The $1.5 million settlement announced this week between prosecutors and a major Carolinas poultry producer may well teach the company a needed lesson - but isn’t there a bigger problem?
The deal lets two indicted managers at the House of Raeford’s Greenville, S.C., plant avoid criminal convictions. After a huge immigration raid last year, the N.C-based company was charged with intentionally hiring illegal immigrants. More than 20 Latino supervisors served jail time. The raid took place after a 2008 Observer investigation found unsafe conditions and a high number of undocumented workers at Carolinas poultry plants.
Obviously, it’s a good idea to enforce federal immigration law. But the biggest poultry plant problem isn’t illegal immigrants. It’s how all the workers were treated - and the continuing lack of enforcement and punishment for companies that flout laws and endanger workers.
Observer reporters found workers were being maimed by machines and poisoned with toxic chemicals - yet the House of Raeford wasn’t reporting injuries as required by law. Injured workers were sent from the doctor’s office right back to the plant. Child labor laws were broken. Some injured workers, or those who sought worker’s compensation, were fired.
Current and former supervisors told reporters the plants preferred undocumented workers because they were less likely to question working conditions. One former poultry plant supervisor told reporters a manager had specifically told her in 2001 to stop hiring African Americans in favor of Latinos.
Other than federal immigration raids, though, there’s been little worker safety enforcement at the poultry plants by the two states’ labor departments. The N.C. labor department did cite a House of Raeford plant in Teachey, N.C., for 49 serious violations and issued $178,000 in fines, but the case hasn’t been resolved.
Yet immigration enforcement may, inadvertently, help improve worker safety.
After the immigration raid, House of Raeford began hiring more Americans. The result? Earlier this year, 10 current and former workers sued, saying they weren’t being paid for the hours they worked. (The company denies it.) In Bladen County, after immigration raids at a Smithfield Foods pork plant led to more African American workers, the workers voted to unionize.
Carolinas poultry workers deserve stronger protections on the job. And immigration raids alone aren’t going to solve that problem.
I am sure there are many convenient justifications to hide behind but there is no excuse for this.When Bill Clinton ruined our economy by signing into law the N.A.F.T.A.,cooperation after cooperation fled to Mexico because of cheap labor,lax regulations,and no insurance plans for workers.They resell their products here made by Mexican hands and don't pay taxes.The illegals need to stay in Mexico to work,seems like there is more there anyway.
Hiring illegals also increases unemployment rates which increases taxes through unemployment etc.,free health care etc. etc.So,yes,they should be punished.Also,the illegals need to be made to serve a lengthy prison sentence in 23 hour lockdown,fingerprinted,and sent back to Mexico.
I did not know the Dep't. of Labor fined companies for bad working conditions.I do know tha O.S.H.A. does but they usually compromise with the companies and either slap them on the hand or reduce the fines.That is wrong.There are some O.S.H.A. officials that take payoffs to drop fines and give good safety reports,this I know for a fact.I was a supervisor at the Smithfield/Gwaltney pork plant in Tarheel,N.C. which was mentioned in the letter.
I know for a fact that they,in 1995&1996,were hiring illegal aliens and knew it.The justification was that the illegals had social security cards.However,working conditions were very good there and they have their own medical facility in the plant.The pay is also competitive,which brings me to another subject that I detest,UNIONS.
I know,for fact,that UNIONS in the beginning,were formed for the better treatment of employees and safer,better working conditions,and better pay.Unfortunately,greed came in the picture and UNIONS are nothing more than a virus that infects any plant it infiltrates and destroys it like a slow,punishing death.I remember the panic that set in when a UNION started talking to employees of this pork plant. I was there so I know.They made all of these promises and got dissention started in the company.Now this Smithfield plant,at the time,had over 3000 people employed and was building a shipping center which when completed,made this plant the largest in the world of it's type.
The pay at this plant was competitive then and employees were allowed to work overtime,sometimes 80 hours a week if they so wanted.You can't ask for better.But nooooooo,a UNION,with it's greedy self,came in and started manipulating the illegal aliens to vote yes to the UNION.It did not pass at the time and the plant flourished.Along with N.A.F.T.A.,UNIONS contribute to more plant closings than anything else.All we hear are liberals wanting to blame Bush for the state of our economy but fact is that Bill Clinton started it and UNIONS are right there with it.UNIONS are a festering boil on the rear of society and I wouldn't blame a company for moving to Mexico or somewhere to get away from UNIONS.
In closing,us Americans,by world standards are wealthy and lazy.These Mexican illegals work harder because they think they have a white collar job compared to what they had in Mexico,that is a FACT.They could care less about working conditions or any American trying to make a living that doea worry about on the job safety.I hope safety regulations get stiffer and fines get handed out,that will eventually step up safety.Until we stop acting like illegal aliens do not exist,nothing will be done about the problems that are caused by them.You bleeding heart liberals need to open your eyes.UNIONS should exist but not the way they are now.The current UNION system is like a cancer.People with no or little education should not be making 30-100 dollars an hour just because they are in a UNION.It is a slap in the face of those who have wprked hard all their lives and to those who went into debt obtaining an education that can't even get a job.