Details:
The Palauan workers have a litany of complaints including:
1. On recruitment, promised free round trip airfare, but forced to agree to pay $1400 after arrival in Postville.
2. On recruitment, promised free housing and utilities for the first three months, but forced to pay after arrival in Postville.
3. On recruitment, promised $10 per hour with raises after 3 months, but paid only $9 per hour and told no raises after 3 months after arrival in Postville.
4. On recruitment, misled about the cost of living in Postville.
5. And, for some Palauans, having their heat and electricity shut off by their landlord, GAL Investments, last Friday.
6. Add to that the very real fear their overdue paychecks may never come.
When the Palauan Ambassador to the US, Hersey Kyota came to Postville Friday, shortly after power was shut off to some of the Palauan workers, he was met by an angry mob:
…Hours after the arrest of former Agriprocessors CEO Sholom Rubashkin, the workers piled into the station seeking assistance and answers but did not find many.
When the ambassador first arrived, the Palauans, frustrated and angry, confronted him over why they were ever allowed to make the trip.
"If I knew it was going to happen like this, I would have stayed home," said Tommy Blelai, 32.…
As I read this, I remembered that Agriprocessors made these Palauans study the Seven Noachide Laws before coming to Postville:
…Applicants are required to attend the orientation sessions to learn about the work requirements, safety information and their rights under the law and Compact of Free Association.
Orientation training will include an introduction to the universal principles of morality known as the Seven Noachide Laws which the US Congress has encouraged the whole world to study and observe as the bedrock foundations of civilization since the ancient days.
Workers must be prepared to leave for Iowa immediately after orientation. …
Here is how Chabad.org explains the Noachide prohibition against theft:
Respect the rights and property of others. Be honest in all your business dealings. By relying on G-d rather than on our own conniving, we express our trust in Him as the Provider of Life.
The prohibition against theft is, like the other six Noachide laws, exceedingly broad. Here is a short list:
1. Overcharging
2. profiteering
3. false weights and measures, the physical damage done when injuring another person
4. the damage done to another person by raping
5. kidnapping
6. land theft by moving landmarks and the like
7. non-payment of loans or bills when one has the money to pay
8. all forms of deception – especially when there is a monetary benefit to the deceiver
9. embezzlement
11. deliberate property damager
12. demanding payment from a debtor who cannot pay
13. breech of promise
13. not paying workers on time
14. robbery
15. theft
All of those prohibitions listed above apply to Jews and well as non-Jews (although the penalty for violating them and some of the minutia defining them differ between them).
Many of these thou shalt nots were everyday Agriprocessors' business practices.
One has to wonder how people who call themselves hasidim could behave this way, especially when their late rebbe mad the Noachide laws a centerpiece of his theology, and started an international campaign to publicize them.
Even more so, one has to wonder how dozens of rabbis stood by while these laws were violated openly and on a daily basis.
And one also must wonder how so many thousands of Chabad hasidim, along with many more thousands of haredim of all stripes, can so stridently defend the men who callously violated them.
The Palauans learned about the Noachide laws, all right. So did Somalis, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Ukrainians, and Americans.
What they learned is that Jewish religious laws and the ethics and morality they are meant to engender are hollow empty shells.
I would think hasidim, haredim and the center and right of Modern Orthodoxy would want to repair this damage.
So far, they have done nothing other than clamor for more meat.