BREAKING! Agriprocessors Housing Rip Off: 9 People, 1 Decrepit House, Rent $225 Per Month Per Person

$2025 per month for a broken down house in Postville, Iowa – a house without hot water, with a broken bathroom, and with no furniture, rented to students from Kyrgyzstan in the Former Soviet Union who came to work at Agriprocessors.

One of them, Kaliman Bayalieva, read yesterday's post (and the comments to it) dealing with their mistreatment and wrote us a note to clarify her position:

This is Kaliman Bayalieva. The friend of mine happened to send me this article by email. And i would like to respond to some of your comments myself.

First of all i want to make clear that my work at Agriprocessors was voluntary, and i am well aware that it was my own choice to stay there and work. I worked at Agriprocessors to prove my parents that i can be independent and earn my own money without them always supervising me and supporting me.

Secondly i would like to mention that the house that was rented for 225 each was rented by nine people, so in total its 2025 a month for the house that didn't have hot water for a week, plus the bathroom didn't function properly and the house had nothing at all, and when you come to home after 13 or 15 hours shift all sweaty and smelling like chicken and the bathroom doesn't work believe me that's not very good. But there's one thing that i already mentioned to the interviewer that,when we came to Postville we didn't have money and since we didn't have enough money the rent would be reduced [i.e., deducted] from our next paychecks, and again this was a voluntary decision to live in the house. But it really sucked that we didn't have hot water for a week and the company that provided us with the housing didn't do a lot of things that they have promised.

Respond to "As these students spread the word of their horrible experience, more Jew hatred is created -- the one thing Agri's owners are really good at producing."

This is very important...The purpose of giving the interview was not spreading the Jew hatred, and i'm a well educated person, i'm free of prejudices and stereotypes, i've traveled a lot and my country has a very diverse culture. And being silent about our experience in Iowa doesn't mean that it never happened to us or to other students and workers in Agriprocessors.

Yes Agri is really good at producing, but did you ever wonder if they even had such a simple thing as safety instructions???Our safety instruction was about half an hour in two months that i have spent there. And the job there might be a little bit harmful for your health, so extra safety instructions wouldn't do harm to agriprocessors. Also when Nazgul cut her finger (because nobody bothered to explain her that there were cutting gloves for her safety) she went to the office to get some medical help, and they sent her to the laundry where workers there don't have any medical training.

I'm not saying to close down the Agriprocessors (i don't really care about it), i'm just saying that it could improve it's job by just being a little more attentive to their workers, and be more careful about following the quality standards of producing the meat (because seriously, not many workers care about the quality,just like i didn't).

And the last thing, i think that interviewing students from Central Asia was not a very good decision, and it would be better to interview the people that worked there for longer period, because we just came for couple of months and we left, and we don't care about Agriprocessors anymore, we are back at college, with our friends and family, but there are other people that people should be concerned about.
thank you,

Kaliman Bayalieva

Comments

[state of the Jews]

It would appear the same lack of safety training that existed before OSHA hit Agri with 39 health and safety violations in March, and then again in July, continued throughout the summer. So where was Agri's Chief Compliance Officer?

How to you like this tune from MBD?

http://hamercaz.com/hamercaz/site/news_item.php?id=1318

[sage]

What the Rubashkins represent, stated plainly, is a religious "Black Hole".

[Carol-Ann]

Thank you, Kaliman, for your candid comments. I was riveted by the safety issue; specifically, a hand injury to a worker without adequate protection.

Forget the OU supervision for a moment, how did a plant supervisor allow this oversight? If the worker was unaware of the availability of safety gloves, the responsiblity falls upon Agriprocessors management for failure to provide adequate safety equipment.

Hand injuries can be serious and present the risk of infection.

[Craig Ede]

I spoke last week with a women who had recently worked for Agriprocessors. She was living on the street in Postville because she was disturbed by the behavior of her "roommate".

Her housing, set-up by the guy who brought her up to Iowa from Kentucky, included a bedroom to share with a man who she said "relieved himself" in front of her while she tried to sleep. It became obvious that she wasn't talking about him going to the bathroom, but some other kind of relief.

She showed me her check stub. $100 a week was being deducted from her Agriprocessor pay to pay for this housing. The other tenants were paying a similar amount from their checks so a little run-down, post-war, crackerbox ranch house was bringing in $3600 a month to somebody. Nice work if you can get it.

[formely frum]

Just curious how do you know it was her

[Shmarya]

Just curious how do you know it was her

If you mean how do I know it's Kali, I checked it out.

[krewz]

"She showed me her check stub. $100 a week was being deducted from her Agriprocessor pay to pay for this housing."

She didnt have to work there, it was her choice and she knew that she was paying that sorta money. It's NOT Agriprocessors that set her up with this arrangement it is a staffing agency called ONE FORCE

[state of the Jews]

And ONE FORCE works for who?

[Paul Freedman]

KB and friends: in the future (begins now) please consider other options if you have a green card--you can scope out youth hostels that are relatively inexpensive here in the District of Columbia if you can get a small reserve of cash and then seek employment in the restaurant trade, where the money you get is your own. Or check with the Georgetown University administration and see if any on-campus minimum-wage type clerical work is available. This doesn't make any sense. It's nuts. This is a flagship Catholic institution, under I think direct supervision of the bisophric and the intention is probably not to sponsor misadventures in the underbelly of the kosher industry here. Run some numbers and make some calls.

[isabel]

This weekend in Postville there will be a large job fair on Greene St. at Turner Hall from the meat packing plant in Long Prairie,Minn.Starting pay is 11 an hour to 11.65 after 60 days.Will pay to relocate employee's. Hope those that go get a better deal than Agri gave them.

[@Carol-Ann]

"how did a plant supervisor allow this oversight?"

Do you even know what happened?

[Krewz]

stateofthejews writes:"And ONE FORCE works for who?"

One Force works for themselves!

They saw a lucrative opportunity and came to Iowa to provide workers.
They provide the housing for THEIR workers.

All of the employees through One Force knew what they will be paying for rent.

They took the job anyways.

[Shmarya]

@Carol-Ann and Krewz are the same person.

Please stop sockpuppeting.

[state of the Jews]

@Carol-Ann/Krewz
I'm sure ONE FORCE did this out of the goodness of their hearts, and not because they were being paid by Agriprocessors. I'm sure they rented properties from GAL and/or NEVEL, jacked-up the prices, and re-rented to new recruits because of their humanitarian concern for the workers they brought to Postville. That's why they gave them a mattress on the floor and cold water showers. A cold bracing shower (if the showers work at all) is just the ticket to encourage these slackers to find their own place to live and teach them the meaning of independence. Yessir! what a sure fire way to say thanks for coming and helping the company out during a time of need.

[sage]

+++ This weekend in Postville there will be a large job fair on Greene St. at Turner Hall from the meat packing plant in Long Prairie,Minn.Starting pay is 11 an hour to 11.65 after 60 days.Will pay to relocate employee's. Hope those that go get a better deal than Agri gave them.

Posted by: isabel | September 16, 2008 at 08:09 PM +++

Hey, let's hope ALL Agri employees take this offer!!!!!

Between the Iowa Trial and this, Rubashkins won't know if they're comming or going. LOL!!!

[Carol-Ann]

{Do you even know what happened?}

My response was in reference to Kaliman's description of an event.

If YOU know what really happened, please enlighten me.

[Big Bill]

I guess some things just haven't changed in one hundred years. When I think about Postville and the Rubashkin abuse, I am reminded of other Orthodox Jews from Europe who similarly exploited hteir workers, and wound up killing 147 of them, although they got off as I suspect Rubashkin will, with the OU supporting him. See the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in 1914. Issac Harris and Max Blanck, the owners, Jews from Hungary, similarly abused their workers with no concern about safety, health or hygiene, even locking the emergency exits. Then a fire broke out and 147 were killed, many jumping out of windows to their death.

See http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/narrative3.html

[Big Bill]

I guess some things just haven't changed in one hundred years. When I think about Postville and the Rubashkin abuse, I am reminded of other Orthodox Jews from Europe who similarly exploited hteir workers, and wound up killing 147 of them, although they got off as I suspect Rubashkin will, with the OU supporting him. See the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in 1914. Issac Harris and Max Blanck, the owners, Jews from Hungary, similarly abused their workers with no concern about safety, health or hygiene, even locking the emergency exits. Then a fire broke out and 147 were killed, many jumping out of windows to their death.

See http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/narrative3.html

[Yochanan Lavie]

Big Bill: The victims of the Triangle fire were mostly young Jewish women, FYI.

[dovidk]

The owners of the triangle were not orthodox, they worked on shabbos.