More on agriprocessors
September 3rd, 2008 by AriI wrote a little while ago about Agriprocessors and the various reactions from the Jewish community. At the end af my article I said that I wasn’t calling for a ban on Agriprocessors. In part my reasons were selfish – it is so hard to find kosher meat in this area without having to drive to Maryland that I take what I can get. In part I also simply didn’t want to rush to judgment. An affidavit is one thing, a conviction is another. After hearing this story on NPR last night I’m starting to reconsider. In response to the deportation of the illegal immigrants they had been hiring, Agriprocessors turned to a third party to do some recruiting for them to fill their obvious labor shortage.
The new workers, some of whom were recruited from other slaughterhouses and know what they’re doing, have been complaining of worker abuse as well. Ali Shira, (who used to work in a Turkey slaughtering house), reports that there were no safety locks on the machines. Twice while he was inside a machine cleaning it (apparently one of the most dangerous jobs in a slaughterhouse), a mechanic started the machine and almost killed him. He quit after a week. Rickey Rapier from Indianapolis reports that the packing plant provides “housing”. He sleeps on a mattress on the floor in a small basement with 6 other people with no furniture, a leaking ceiling, rotting wood, and no working shower. For this he has $100 a week deducted from his paycheck. Now I don’t know what the average rent is in Postville Iowa, but I’ve paid rent in the midwest before, and I know that $2800 a month (7 people, $400 each), for a very crappy apartment is a complete ripoff. It is strongly reminiscent of company towns in the early 1900s where the corporations would charge so much for their living facilities that employees were only a half step up from being slaves. While hiring illegal workers doesn’t get me angry, worker abuse does. There were allegations of worker abuse in the initial affidavit as well, but it’s easy to ignore when you’re only hearing one side of the story. The fact that even after supposedly cleaning up their act, hiring a compliance officer, and being “inspected” by the RCA, these stories are still coming out means that this is a pattern and not an exception. If even half of what has been alleged in the initial allegation and the current allegations are true, then Agriprocessors is an abusive corporation committing a hillul hashem and I have no desire to continue to support such an enterprise.
Update: My friend Chaim sent me an article from this weekend’s New York Times where Agriprocessors has gone to court to try and stop their employees from unionizing. Their rationale is that the employees are… (wait for it)… illegal immigrants! Talk about a double standard. If you want to hire illegal immigrants because you either believe in the right to contract, or are trying to provide subsistence for a marginalized group of people, then that’s fine with me. But in either case you have to then also believe that the workers have the right to unionize with that. If you don’t think they have the right to unionize, then you are essentially saying that illegal immigrants have less right than other citizens. That is a fine position to take, but if you do, then consistency demands you alsodo not employ them illegally, because working is a right which society has also deemed is only available to legal residents.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:17 am
You don’t have to worry about getting Agri meat here; the majority of the meat sold in the major kosher shops in the ‘burbs is not from Agri and any Agri meat they do have is marked as such.
It’s too bad though; because there’s really very little we can do otherwise.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:49 am
My wife and I have fluctuated back and forth for months betwen “Yes, we will by Agri meat” and “No, we will not buy Agri meat.” The details of Agri’s treatment of the workers who tried to unionize in Brooklyn pushed us over the edge — we are no longer buying Agri meat.
This is difficult for us, because right now they’re the only readily available red meat in the Boston area. We literally do not have a single glatt kosher butcher under reliable supervision — one butcher closed when its owner passed away; another gave up his hechsher due to cost and may or may not eventually find someone to supervise him for cheaper; and a third has no supervision of its freshly butchered products and its packaged glatt products tend to be not on the fresh side.
There’s a company that does periodic meat deliveries, but the meat isn’t that good, it’s all frozen, and it makes spontaneity a bit difficult — “hey, honey, do you want to barbecue hamburgers tonight?” is essentially an impossibility.
We don’t know what we’re going to do about the red meat problem, but we’re pretty sure the solution isn’t going to be buying meat from Agri. *sigh*
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Elanit: you know that Aarons/Rubashkins is Agriprocessors, right? I have seen a lot of that at the kosher markets near DC. Fortunately, Wasserman & Lemberger delivers to DC (for free!) and they’re under the va’ad too.
Ari: The allegations are horrendous, and the stories which have been printed sound really unpleasant. I agree: if any substantive percentage of that is true, I’d completely swear off of it. As it stands, Sarah & I got pretty turned off of it back when PeTA got their video (go figure: I’m not normally PeTA’s fan, but occasionally they’ll do something good) about animal abuse.
I’m trying to withold judgement until after the charges get addressed, because as far as I know, the Agri defense is that the charges are completely baseless; I’ve been in a situation where I was accused of something blatantly false, and it was painful for me to see how many folks equated the accusation with guilt. So I’d encourage you to hold off on making any vows, but the good news is that there are some other options in the meantime.
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:53 pm
David-
Yes, I know that Aarons/Rubashkins is Agri. I called up Shalom’s and Koshermart last month to ask them if they carry this meat and if so, how is it packaged. They told me that most of their meat is not from Agri and if it is, it is properly marked as such.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I usually do most of my meat shopping closer to home – Giant, Safeway, Brookville, etc., where the selection is much more limited. I don’t eat that much red meat anyway (especially now that I don’t have a grill and a backyard anymore), so it won’t change my personal habits too much, but I’ll probably have to make the trek out to K-mart and Shalom’s more often.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
As an aside, http://www.boycottagriprocessors.com is currently not owned. I’m just saying….
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Jonathan – I actually just read about your New England tribulations this morning on kosherblog:
http://www.kosherblog.net/2008/09/02/gordon-alperin-drops-kosher-supervision/
He seems optimistic that a new Brookline’s Butcherie may be opening soon. I don’t know anything about them (never having lived in Boston), but it may be helpful.
September 6th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Ari – As I’m sure Jonathan already knows, the Butcherie, currently, has unacceptable supervision and sells non-glatt meat. I would be very uncomfortable with one owner owning two “kosher” shops: one that is, and; one that isn’t. I’m going to withhold some judgement on Agriprocessors for now (though I almost never buy their stuff anyway – I eat very little red meat, and Empire is far, far superior and cheaper) – but I do agree that this is disturbing…
September 6th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Guess what….
http://www.forward.com/articles/14152/