In Iowa Meat Plant

In Iowa Meat Plant, Kosher 'Jungle' Breeds Fear, Injury, Short Pay

'I'm not sure these devout Jews are using Jewish ethics to treat their workers'
By NATHANIEL POPPER
May 26, 2006

John_law ....Arson, theft, back taxes, etc etc

EPA Forced To Clean Up Former Rubashkin Mill

Crown Heights Community Council President Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin's former Montex mill in Allentown, PA is back in the news again after a series of arson fires. Rubashkin oews the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes and fees. \
His "mortgage holder," Skyline Industries, Inc. of Brooklyn, NY now officially owns the property. Sources tell FailedMessiah.com that Skyline Industries is closely tied to the Rubashkin family and that at least two Rubashkins control Skyline's operations and sit on its executive.

Rabbi Aaron Rubashkin, owner of AgriProcessors (Aaron's Best™, Rubashkin's™, Shor HaBor™, etc.), and his son Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin collected union dues from employees and pocketed the money themselves, rather than turning the funds over to the union as required by law. They got caught. The Forward reported this Friday. (Our report on this was posted 14.5 months ago, on March 13, 2005.)

Here in PDF is the decision finding against the Rubashkins from the National Labor Relations Board, in case you missed it the first time around.

The 41/2-story, shuttered textile factory was gutted in an April 19 blaze that took city firefighters two days to extinguish. The fire was determined to be an arson.

POSTVILLE, Iowa — The animals slaughtered here at the nation's largest kosher meat packing plant have been the object of nationwide sympathy since an animal rights group released videos from the kill floor in December 2004. But a tour of the mobile homes and cramped apartments just outside town, where AgriProcessors' immigrant workers live, quickly shifts a visitor's attention to a more striking concern: the impoverished humans who do the factory's dirty work.

Danger

One of those workers — a woman who agreed to be identified by the pseudonym Juana — came to this rural corner of Iowa a year ago from Guatemala. Since then, she has worked 10-to-12-hour night shifts, six nights a week. Her cutting hand is swollen and deformed, but she has no health insurance to have it checked. She works for wages, starting at $6.25 an hour and stopping at $7, that several industry experts described as the lowest of any slaughterhouse in the nation.

Juana and other employees at AgriProcessors — they total about 800 — told the Forward that they receive virtually no safety training. This is an anomaly in an industry in which the tools are designed to cut and grind through flesh and bones. In just one month last summer, two young men required amputations; workers say there have been others since. The chickens and cattle fly by at a steady clip on metal hooks, and employees said they are berated for not working fast enough. In addition, employees told of being asked to bribe supervisors for better shifts and of being shortchanged on paychecks regularly.

"Being here, you see a lot of injustice," said Juana, who did not want her real name used because of her precarious immigration status. "But it's a small town. It's the only factory here. We have no choice."

AgriProcessors' final product — sold under the nationally popular Aaron's Best brand — is priced significantly higher than standard meat. Its kosher seal gives it a seeming moral imprimatur in an industry known for harsh working conditions. But even in the unhappy world of meatpacking, people with comparative knowledge of AgriProcessors and other plants — including local religious leaders, professors, and union organizers — say that AgriProcessors stands out for its poor treatment of workers.

"I deal with a lot of workers in slaughterhouses," said Dana Powell, who lived in Postville for four months last fall while unsuccessfully attempting to unionize the plant for the United Food and Commercial Workers. "If I had to rate this one amongst all of them, of the different houses I've been to, it's got to be the worst."

The manager of the plant, Sholom Rubashkin, said his industry is not a pleasant one for workers, but he denied that the company mistreats its workers, shorts their pay or condones bribery of any sort. Rubashkin, who is the son of the Brooklyn-based owner, pointed to the failure of the union drive as evidence of the workers' contentment.
Health Ins

He said that AgriProcessors offers health insurance if workers are willing to contribute a sum that is close to $50 a week for family coverage. He has set up an emergency fund for employees in trouble. Describing the hard work his father had done on arriving in America from Europe in 1952, Rubashkin said: "America has always been built by people who are coming to try to better their economic position and are willing to do jobs that other people are not willing to do. That's how this country is growing."

Unions

Spanish-speaking community leaders in Postville said that last year's union drive failed for the same reason that the grievances have not been made public before: The workers have a well-developed fear of being fired or deported. Many of the workers are undocumented immigrants, according to numerous workers, community leaders and the local priest.

"If you're not treated well at work, you tend to keep your mouth shut and go deeper until it becomes, well, unbearable," said Father Floyd Paul Ouderkirk, Postville's Roman Catholic priest. Ouderkirk previously had ministered in other Iowa and Texas slaughterhouse towns. In those other plants, Ouderkirk said, the workers had been less afraid to speak up and had labored in more tolerable conditions.

In a small town like Postville, where AgriProcessors is the largest economic engine, workers have few places to turn beyond the three churches. Ouderkirk retired from his full-time position two years ago. He has not been replaced, but he returns to Postville regularly to celebrate Mass in Spanish — and to hear complaints.

"They leave so much to be desired in the moral and ethical treatment of workers," Ouderkirk said of AgriProcessors.

The company's business model has been economically successful. AgriProcessors is the only kosher slaughterhouse in America producing both beef and poultry. While AgriProcessors has been expanding steadily, its closest competitor in the poultry industry, Empire Kosher, recently fired employees and cut back operations. Union leaders at Empire Kosher said that the cutbacks were necessary because Empire pays its lowest-ranking unionized employees close to $3 more an hour from the outset than AgriProcessors' lowest employees, and provides full benefits.

Even among nonunion plants, experts say AgriProcessors' salaries are low.

"I have not heard of a six-dollar wage since I started working in Nebraska in 1990," said Lourdes Gouveia, director of the Office of Latino Studies at the University of Nebraska, where she studies working conditions in the meat packing industry.

Not all the workers at AgriProcessors who spoke with the Forward hated their jobs. Workers in the maintenance department, where more locals and non-Hispanic immigrants are concentrated, start at $9 an hour. In the more plentiful menial positions, a handful of employees said that with a good supervisor, work at the plant was tolerable. One supervisor on the beef side, a Postville local, recently married a Hispanic worker and is known as a friend of the entry-level employees. But workers said that there were few standards and little transparency at the plant.

Trouble

The owner of AgriProcessors, Sholom's father, Aaron Rubashkin, has had trouble with workers' rights before. In 1995, the National Labor Relations Board found that he had violated labor laws at his textile mill in New Jersey. For months on end, the mill had taken dues from the paychecks of union employees without handing them over to the union — and had a "proclivity for violating" the labor law, according to the NLRB judge.

The Rubashkins first set up shop in Postville in 1987, buying a defunct nonkosher plant. The town drew national attention in 2000 when journalist Stephen Bloom published his book, "Postville," describing the culture clash that resulted when a group of Lubavitch Hasidim moved into a farming town of 1,500. At the time, the hardest labor at the plant was performed by Eastern European immigrants. Some complained to Bloom about working conditions.

Hispanic Employees

But when Bloom was in town, workers willing to do AgriProcessors' menial work were at a premium, and the Rubashkins would fly in workers from New York. That changed as the Eastern Europeans were replaced by a flood of Hispanic immigrants, who required little in the way of recruitment by the Rubashkins. Today, more than half of Postville's 2,500 residents are Hispanic, according to most estimates. Indeed, there is a widespread sense, as one 26-year-old man from Mexico said, that "there is somebody outside waiting to take your job — so you just keep working, or else."

The Hispanic immigrant workers are also less educated than the Eastern Europeans, and several people who have dealt with both groups claimed that plant management has given the newcomers less respect.

"They feel like they're not only treated unfairly, but treated as lesser beings — as second-class citizens," said Caitlin Didier, who lived in Postville for nine months in 2004 and interviewed more than 50 Hispanic workers for her dissertation at the University of Kansas on ethnic cooperation in Postville.

A picture of the conditions at AgriProcessors emerged during a tour of the plant. It is a modern facility with clean metallic walls and concrete floors; as is typical in slaughterhouses, most of the rooms are cold and scattered with stray bits of animal flesh.

In the room where chickens are killed, a few rabbis stand at the back, administering the lethal cut. The bulk of the work is done by rows of Hispanic men and women who grab the chickens by their feet and prepare them for death. While the rabbis have their own bathrooms and well-lit cafeterias, which Rubashkin pointed out on a tour, he declined to show the Forward the separate facilities for the workers, which were described to the paper as damp and dirty.

One person who saw all this up close was the investigator for the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who shot the notorious video footage of the slaughtering process. He said that the cafeteria at AgriProcessors was in a lower class than the carpeted, climate-controlled cafeterias at the nonkosher slaughterhouses where he has worked, while investigating undercover, in Arkansas and North Carolina.

At those nonkosher slaughterhouses, the PETA investigator said, he received significantly more safety training: a minimum of two days, while AgriProcessors only gave him one hour — with a supervisor who did not speak Spanish. The investigator said he ended up translating for the other trainees, all of whom were Hispanic. In addition, the PETA investigator — who agreed to speak with the Forward only if he could do so anonymously — said that when workers were injured or sick, supervisors at AgriProcessors showed little concern and were reluctant to provide access to the company's doctor.

"At the other two, they were more compassionate if an individual was hurt," he said. "At Agri, they'd be more concerned about losing money than the individual."

Rubashkin said that the company has instituted dual-language training, though he declined to say how long the training is. He also said the company is in the midst of building a new cafeteria for workers.

Workers and their advocates say that many tough out the conditions in Postville because they need the money — often to pay back the smugglers who brought them over the border. No less significant, Postville has no public transportation into or out of town, and few immigrant workers can secure driver's licenses to escape the isolated community. There used to be a turkey processing plant in Postville, where locals say the conditions were better, but it burned to the ground on Christmas Eve 2003.

Coyote

One of the workers, a chubby Guatemalan who agreed to go by the pseudonym Manuel, said that he paid a smuggler $4,500 to help him sneak across the Mexican border a year ago. He purchased a Social Security number for $100 in Illinois, and within a few days he had landed a job at AgriProcessors.

Manuel lives in a bare apartment with four other single young men from Guatemala, all of them undocumented immigrants. They have two beat-up couches with cushions that sink to the floor. The carpets are stained and a television sits on the box in which it came. The only decoration is a calendar from Postville's Mexican restaurant, Sabor Latino, which hangs askew on the window moulding.

On Manuel's first day, he said, he found himself slicing up chicken carcasses without even receiving the hour-long orientation that other workers had described.

"There's no training," he said. "You learn by getting chewed out."

Now, Manuel arrives each day at 4:45 a.m. Although the Supreme Court decided last year that meatpacking plants must pay their workers for donning and doffing — dressing and undressing before and after work — Manuel and the union organizers who lived in Postville said that the workers are not allowed to punch in until they take their positions on the line. Rubashkin responded by saying that the company did change the rules when the Supreme Court ruling came down.

Manuel works 10-hour days in the chicken department. Lunch breaks are 30 minutes, but after taking on and off the bloody smocks and masks at the beginning and end, there is closer to 15 minutes' time left for eating. Dozens of workers on a shift share the cafeteria, and the workers say there are only three microwaves, which short-circuit when used simultaneously.

"I've said, 'Why do you treat us like this?'" Manuel said. "We're human beings, not animals."

Short pay

Manuel came from a religious family in Guatemala, but he rarely has time for observance. AgriProcessors does not slow down for Sundays or for any Christian holidays, except Christmas. A more practical problem, however, arises on Jewish holidays, when the plant closes and the workers are not paid.

Pay is a recurring complaint from AgriProcessors' workers. Manuel makes $7.25 an hour, having moved up from $6.25. But Manuel and many other workers said that their weekly paychecks come up three or four hours short regularly, a claim that the union organizers reported hearing frequently. When supervisors are alerted, they promise to correct things but rarely do, workers and union officials said.

"They are being taken advantage of," said Powell, the union organizer. "You could tell these workers wanted help but they were so scared and beat down by this company."

But Manuel said he counts himself lucky when he sees the workers who have had fingers amputated and worse. One friend of his lost a hand last summer when a machine he was cleaning suddenly whirred to life. Manuel and many other workers said that the young man is now back at the plant, working half time and still hoping to collect enough to pay off his debts back home.

The fascination with the unseen world of slaughterhouses is long standing, extending from Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" a century ago to a Human Rights Watch report last year. That study found that the industry has the highest levels of injury of any manufacturing industry, and said the workers "contend with treatment and conditions that violate their human rights."

Kosher plants occupy a small, seldom scrutinized corner of the overall meat market. In the chicken industry, kosher companies slaughter less than 1% of the 33 million birds killed each day. There are five kosher poultry slaughterhouses in America besides AgriProcessors, according to industry experts. But Empire Kosher, in northern Pennsylvania, is AgriProcessors' only major competitor.

Kosher beef is mostly supplied by firms that send rabbis into nonkosher slaughterhouses to kill selected animals. Hebrew National, the biggest national brand of kosher beef, does not produce the glatt kosher standard now demanded by most Orthodox Jews.

Because of market size, kosher plants have escaped the scrutiny of labor conditions that the larger industry has received. A number of experts in the area, including the author of the Human Rights Watch report, said they had assumed that conditions were better in kosher slaughterhouses because they operate in a premium market under the supervision of clergymen.

"My totally unexamined assumption was that good Orthodox Jews would probably have a different ethos for treatment of their workers," said Gouveia, the Nebraska professor.

Empire Kosher has had its own troubles in the past. In 2001, immigration officials raided the plant and arrested 135 undocumented immigrants, according to news reports.

In the kosher certification process, working conditions are not a factor, according to the largest certifying agency, the Orthodox Union. But at AgriProcessors' biggest competitors, Empire and Hebrew National, there is a union regulating wages and grievances.

When it comes to outside regulatory agencies, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have tagged AgriProcessors this year with six violations. That amounts to more than half the violations in all Iowa meatpacking plants during that time, according to OSHA statistics.

Bribe_Jewish_supervisor

The outside agency that Postville community leaders most remember is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which came to town in 2003. The agency would not comment on the incident, but Rubashkin acknowledged that it was responding to complaints that a supervisor in the chicken department was demanding bribes from workers.

Community leaders say that Hispanic workers were too afraid to speak with the EEOC. The supervisor remains at the plant today, and union officials and workers said that while he no longer demands outright bribes, he now tells workers to buy a car from him if they want a better shift or have a relative hired.

Rubashkin said the charges were completely unfounded.

"Him buying a car or selling a car has nothing to do with hiring," Rubashkin said of the supervisor in question.

Another outside agency that sought to intervene was the United Food and Commercial Workers, the union that represents Empire Kosher workers. Two union organizers arrived in Postville last July. One of them, Powell, said the campaign began to unravel at about the same time workers in the plant told him that supervisors were having meetings at which they threatened to fire workers or refer them to immigration officials if a union was formed.

Rubashkin denied that there was any intimidation. "We explained to people what a union does — how they get in power and do what they want," he said.

In the end, the union could not even find a space in town to hold an organizing meeting. One was scheduled in the Catholic church, but the church leadership was pressured to cancel it, according to numerous people close to the situation.

Mark Grey, a professor at a local university who studies immigrant labor at slaughterhouses, said that even after five years of coming to talk with workers at AgriProcessors, he is still caught off-guard by the severity with which workers are treated.

"I'm continually surprised at how poorly they treat these people because they're not Jews and because they happen to be immigrants," said Grey, director of the Iowa Center for Immigrant Leadership and Integration. The center is based at the University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls.

"The bottom line here is that I'm not sure these devout Jews are using Jewish ethics to treat their workers," he added.

Imperfections mar tough laws

BONNIE HARRIS AND JONATHAN ROOS
REGISTER STAFF WRITERS

October 20, 2002

Maureen Kanka's daughter inspired a law that swept the nation.

The 7-year-old was raped and murdered by a neighbor who was a two-time convicted sex offender. Shortly after the 1994 crime, Kanka pushed New Jersey legislators to pass Megan's Law, which requires public notification of a sex offender's whereabouts. Most states followed suit.

Yet Kanka said in an interview with The Des Moines Register that she's conflicted about laws such as Iowa's, which bars child molesters from living within 2,000 feet of schools or child-care centers.

"I don't think it's necessarily fair to push sex offenders out of one area where they're then forced to congregate together in another," said Kanka, whose daughter's killer lived with two other convicted sex offenders. "This kind of law is not going to stop someone from hurting a child if they want to hurt a child.

"At the same time, I do know that sex offenders should not be around children. At all. Ever. These laws don't say that. Please tell me when they do."

Yet that's the thing about making laws, lawmakers say. They hardly ever turn out perfect.

Laws tend to be more reactive than proactive. They benefit some while sometimes hurting others. And they can have unintended consequences that can be difficult to undo.

Catration

Jewish Senator - K Kreiman

"At some point what (lawmakers) need to do is step back and look at the whole picture to see whether their reactions have created some additional problems — some inequities, some unnecessary expense," said state Sen. Keith Kreiman of Bloomfield, Democratic co-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He thinks a sweeping review of all of Iowa's criminal laws is long overdue to ensure they fit together.

Iowa's law restricting where certain sex offenders can live has drawn the most attention lately. But it isn't the first time legislation — introduced with all the best intentions — has resulted in what one criminal justice expert describes as "laws that create more problems than safeguards."

Cocaine penalties

When crack cocaine exploded on the drug scene in the '90s, violent crime soared. Lawmakers responded by imposing stricter sentences for crack than for powder cocaine, which in turn landed a disproportionate number of blacks behind bars, contributed to prison crowding and left lawmakers scrambling to level the field — in some cases by increasing sentences for powder cocaine.

Meth

Iowa's meth epidemic led to tough sentencing rules, too.

State spending on prisons and community corrections programs has nearly tripled since 1990, reaching $281 million this year. The convict population, including those on probation or parole, has almost doubled, reaching 38,500 at the start of fiscal 2006.

Seven years ago, legislators approved the use of a controversial drug treatment to reduce the sex drive of child molesters. The "chemical castration" law, as critics labeled the new Iowa statute, was modeled after one passed by California in 1996.

Today, Iowa courts rarely order the hormone therapy for sex offenders, even though it's supposed to be mandatory for those convicted more than once of serious sex crimes.

Some doctors balk at prescribing and supervising use of the drug because they are concerned about medical and legal risks. Others don't want to take part in a procedure that is outside their medical practice, or they question the treatment's effectiveness.

Jetseta Gage

Rash Of Rapes, and Molestations

The rape and slaying of 10-year-old Jetseta Gage of Cedar Rapids this year quickly spurred another round of sex offender legislation in Iowa, including longer prison sentences and DNA testing of all felons — at a projected cost to taxpayers of $5.2 million this year.

"Do we as legislators make laws based on emotion? At times, probably, yes," said Rep. Wayne Ford, a Des Moines Democrat who pushed to increase penalties for powder cocaine in 2003. "But we have to be compassionate about the issues. I doubt the public would want anything less."

The public, after all, is the engine behind most laws, Ford and others say. When an issue comes up that draws such little debate, as did Iowa's 2,000-foot restriction for sex offenders whose victims were minors, politicians can sit comfortably in the public's "popular spotlight," said Donald Bersoff, a law professor at Villanova University and contributing editor of the journal Law and Human Behavior.

"When you have a tragic event, or a trend that causes widespread public panic or concern, there is a big rush to hurry in and solve the problem," said Bersoff, whose recent article, "Some Contrarian Concerns About Law, Psychology and Public Policy," explores the unintended consequences of lawmaking. "But what we're often left with are laws that create more problems than safeguards. And it's a very long process to undo really bad laws."

Political effects

Carlos Jayne, a Des Moines lobbyist for fairness in sentencing, said the process is further complicated by legislators who try to get political mileage out of emotional issues.

"Who's going to be the one who stands up against a really popular law?" he said. "The one who doesn't want to get elected, that's who."

In 2002, approval of the 2,000-foot residency restriction for certain sex offenders was nearly unanimous in the House and Senate. Rep. Ed Fallon, a Des Moines Democrat, was the only House member to vote against the bill, which he said breezed through the Legislature "for political reasons, not for reasons of good policy."

Sen. Maggie Tinsman, a Republican from Davenport, said she voted for the bill even though she had "serious reservations" about its effectiveness. Public support for the law was overwhelming, she said.

"I didn't, and still don't, think it will do a lot of good," Tinsman said of the residency restriction, adding that the law will probably have to be revised. "But at least it showed people we are doing something. The worst thing we can do is tell them we can't do anything. They're expecting us to act. They're asking us for protection. Our job is to respond."

Just how effective such laws are remains unclear; in some cases it's too soon to tell. But some officials point to declining crime rates as evidence that the laws are working, and they don't want to do anything to weaken them.

Sen. Chuck Larson, a Republican from Cedar Rapids — who supported a proposal after the Jetseta Gage case to reinstate the death penalty in Iowa for cases in which a minor is kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered — called the state's sex offender laws "well thought out and appropriate."

Three Naughty boys

"This is not a knee-jerk reaction," Larson said. "It's been upheld in court as constitutional, and it has been expanded by cities across the state. To me, the fact that sex offenders are having a hard time finding a place to live isn't an unintended consequence of the law at all. The public was clear on this. They do not want (sex offenders) around."

Supervision problems

Those responsible for enforcing the law, however, said it creates a false sense of security while presenting new problems in supervision.

Vickie Gonzalez, a probation-parole supervisor for the 5th Judicial District Department of Correctional Services, said her agency has beefed up its staff since the newest batch of sex offender measures took effect July 1 by hiring six more people to do home visits and help with surveillance.

If more offenders are pushed into rural areas, it becomes harder to stay in touch with them, Gonzalez said. "Here we knew where they were. Now we have to track them down."

Maureen Kanka said she can only focus on awareness now. She hopes new laws like Iowa's help hold the public's attention. She said she'd consider that alone to be a win for Megan.

"We pass laws and develop and grow from tragedies," Kanka said. "It was the death of a child, my child . . . that started a lot of this around the country. These laws must be crafted carefully, with thought and purpose, or they will let other children down. And it's the children who are counting on us."

in the

Heartland

ADL

Jews brought in the ADL to establish hate crime laws

Page 3
At this vulnerable stage in develop-ment, youngsters cannot discern be-tween personal power and domination.Without careful supervision and guid-ance from loving parents, teachers, and adults, it’s only a short step to “gettingeven” with bullies who have frightenedand tormented them, then becomingbullies themselves, and maybe someday committing hate crimes. Our young areseldom shown that there are conse-quences for violent behavior; atrocitiesare repeatedly presented as fun andfunny, entertaining, great sport, and ameans to gaining power. But, when ayoungster shows up at school with agun, no one is laughing any more.Big fear, big challengeThere is hope, of course. We can live in peace. Just look at Postville, Iowa.

In1990, a Hasidic Jewish gentleman from the Big Apple opened a kosher meatpacking plant smack-dab in the middleof Norwegian/German pork producing country. He brought in about 300Hasidic rabbis from major U.S. cities,and from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv towork in the plant. The Jews started their own school, and, of course, theirown temples. As business grew, the Jews recruited 400 Mexican immigrants who also moved to town. Postville natives, all 1478 of them,didn’t know quite what to think.

Theyhad been happily and quietly living theirlives in a secluded area in the northeastcorner of Iowa, twenty miles from theMighty Mississippi and thirty minutesfrom the nearest McDonalds. Now this. Normally, when new folks move totown, rural Iowans take them a pie(apple, of course) and invite them to din-ner and church. But that wouldn’t work.These new neighbors couldn’t eat thepie or accept a dinner invitation becauseneither was kosher. They couldn’t even join you for a cup of coffee at the town diner. And they certainly weren’t inter-ested in attending the local churches.And, my goodness, these city folks dressed funny. Fur hats and long blackcoats in Iowa? In the summer? And thenthere was the new population of Mexi-cans in town with their unfamiliar food and raucous music. Suddenly, no one seemed to speak English anymore.But now, 14 years later, Postvillenatives are living side-by-side with theirJewish and Hispanic neighbors. Itwould be wrong to say they’re all bestbuddies, but it’s peaceful. In the begin-ning, there was some name-calling, andthere were a few minor incidents, butthere was never a physical injury, orwhat you could label a hate crime.Postville, Iowa may not be the classicexample of an American town, but itshows us that living peacefully with cul-tural differences can be done.How do we do it? There’s no quick fix, but first things first:there must be tighter control over whatthe media chooses to show its viewers.Certainly the media is not the sole con-tributor to our escalating tolerance forviolence, but its omnipresence in ourdaily lives is significant. Non-violencemust be taught at home and in theschools. We must learn to find delight,not fear, in cultural differences, to cele-brate our sameness, our individual andcommon human dignity, and come toconfidently embrace all that is positivein change and differences. There will bemany who answer this call to simple jus-tice because their faith-based con-science prods them to, and some will dowhat’s right simply because they areweary of living with fear. But what about those who aren’tmotivated to help eradicate fear and vio-lence? According to Harry Dent, anational business consultant and notedinvestment strategist, the volatility oftoday’s stock market is due to unrest anddistrust between people throughout theworld. Harry predicts the market willnot calm down until we learn, once andfor all, to accept our global multicultur-alism. He suggests that maybe we canhope to convert the holdouts when theirinvestments rear up and take a bite outof the bottom line. In other words, whenit becomes clear peace and understand-ing are in the best interests of everyone. We must move beyond hate, the vio-lence it causes, and the fear it hidesbehind. President Franklin D. Roo-sevelt was more prophetic than theworld realized when, in 1933, he wiselycautioned Americans caught in the gripof the Great Depression, “We havenothing to fear but fear itself.” Char Cordes is directorof communications anddevelopment for the CedarRapids regional communi-ty. She has been an activemember of Sisters United News (SUN)since 1999, and is also a member ofthe National Communication Networkof Women Religious (NCNWR) andthe National Catholic DevelopmentConference (NCDC). Char can bereached at ccordes@mercycr.org.21SUMMER 2004Sources: www.FBI.gov, Reports & Publicationslink, Uniform Crime Reports link,Hate Crimes quick link Postville: A Clash of Cultures inHeartland America, Iowa Public Tele-vision documentary, based on book byStephen G. Bloom, non-fiction, 2000STOP Teaching Our Kids To Kill, Lt.Col. Dave Grossman and GloriaDeGaetano, non-fiction, 1999The Roaring 2000s, Harry Dent, non-fiction, 2002Perhaps evenmore frighteningare the everydaycruelties humanspractice in theirown small circles,the things thatdon’t make theheadlines.

That question runs through two recent books about strangers who ride into town and decide to stay. In Stephen G. Bloom's Postville, small-town Iowa is shaken when an unfriendly group of Lubavitcher Hasidim buy a failed Iowa slaughterhouse so that they can supply kosher meat and poultry to Orthodox Jews worldwide. The story in Arlene Stein's Stranger Next Door is more complicated: In a small Oregon town, an evangelical Christianity springs up among dispossessed white men and women and finds political focus in a campaign against "special rights" for gay people (who are all but nonexistent here). Each book structures its story around a local election that everyone understands to be a referendum on those cast as aliens. The back story is that of a global economy increasingly shifting work away from local white men while bringing in outsiders whose habits and values seem arrogant, inconsiderate, and strange.

Postville is the lighter read, and frames its microcosmic culture clash with Bloom's own story. In 1993 Bloom, a San Francisco journalist, takes a job as a journalism professor at the University of Iowa. At first he and his wife are enchanted by Iowa City's exotic cultural habits: people sitting on the wraparound porch, driving under the speed limit, fishing with fresh-dug worms, eating all-pork meals at the county fair. But after a few years, the Blooms notice that they don't quite fit, both as "city slickers," as the locals call them, and as Jews. For their fellow Iowans, Christianity is neutral background; Jesus is unthinkingly invoked by teachers and scoutmasters, neighbors sing Christmas carols outside their door as if this were benign, and the newspaper's Easter headline is "He Has Risen."

And so when Bloom hears about the Lubavitcher Hasidim in Postville, 350 miles north, wearing their payot (those curly earlocks) and black hats in a state "where pigs outnumber people by almost five to one," he's riveted. "While I knew the Lubavitchers to be fierce fundamentalists who proselytize other Jews the way Jehovah's Witnesses go after nonbelievers," he writes, "I also realized that the Hasidim in Postville were as close to family as Iris and I could in our new home state." Although the Hasidim, notoriously xenophobic, don't answer his calls requesting an interview, eventually a non-Jewish plant manager at the kosher slaughterhouse invites him to come by. Once he's inside, the Hasidim recognize his ethnicity and start recruiting.

The fact that Bloom is actually going inside the slaughterhouse flabbergasts the locals, whom he interviews as well (and who don't realize that he can be Jewish without a yarmulke and so forth). Postville is so small--population 1,465--that "no one used turn signals because everyone knew where everyone else was going." The local newspaper covers everyone's vacation destinations, afternoon visitors, and birthday-party decorations. It's a town so monoculturally descended from German Lutheran settlers that before World War II, German was spoken more often than English on the street.

But by 1987, when Aaron Rubashkin, a Brooklyn butcher, came looking for a place to start a glatt-kosher slaughterhouse, Postville was in economic crisis. Fueled by the worldwide Orthodox boom and advances in international shipping, Rubashkin's business became wildly successful, bringing money into town.

The Jews

Nevertheless, 10 years later, the locals aren't exactly happy with their marriage of necessity. "The Jews," as they're called, drive like maniacs, never mow their lawns, build without permits, bargain furiously (which the locals feel implies the price is unfair), and wait months, if ever, to pay their bills. Disregarding the fundamental rule of Iowa coexistence, the Hasidim won't even make eye contact on the street. One of Bloom's local informants asks: "Hadn't their mothers taught them any manners?"

Bloom does his best to be fair to the Hasidim as he explores their hermetically sealed world. He notes his relief at the familiar speech rhythms, the questions upon questions. He accepts an invitation for a Shabbat stay with a Hasidic family, revels in the food, and prays with his hosts on command. But finally, Bloom is a liberal, not a fundamentalist: He's repelled by their intolerance, their insularity, their open delight in cheating "the goyim," and their manipulative arguments. He quotes one Hasid as saying proudly: "I am a racist... . Why haven't the Jews been extinguished after scores of attempts throughout history? That we are still here defies logic. There is only one answer. We are better and smarter. That's why!" Bloom's heart is with the Postville local who says: "It's not such a great religion if they don't want to be a part of the community, is it?"

Bloom's background as a daily journalist shows; while the book brims with factual details, it lacks a sustaining narrative. As a result, parts of Postville are compulsively readable, filled with vivid information about such things as the town's history, kosher killing and evisceration, the filthy, algae-covered mikveh for Hasidic men, and Rubashkin's all-expenses-paid importation of labor. But there's too much filler: reconstructed "conversations" full of nothing much, for instance, and detail about an assimilated Jewish doctor who'd coexisted nicely before the Hasidim came.

Business Tax = Anti Semite

Bloom's own story doesn't fully hold the book together. Nor does the confrontation he constructs: a vote over whether the town should annex the slaughterhouse land and that of other local businesses, subjecting them to city taxes and law--an effort the Hasidim call anti-Semitic. Annexation passed; the Hasidim stayed. Postville's biggest disappointment is its failure to take on the larger questions: What does it mean that more people worldwide are taking refuge in separatist ideologies like the Lubavitchers'? And what is to be done when a separatist culture crashes into a pluralist one?

Kosher Hill

Stephen Bloom notes what happened when a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews bought a slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, in 1987, and soon began to make their influence felt in the town:

     "Generally, newcomers are eager to assimilate to a new culture. That's why
     they came in the first place. But instead of arriving at the lowest rung of the
     economic ladder, these Jews had arrived already on top. The Jews who
     settled in Postville came from cities, and many brought with them large sums
     of money ... Sholom Rubashkin built an enormous house on Wilson Street
     in an area of Postville thta the locals quickly labeled 'Kosher Hill.' Iowans
     were loathe to show such material wealth. 'That Rubashkin home is a palace,'
     Alicia [one of the non-Jewish local people] said, and no one denied it."
     [BLOOM, S., 2001, p. 50]

Locals fear the Jews

Stephen Bloom notes the ultra-Orthodox community of Postville, Iowa, and its raucous religious effect on the tranquil town:

Pottsville was repulsed at homosexuality

   "An hour must have passed, and then, as though on cue, a great roar of voices
     erupted from within the shul. The worship had ended and the men broke into
     raucous song. These liturgical melodies were booming and boisterous, each
     lasting twenty to thirty minutes. Soon, the singing was accompanied by banging.
     The men were pounding the metal tables with fists. They were stamping the
     shul's wooden floor with the heels of their shoes and boots.

      The collective sound
     signaled to me that they must have been drunk .. I was eavesdropping on some sort of loud,    inebriated    religious reverie ... The sounds shooting out from the
     shul's windows and front door were deafening on this otherwise serene Iowa
     night." [BLOOM, S., 2001, p. 36

He also notes, once he is actualy among these worshipers, that they "seemed drowned in showmanship -- who could wail loudest, bow farthest without falling over, read the longest Hebrew passage fastest and without taking a breath." [BLOOM, S., 2001, p. 203] They also get drunk as part of their relgious activity: This was an old fashioned chugging contest. Tast after toast followed ... [BLOOM, S., 2001, p. 206] "Rapturous song, powerful drink, and overwhelming body heat was the Holy Communion of these believers. Everything about the day was intense and bodily: the dirty mikveh [communal bath], drinking, singing, the body odor, the pounding of fists and feet." [BLOOM, S., 2001, p. 207]

Culture Clash

Copyright 2000 Journal Sentinel Inc. (Wisconsin)

October 10, 2000 Tuesday ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: CUE; Pg. 02E
LENGTH: 830 words
HEADLINE: No promised land for Jews, Iowans
BYLINE: CURT SCHLEIER Special to the Journal Sentinel

BODY:
In 1987, Aaron Rubashkin, a butcher from Brooklyn and a member of the ultra-orthodox Lubavitcher sect, opened a kosher slaughterhouse in the unlikely outpost of Postville, Iowa.

Postville had been a community in decline. Local manufacturing had largely evaporated, leaving few opportunities for young people. Not surprisingly, the community welcomed the Jews. At first.

What's not to like? They brought money, and they brought jobs. Real estate values went up, and the entire area became more prosperous. By 1996, the slaughter house employed 350 people, a considerable number in a community of only 1,478.

But opposition to the Lubavitchers began to grow.

Postville Want Jews Out

By 1997, it was sufficiently strong that a referendum was placed on the ballot to allow Postville to annex land surrounding the community, including the land the slaughterhouse was on. Ostensibly, it was intended to put a measure of control over Rubashkin's operations.

"What the annexation really meant was an opportunity to tell the Hasidic Jews to leave the God-fearing city of Postville," Stephen G. Bloom writes in his excellent and evenly balanced account of the travails.

Was it anti-Semitism at work? Another example of jealousy of Jewish success, as the Hasidim suggested? Or was it, as the locals contended, that the Lubavitchers were lousy neighbors and dishonorable people? The truth, as always, apparently lay somewhere in the middle.

Bloom, a largely secular Jew who frequently frames his relationship to his faith in terms of Jewish food, came to Iowa from San Francisco to teach journalism at the state university. At first, Bloom, his wife and their young son loved their new home.

But by their third year there, the blush had begun to fade.

"We were lonely. We didn't fit into the local social order. . . . We missed people like us."

Soon Bloom begins to see "them" everywhere. Two female American Gothic types stare at the Bloom family in a restaurant, and as the Blooms leave ask "in an Almira Gulch tone, 'You're not from around here.' " Bloom took this to mean "what they were driving at wasn't where we were from, but who we were, what we were: city folks, Jews. . . ."

The Blooms are asked to host the neighborhood's annual watermelon social, an event that typically attracts 80 people. Perhaps a half dozen showed up. Why? The headline in the Cedar Rapids Press one Christmas: "He Has Risen." Mazel tov.

When Bloom heard about the Postville Jews he was drawn to them. He "realized the Hasidim in Postville were as close to family as Iris and I could muster." So he arranged to visit Postville. "Perhaps I'd find someone like my grandmother Rose, who used to stand in her cluttered kitchen in New York, then Miami Beach, to mix matzo ball, egg yolks and a dollop of schmaltz for her superb matzo ball soup."

What he found when he got there was a town torn asunder. Certainly there was some blatant anti-Semitism. One local told Bloom "they'll take whatever they can get. The Jews, as long as they have their hands in someone else's pocket, then they'll stay."

Supporters

The Hasidim had some supporters, too, though many of them seem to be people who directly benefited from their arrival.

But the crux of the problem seemed to revolve around three major issues. The Hasidim were very aloof. They treated the locals as though they were diseased. "If they mix with us they think we'll contaminate them," someone told Bloom.

More disturbing to Bloom was that the Lubavitchers were dishonorable in their business dealings. They'd buy something and not pay for it or pay or withhold payment for a long time.

"I get bills and throw them away," one bragged to him. "The more bills I get, the faster I throw them away. If they want to get paid that badly, they'll send me another notice and then another. When I'm ready to pay them, I pay them."

That kind of behavior is not tolerated by the Torah, which has specific rules not only about religious behavior, but personal and business dealings as well.shooting

Jews Shoot Woman

Finally, the community got upset when there was no response from the Hasidic community when two Lubavitcher youths committed an armed robbery during which a local woman was shot and seriously wounded.

I contacted a Lubavitcher rabbi and described the book to him. He knew of the Rubashkin family, and said it was well respected within Lubavitcher circles and known for its charity. But then he sighed. Of course, not every one who is religious on the outside is religious inside.

Bloom had a love-hate relationship with the Hasidim. But ultimately he was repelled by their irreligious behavior and in the book comes down squarely on the side of the Iowa town folk.

Bloom has produced an honest, balanced and remarkable piece of journalism. It's an interesting, readable story, too.

------------

jews selling SS numbers

POSTVILLE, Iowa — At least 300 people were arrested Monday on immigration and identity theft charges at Agriprocessors, one of the USA's largest packing plants for kosher meats.
Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered the Agriprocessors complex in this northeast Iowa community of 2,500 during morning work hours, executing warrants for fraudulent use of others' Social Security numbers in connection with their employment at the plant. The packing plant has attracted workers from Mexico, Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere.

Nathaniel Popper, a journalist who has written about Agriprocessors for The Jewish Daily Forward, based in New York, said the raid could disrupt the supply of kosher meat.

"This could have a big impact on the supply of kosher meat in America," Popper said in an interview. "Over the next several days, that's going to be the big question for people in the Jewish community who keep kosher."

He said Agriprocessors is the largest of three major companies that supply kosher beef. The company supplies chicken and other meats, as well.

Those arrested were being held at a fairgrounds in Waterloo, Iowa, and in local jails. A total of 16 local, state and federal agencies, led by ICE, joined the investigation that began last October. They include the U.S. Marshals Service, the Iowa Department of Public Safety, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.

According to an affidavit, "approximately 76% of the 968 employees of Agriprocessors were using false or fraudulent Social Security numbers in connection with their employment."

Chuck Larson, a truck driver for Agriprocessors, was in the plant when the agents arrived. "There had to be 100 of them," he said of the agents.

Larson said the agents told workers to stay in place, then separated them by asking those with identification to stand to the right and those with other papers to stand to the left.

"There was plenty of hollering," Larson said. "You couldn't go anywhere."

When asked who was separated, Larson said those standing in the group with other papers were all Hispanic.

The Agriprocessors plant is northeast Iowa's largest employer. About 200 Hasidic Jews arrived in Postville in 1987, when butcher Aaron Rubashkin of Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood reopened a defunct meatpacking plant with his two sons, Sholom and Heshy, just outside the city limits. Business boomed at the plant, reviving the depressed economy while pitting the newcomers against the predominantly Lutheran community.

Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack said the Postville immigration investigations were warranted despite concerns that officials violated constitutional rights in past raids. He and others have alleged that immigration officials used humiliation, opposite-sex searches and long periods of secrecy in the Dec. 12, 2006, raids at Swift & Co. in Marshalltown, Iowa, where 90 people were arrested on immigration charges.

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Jews running Meth ring

300 arrested in Iowa immigration raid at largest U.S. kosher meat plant

Federal immigration agents today raided the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant and arrested more than 300 people in northeastern Iowa. Most are accused of identity theft and of being in the country illegally.

The Des Moines Register (a Gannett newspaper) reports that according to search warrants unsealed today, federal authorities had received information about alleged immigration violations for the past two years at Agriprocessors Inc. in Postsville. One source, a former plant supervisor, told agents the plant hired foreign nationals from Mexico, Guatemala and Eastern Europe. Around 80% were in the United States illegally, said a supervisor with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The source also reported that some employees were running a methamphetamine lab in the plant and were bringing weapons into the plant, which employs about 1,000. He said he was fired after he told his superiors.

Authorities have released about 40 workers, with supervision, “on humanitarian grounds” because they are primary care-givers. The National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in nearby Waterloo is being used as detention center. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier says the community heard Friday about the impending raid, the largest in Iowa history. When the raid began this morning, family members of plant workers headed to St. Bridget’s Catholic Church, a few blocks away.

“The people right now are hearing and seeing the helicopters,” Sister Mary McCauley told the Associated Press. “They are just panic-stricken and very frightened and some of them are coming to the church as a safe haven.”

The Register has a photo gallery of today's raid.

So far, Agriprocessors has declined to comment. The company's products can be found nationwide in Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s, Albertson’s and Kroger, among others.

On its Web site the company says it "strives to be second to none in producing the finest quality beef and poultry products at a reasonable price. We are devoted to our customers and are committed to following and upholding the federal, state, and local laws and regulations governing our business.

"As a producer of kosher meat products, we approach our business in the context of a deep religious tradition. The nine rabbinic authorities that use Agriprocessors to serve the needs to their congregations define the requirements for kosher meat production at our plant, and train and supervise the rabbis who conduct the religious rituals. The values expressed in the kosher rituals and requirements are a part of the values shared by our employees, regardless of their religious beliefs. ..."

In 1987 about 200 Hasidic Jews arrived in Postville from Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood when butcher Aaron Rubashkin reopened a meat-packing plant, the Register writes: Business boomed at the plant, reviving the depressed economy while pitting the newcomers against the predominately Lutheran community... .

(Buses filled with plant workers arrive at the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, Iowa, where federal agents are processing more than 300 people arrested at Agriprocessors. Photo by Jeff Reinitz of the Courier via AP.)

Posted by Michael Winter

Feds: Drugs made at kosher meat plant
E-mail article

Published: 05/13/2008

Federal authorities charged that a methamphetamine laboratory was operating at the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse and that employees carried weapons to work.

The charges were among the most explosive details to emerge following the massive raid Monday at Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa.

In a 60-page application for a search warrant, federal agents revealed details of their six-month probe of Agriprocessors. The investigation involved 12 federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the departments of labor and agriculture.

According to the application, a former plant supervisor told investigators that some 80 percent of the workforce was illegal. They included rabbis responsible for kosher supervision, who the source believed entered the United States from Canada without proper immigration documents. The source did not provide evidence for his suspicion about the rabbis.

The source also claimed to have confronted a human resources manager with Social Security cards from three employees that had the same number. The manager laughed when the matter was raised, the source said.

At least 300 people were arrested Monday during the raid, for which federal authorities had rented an expansive fairground nearby to serve as a processing center for detainees.

The search warrant application said that 697 plant employees were believed to have violated federal laws.

Agriprocessors officials did not return calls from JTA seeking comment.

POSTVILLE, IA [CHI] — Tal Ginter was incarcerated during the Agriprocessors raid and unfortunately has had to spend Shabbos behind bars. Some Shluchim from Postville visited him Friday to bring him food and lift his spirits. We are asking that in the spirit of Ahavas Yisroel that people should please say Tehillim as well as do some extra deeds of goodness and kindness, so that we can speed up his release.

sex_children

Sexual favors allegedly expected from some Postville workers
JENNIFER JACOBS • REGISTER STAFF WRITER • 2008 COPYRIGHT, DES MOINES REGISTER AND TRIBUNE CO. • May 19, 2008

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Reports that there was an expectation of sexual favors at Agriprocessors Inc. are beginning to emerge from workers at the Postville meat processing plant, and advocates for immigrants in Postville today are trying to collect and validate the stories.

Sister Mary McCauley, a Roman Catholic nun at St. Bridget's Catholic Church, said workers have said that “there was sexual abuse, that there’s propositioning.”

If a worker wanted, say, a promotion or a shift change, “they’d be brought into a room with three or four men and it was like, ‘Which one do you want? Which one are you going to serve?’” said McCauley in an interview today with Des Moines Register editors and reporters.

“Unfortunately, they are grateful for some of their ESL classes, and they knew what some of those words meant,” McCauley said. “If they had the courage, they could refuse it.”

Chaim Abrahams, an Agriprocessors representative, declined to address the allegation of sexual favors in exchange for job-related requests.

“As with any legal matter, Agriprocessors cannot comment about any specific allegation," Abrahams said in a written statement. "The company is performing an independent investigation and will continue to cooperate with the government about this matter.”

Federal agents raided Agriprocessors Inc., a kosher meat-processing plant, on Monday in the largest single-site immigration bust in U.S. history. Arrest warrants were issued for 697 people who work at the plant.

Federal agents detained 389 in Waterloo, charged 306 with various fraud-related charges, and released 62. Twenty-one remain in custody pending immigration hearings.

Since the raid, stories of how employees were mistreated has emerged, including verbal abuse by supervisors.

Last November, the federal search warrant released after the raid said, Immigrant and Customs Enforcement agents interviewed a former Agriprocessors supervisor who said some employees were running a methamphetamine lab in the plant and were bringing weapons to work.

Another source alleged worker abuse, officials said in the warrant. In one case, a supervisor covered the eyes of an employee with duct tape and struck him with a meat hook.

Advocates are trying to document workers’ personal stories, McCauley said.

We are deeply troubled that among the hundreds of workers who were arrested by federal officials on May 12, eighteen were children between ages 13 and 17.[4]

We are deeply troubled to read reports of various criminal operations taking place at the Postville plant, including the account of a Jewish floor supervisor who severely abused a Guatemalan worker in the most reprehensible conditions, and allegations of sexual assault and verbal abuse.[5]

New Details Emerging About Alleged Sexual Abuse at Agriprocessors Plant

POSTCARDS FROM POSTVILLE: New Details Emerging About Alleged Sexual Abuse at Agriprocessors Plant

Advocates Say Congressional Hearings Crucial to Uncovering the Truth

Washington, DC — New details are emerging about a history of sexual abuse and solicitation at the site of the largest worksite immigration raid in U.S. history. The Des Moines Register reports that some former employees of the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, IA are coming forward with revelations about supervisor demands for sexual favors at the plant. These new allegations come after reports of other labor, food safety, and immigration law violations have painted Agriprocessors as the poster child for how some employers exploit our nation’s broken immigration system to profit on the backs of vulnerable workers. Past violations at Agriprocessors that have received new attention following the immigration raid last week include child labor law violations, grotesque physical abuses of employees by supervisors, and numerous health and safety violations. The Des Moines Register article is included at the bottom of this release.

“If these new sexual abuse allegations hold true, we have reached a new low point in the exploitation of vulnerable human beings,” said Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice. “No one in America – citizen, visitor, or undocumented worker – should silently suffer this type of injustice and humiliation. It is not the American way. I have no doubt that every Iowan, every American, and every Member of Congress is outraged that this could happen in our great nation at the dawn of the 21st century. I call on Congress to step in and investigate what happened and the Bush Administration to protect all workers from abuse.”

The allegations about sexual abuse and solicitation come from former employees arrested in the May 12th immigration raid. These instances of abuse are being reported by Sister Mary McCauley, a Catholic nun at St. Bridget's Catholic Church in Postville, IA.

Leslye Orloff, Director of the Immigrant Women Program at Legal Momentum, the oldest legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls, also called on Congress to address our broken immigration system and protect immigrant women: “There have been numerous documented cases of this type of sexual assault and harassment of immigrant women workers throughout the country. The power disparity between employers and supervisors and immigrant workers creates conditions ripe for harassment and sexual assault by male supervisors, who threaten to report women to immigration officials if they do not comply with their demands. For this reason Legal Momentum successfully led a national effort to obtain U-visa crime victim immigration protection for immigrant victims of workplace abuse as part of the Violence Against Women Act. We call upon the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that the Postville workers and any other worked detained at worksite actions are screened for and informed about their rights for protection from deportation as crime victims."

For more details on Agriprocessors, including background information on their past history of violations, see http://www.eyeonagriprocessors.org/.

To learn more about the new allegations and how our current system is failing to protect the rights of all workers, please contact any of the following individuals:

· Leslye Orloff, Director, Immigrant Women Program, Legal Momentum (202.210.8886 or alevat@legalmomentum.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

· Frank Sharry, Executive Director, America’s Voice (202-296-4280)

· Luz Hernandez, advocate on the ground in Iowa (563.380.8154 or isramiro01@luther.eduThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Harnessing the power of American voices and American values to win common sense immigration reform.

To access the video accompanying the Des Moines Register article below, please go to: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080520/NEWS10/805200403.

DES MOINES REGISTER: Advocates: Workers allege sexual abuse

May 20, 2008
By JENNIFER JACOBS
jejacobs@dmreg.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Reports that there was an expectation of sexual favors at Agriprocessors Inc. are beginning to emerge from workers at the Postville meat processing plant, and advocates for immigrants are trying to document the stories.

Sister Mary McCauley, a Roman Catholic nun at St. Bridget's Catholic Church in Postville, said workers have said that "there was sexual abuse, that there's propositioning."

She said she didn't hear any of the stories firsthand but that others passed along the information to her.

If a worker wanted, say, a promotion or a shift change, "they'd be brought into a room with three or four men and it was like, 'Which one do you want? Which one are you going to serve? " McCauley said Monday in an interview with Des Moines Register editors and reporters.

"Unfortunately, they are grateful for some of their ESL classes, and they knew what some of those words meant," she said. "If they had the courage, they could refuse it."

Chaim Abrahams, an Agriprocessors representative, declined to address the allegation of sexual favors in exchange for job-related requests.

"As with any legal matter, Agriprocessors cannot comment about any specific allegation," Abrahams said in a written statement. "The company is performing an independent investigation and will continue to cooperate with the government about this matter."

Federal agents' raid at Agriprocessors on May 12 was the largest single-site immigration raid in U.S. history. Arrest warrants were issued for 697 people who work at the plant.

Agents detained 389 people in Waterloo; of those, 306 were charged with fraud-related felonies for using fake documents to obtain a job. A total of 62 people were temporarily released for humanitarian reasons, such as child care, but they must appear in court soon.

In the Register interview, McCauley said workers say there is "definitely" one person in the area selling Social Security numbers.

That raises questions about these workers' role in committing fraud, said Tom Chapman, an advocate for immigrants and executive director of the Iowa Catholic Conference.

The workers, who speak mainly Spanish, were probably not sophisticated enough to steal or create their own fake identity documents, said Armando Villareal, the administrator for the state Division of Latino Affairs.

"I don't think they have Apple computers in their apartments with laser printers," Villareal said.

Meanwhile, McCauley said she's seen a new confidence in some of the immigrant women.

Most of those released on humanitarian grounds must wear an ankle bracelet that contains an electronic tracking device. Upon their release from detention, they wore long pants to conceal the GPS device, McCauley said.

"Yesterday, they had their pants legs rolled up to their knees," she said. "You could see that they were gaining some strength within themselves."

Meanwhile, the Iowa labor investigation of Agriprocessors is getting back on track. In addition to countless stories of injuries, there are accusations of child labor (one teen told of working 17-hour shifts) and female workers being told their jobs could become easier in exchange for sexual favors.

Feds cite drugs, illegal workers at kosher plant

By Ben Harris 05/13/2008

NEW YORK (JTA) -- In laying the legal groundwork for a massive raid of the country's largest kosher slaughterhouse, federal authorities cited claims that illegal narcotics production took place at the factory and hundreds of illegal immigrants were employed there, including several of the rabbis responsible for kosher supervision.

The charges were among the most explosive details to emerge following the raid Monday at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa.

Agents arrested 390 workers in what Immigration and Customs Enforcement called the largest raid of its kind in U.S. history.

The raid, which required federal authorities to rent an expansive fairground in nearby Waterloo to house detainees, prompted the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa to temporarily relocate judges and court personnel to the site because the facilities in Cedar Rapids and Sioux City were inadequate.

"There have been other operations where more people have been arrested," Tim Counts, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, told JTA. "But as far as we can determine, this is the largest single-site operation as far as number of arrests go."

The raid follows a six-month investigation involving more than a dozen federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the departments of labor and agriculture.

Three Israelis and four Ukrainians were among the detainees held on charges of being in the country illegally, Counts said. Officials are expected to bring criminal charges against some of the detainees as well, most of whom are from Guatemala and Mexico.

Agriprocessors said in a statement Tuesday that it "takes the immigration laws seriously" and intended to "continue to cooperate with the government in its investigation."

"Agriprocessors will also inquire further into the circumstances that led to these events," the company said. "We extend our heartfelt sympathies to the families whose lives were disrupted and wish them the best. We are deeply committed to meeting the needs of all of our customers and are operating again today."

In the affidavit filed as part of the 60-page application for a search warrant, additional details were revealed of the government's investigation of Agriprocessors, a company that has been beset by numerous allegations of health and safety violations, mistreating workers and using controversial slaughter practices.

According to the document, a former supervisor at the plant -- identified only as Source #1 -- told investigators that some 80 percent of the workforce was illegal.

The source also said he believed rabbis responsible for kosher supervision entered the United States from Canada without proper immigration documents. According to the affidavit, the source did not provide evidence for his suspicions about the rabbis.

Source #1 also claimed to have discovered active production of the drug methamphetamine at the plant and reported incidents of weapons being carried there.

Methamphetamine, more commonly known as crystal meth, is Illegal in the United States. The popular nightclub drug gives users a sense of energy and euphoria that can last for hours.

Agriprocessors employees told investigators that sometimes they were required to work nighttime shifts of 12 hours or more.

The affidavit says that 697 plant employees are believed to have violated federal laws.

With Agriprocessors producing more than half of the nation's kosher meat, the raid has prompted fears of a disruption in supply. Though the plant was back in operation Tuesday, it was unclear if Agriprocessors could meet its normal production capacity with hundreds of its workers in federal custody.

Founded by Brooklyn butcher Aaron Rubashkin, Agriprocessors produces kosher meat and poultry marketed under the labels Aaron's Best and Rubashkin's.

The firm gained national attention in 2000 with the publication of the book "Postville," which described the tensions between the company and the local community. The company has attracted a significant population of Orthodox Jews to a rural pocket of northeast Iowa.

Agriprocessors did not respond to requests for comment from JTA. Asked if there was slaughter taking place Tuesday, a woman who answered the phone at the plant said, "We're trying."

The Des Moines Register reported that more than 100 cars were in the company lot Tuesday morning, but quoted a nearby business owner who said that foot and vehicular traffic to the plant was much lower than usual.

Rabbi Menachem Genack, the head of the Orthodox Union's kosher supervision department -- the largest outfit certifying the kosher status of Agriprocessors' meat -- told JTA that other companies had assured him that they could make up for any shortfall from the Postville plant.

Genack reiterated the O.U.'s policy of leaving matters of immigration and labor standards to the government.

"No one else has the resources to do what the federal government can do," he said.

If the company turns out to be criminally liable, Genack said, that could be grounds for losing its kosher certification.

Genack said he was told by the plant's supervising rabbi that two foreign rabbis working at the plant had failed to renew their work permits when they expired a few weeks ago. He described the issue as a "technical" violation and insisted the two rabbis had not been detained.

Much of the information the government collected appears to have come from former employees of Agriprocessors who were detained by police on unrelated charges. Sources related similar stories of presenting fraudulent documents and Social Security numbers when seeking employment with the company.

Several said they were aware of undocumented workers employed at the plant that were paid by supervisors in cash.

The affidavit says the government has probable cause to believe that an Agriprocessors supervisor assisted workers in acquiring fake documents in exchange for a cut of the proceeds.

Federal investigators provided documentation for a former Agriprocessors employee, identified in the affidavit as Source #7, for the purpose of gaining employment at the plant. Once hired, the source reported on rabbis who insulted the workers and threw meat at them.

In one alleged instance, a "Hasidic Jew" duct-taped a worker's eyes and then hit him with a meat hook, "apparently not causing serious injuries."

Agriprocessors has come under fire before for its labor practices, as well as health and safety violations. In March, authorities fined the company $182,000 for violations at the plant.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has clandestinely videotaped a controversial slaughter practice used at the plant.

In addition, an investigation by the Forward weekly newspaper revealed allegations that employees were underpaid and exploited. Agriprocessors officials denied the allegations.

On Tuesday, members of the Conservative movement's Hekhsher Tzedek Commission condemned the company, saying that keeping kosher requires more than just adherence to ritual matters, but also sensitivity to the environment and respect for workers and animals. The Hekhsher Tzedek initiative is in part a response to past allegations of misconduct at Agriprocessors.

"The actions of this company have brought shame upon the entire Jewish community," the commission said. "Yesterday’s discovery, along with the other violations of the ethical standards set forth by our Torah and our tradition underscore the need for Hekhsher Tzedek. To be sure, halacha has never limited its concern to the ritual elements of kashrut alone."

EPA Forced To Clean Up Former Rubashkin Mill

Imperfections mar tough laws

October 20, 2002