturing capital undermining legal unionization through the hiring illegals owners claim ineligible, will now reverse itself because AgriP asserts, yes, we are doing the very thing you wished to avoid by permitting illegal unionization, but now were are violating federal law in doing so.

Far from assuring success in overturning the union vote, such a, um, "unique" legal position, will succeed, if it succeeds at all, in triggering a bench warrant for the arrest of those making the representation.

It is past time for those associated with AgriP but not directly involved in strategies whose venality is matched only by their apparent incompetence to reconsider business and family attachments.

[Paul Freedman]

"permit illegal unionization"--meant, "permit unionization of undocumented workers, or 'illegals'"--the actual illegality ApriP is admitting to in this case, as noted, is, weirdly, their own inferential misconduct in hiring

[Taking the High Road]

Nat Lewin must have really paid attention in yeshiva when he learnt about how to be Metaher a Sheretz with 150 different reasons...Its about time he came to his senses! If not, he is in for a rude awakening.

[Carol-Ann]

Paul's post highlighted Agri's circuitous legal position.

But, I was won over by his use of the term
'piquant'.

[Anonymous]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DCGOA_RlajQ/SLrO9kaBt_I/AAAAAAAACGw/pxnsn5Ox_VU/s1600-h/scan00021.gif

Posted by: Archie Bunker

Another intelligent post from Mr. Incontinent.

You asswipe.

[Archie Bunker]

"Anonymous" is obviously too slow to "get" what the significance of that post is. Since he is probably one of the Rubashkin juvenile's or a friend, he will be even more infuriated when he learns what it is.

[Archie Bunker]

"classic example of chutzpah, the equivalent of the parricide claiming exemption due to orphanhood"

And a classic example in Talmudic logic of "shelo yehay chotei nischar". But all these yeshiva educated phonies fronting for Rubashkin like Lewin, Hoffman & Lerner, only remember selected items in support of their propaganda.

[rebitzman]

++"Anonymous" is obviously too slow to "get" what the significance of that post is. Since he is probably one of the Rubashkin juvenile's or a friend, he will be even more infuriated when he learns what it is.++

Help him out, Archie (and may I suggest you use REAL little words?).

[Anonymous]

"Anonymous" is obviously too slow to "get" what the significance of that post is. Since he is probably one of the Rubashkin juvenile's or a friend, he will be even more infuriated when he learns what it is.

Posted by: Archie Bunker/b>

Wrong again doof ball.

Your Depends are leaking.

Your pants are stained.

Your posts are BS filled with your ego.

[Archie Is Full Of Poop]

Help him out, Archie (and may I suggest you use REAL little words?).

And maybe you can get Archie to post some things of substance.

And change his Depends now and then.

[Archie Is Full Of Poop]

We love Archie's stupid posts.

[rebitzman]

++Wrong again doof ball.++

He's smart enough to close an HTML tag - a skill that appears to have evaded you.

[rebitzman]

++Wrong again doof ball.++

Actually - he's probably right. No one over the age of 12 throws out "doof ball" and seriously expects his/her target to be offended.

What's next - you going to call him "Mr. Poopy Pants"?

[Isa]

Regarding the link posted by Mr. Bunker

"regarding the few miscuts we have daily"
My question is why would miscuts be treated differently from a treif condition found inside the animal? (UNLESS THESE WERE THE ONLY REJECTS)
From Pious and rightous Schoteem that I knew years ago the level of animals that were found to be kosher is 60% at well run kosher operation . THEN in those days there were 99% kosher operations where almost ALL the animals passed.(These places could not be trusted)
Mr. Anonymous needs Depends on his brain.

[Anonymous]

What's next - you going to call him "Mr. Poopy Pants"?

Whoah. You heard the squishy sound too.

When he walks by, people run for cover.

[Anonymous]

Archie let his Depends leak out in shul.

They should cut the front of his legs so everyone knows he is incontinent.

[rebitzman]

++My question is why would miscuts be treated differently from a treif condition found inside the animal?++

That's one question.

Another might be what practical reason is there to make an incision to identify a treif animal - and then saw that incision off? What happens to the animal after the remove the "contaminated area"?

[Sarah]

I seriously doubt that AgriP is paying for this appeal alone. There must be a way to find out who else is in on this. Like what individuals, companies or organizations that can benefit.

[Anonymous]

I seriously doubt that AgriP is paying for this appeal alone. There must be a way to find out who else is in on this. Like what individuals, companies or organizations that can benefit.

Posted by: Sarah

Why the conspiracy theory?

Archie is paying for it.

Nate Lewin wears Archie's used diapers.

[Archie Is Full Of Poop]

Remember, the next time Archie posts,
listen for the squishy sound.

[sage]

Hey "Anonymous" and "Archie Is Full Of Poop",

Why are both of you wasting so much time on this thread and others engaging in "adolescent antics", instead of respectfully dealing with the issues?

There will soon, G-d willing, be an Agri Trial brought by the Iowa AG and a second, following later on by the Feds, with the truth coming out for all to see.

Deal with it.

[Archie Is Full Of Poop]

There will soon, G-d willing, be an Agri Trial brought by the Iowa AG and a second, following later on by the Feds, with the truth coming out for all to see.

Deal with it.

Posted by: sage

Good. I hope they all go to jail if they broke laws.

I hope the OU gets the balls to remove their certification. (They won't)

And I hope competition starts and the market buries them.

And finally, I hope Archie stops posting such crap on the blog.

He really is so full of shit his eyes are brown.

[state of the Jews]

"There will soon, G-d willing, be an Agri Trial brought by the Iowa AG and a second, following later on by the Feds, with the truth coming out for all to see.

Deal with it."

Before there will be trials, there will be more arrests.

[sage]

Absolutely !!!!!

And the wider the arrest net, the better.

[Paul Freedman]

Carol-Ann, Archie Bunker: ty for your observations--as a secular ignoramus vis a vis Talmudic disputation and without intra-familial Orthodox commitments, I remain baffled as to lessons not learned

[sage]

Hi Paul,

No need to be baffled.

Folks who care only about "what's in my wallet" don't care for or need any religious instruction or lessons.

Their commander in chief is mammon instead of G-d.

[Paul Freedman]

sage, but, then again, even the Shaddai of Mammon might teach:

When you are in a hole, *stop digging*!

Heck, I've always thought that the straighter path would have "paid off" much more handsomely than these shortcuts-to-disaster.

[sage]

It seems to me, that the folks involved here, having been on the 'crooked path' for such a very long time, have lost track of exactly what the 'straight path means', let alone finding it.

[Carol-Ann]

{shortcuts-to-disaster}

The National Geographic Channel should profile Agriprocessors in their series, "Seconds From Disaster".

[Paul Freedman]

National Public Radio is now doing a story on the labor contractor "deductions", the "dank basement" (reporter's words) of the "dorm housing", the food pantry contributions to worker diets, and the labor recruitment taking place in Palau etc. for All Things Considered--in the midst of the labor deportations sympathy for illegal workers had contributed to some rebound sympathy for AgriP, viewed as a willing supporter of diversity; but time and the absence of a Hispanic undocumented community to beatify may be changing general media perceptions of labor conditions

[Jerome Soller]

I agree with previous posters' statements. The Agriprocessor argument about illegals is surreal. If even one worker there is legal, they should have the right to unionize. Would one deny legal US citizens any of their rights on the presumption that their employer MAY have illegally hired workers and/or been negligent? I agree with the analogy of "If a person murders their parents for their inheritance and then begs the mercy of the court because they are an orphan". Once an employer is aware that the majority of their workforce at a location is illegal, it is a crime to do nothing. They admit to this in writing, essentially an admission of guilt!? Instead of resolving it, they chose to do nothing and fight the unionization!? This seems not only criminal, but incredibly poor judgment.