Workers and Documents Paint Stories of Coercion, Sexual Exploitation at Agriprocessors

More than two weeks have passed since the federal government launched an immigration raid — the largest single-site raid in American history — against Agriprocessors in Postville, yet many Iowans and plant employees continue to point to documents filed in the lead-up to the raid, as well as to personal stories following it, and wonder what might make news headlines in the weeks to come.

“I’m confused and I am sad that nothing has been done to this company,” said 33-year-old Juanita, speaking through a translator in Marshalltown on Wednesday. “So many families were broken as a result of this raid. So many were charged by the government. It is bad that only those most poor and vulnerable get charged while a company with deep pockets gets nothing.”

Juanita, who came to this country from Petapa, Guatemala, said she worked at the Postville plant on the chicken production line. She was assigned to work graveyard shift and, although she had asked for a promotion or shift change, she was refused.

“My supervisor, who was also from Guatemala, tried to force himself on me in the parking lot in my car after I had asked for a job change,” she said. “When I pushed him off me, I began to hear that I was not working hard enough or fast enough. I am a good worker. I did my job well. It was because I would not have sex with him that I was pushed so hard. He told me that I could always change my mind and that, if I did, he would put in a good word for me.”

No longer working at the plant, Juanita and her 16-year-old sister, who did not wish to be interviewed, are trying to decide what they will do next.

“I don’t know where we will end up or what we will do,” she said.

The story of sexual coercion is echoed by Jenaro Rucal, who says he went to work at Agriprocessors after purchasing fake documents at the age of 13.

“My girlfriend was 16 when she came to work at the plant,” he said in a telephone interview Friday morning. “I had a fight with the supervisor because he told my girlfriend that she could get ‘perks’ if he got ‘perks’ from her.”

In addition to the personal stories that have come out in the days following the raid, documents filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outline a scheme that involved the purchase and registration of automobiles. An unnamed plant supervisor worked with a Cedar Rapids car dealership to provide vehicles to what was believed to be undocumented workers. The dealership would purchase specific makes and models at car auctions and provide them to the plant supervisor, who would then sell the vehicles to workers.

Although the documents do not indicate the amount of money charged for the vehicles, Rucal said he purchased a Ford from his supervisor for $3,500 after the supervisor promised to grant preferred working conditions for Rucal’s mother, a worker who was detained in the immigration raid and subsequently released to care for children.

“Just as a matter of policy, we don’t comment on any ongoing investigation,” said Tim Counts, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), when asked if stories of sexual exploitation now being told by former plant employees have been validated by government officials. “But, as I think any law enforcement agency would say, if anybody believes they are a victim of a crime, they should immediately report that to the appropriate authorities.”

Such responses, while reasonable, have been both commonplace and frustrating for those attempting to determine how much cooperation is taking place between federal agencies, between now criminally convicted former plant workers, as well as between federal and state agencies. Company representatives have also been close-mouthed when it comes to the raid or any of the myriad of ongoing investigations in relation to the plant. Requests made to Jim Fallon, spokesman for Agriprocessors, have continued to go unanswered.

“Those who knowingly employ or supervise illegal aliens, knowing their unlawful status, are able to exploit illegal aliens because illegal aliens are unlikely to contact authorities for fear they will be arrested and/or deported,” wrote David Hoagland, senior special agent with ICE, in the affidavit for a search warrant of Agriprocessors. “Exploitation can take on many forms, such as requiring employees to provide money or other things of value to maintain employment or secure better working hours or tasks, providing sub-par working conditions, failing to pay overtime, and physically harassing or mistreating employees.”

The 60-page document includes the testimony of several current and former Agriprocessors employees as they describe instances of exploitation and coercion. A former plant supervisor said that there was an active methamphetamine lab in the plant and that weapons were carried on-site by employees. The documents also tell the story of an undercover source in the plant. Rent on the source’s apartment was raised several times during the course of employment at Agriprocessors. The source witnessed a floor supervisor place duct tape over the eyes of a Hispanic worker before striking that same worker with a meat hook and was personally pushed by a different floor supervisor.

Such allegations have prompted the Orthodox Jewish community throughout the nation to pause and consider not only the physical, but also the spiritual aspect of kosher products.

“We need to be in a world where we can say that keeping kosher is the way in which I demonstrate not only my concern for my relationship to God and Torah, but the Jewish concern for our relationship to the world in which we live,” wrote Rabbi Morris Allen, who has been instrumental in calling for Hekhsher Tzekek, or an additional seal on kosher products that would reflect production benchmarks consistent with Jewish ethical standards.

Rabbi Harold Kravitz of Minnesota was part of a group visiting Postville this week so that he could see for himself if the things he was reading about were true.

“We spent hours hearing about appalling working conditions and the abuses that have taken place at Agriprocessors,” he wrote following his visit to the community. “We heard allegations of all kinds of abuses: underage workers, the poorest pay of any slaughterhouse in Iowa, supervisors who demanded payments and sexual favors in exchange for jobs or particular assignments. Workers consistently described being cursed at and screamed at to work faster and harder. We heard of people working in demanding and dangerous jobs with no training. We heard two stories of workers being struck. We repeatedly heard workers describe how a lead supervisor would demand that they buy a used car from him for more than its value in order to get a job at the plant, even though they were not eligible for a driver’s license.”

Kravitz said the people he spoke with were in the process of being deported and had “nothing to gain or lose from what they now say about their experiences.”

“We have stood by, enjoying our kosher meat and chicken at the expense of simple folks who have been severely mistreated and whose lives are now in utter disarray,” he said. “We have a responsibility to speak out about this. … We must urge all quarters of the Jewish community to respond to this travesty.”

Despite a recent agreement with Iowa regulators concerning fines for health and safety violations, Agriprocessors this week lost roughly 150 non-skilled laborers, who were pulled because of concerns for care and safety. The laborers had worked at the plant for Labor Ready, a Waterloo firm that provides contract workers, for about 10 days.

Federal authorities raided the plant on May 12, taking 389 workers, primarily from Guatemala or Mexico, into custody on possible immigration violations. Out of the 302 workers criminally charged in the case, 297 pleaded guilty and were sentenced last week. Most convicted will serve five months in a federal prison before facing deportation. Counts said he could not comment on whether the now-convicted workers were cooperating with authorities as a part of the ongoing investigation.

Agriprocessors, owned and operated by the Aaron Rubashkin family, produces about 60 percent of the kosher meat and 40 percent of the kosher poultry in the U.S. market. The company’s brands include Aaron’s Best, Aaron’s Choice, European Glatt, Nevel, Shor Harbor, Rubashkin’s, Supreme Kosher, David’s and Iowa’s Best. Two-thirds of their products are non-kosher and are sold through such retailers as Wal-Mart and Trader Joe’s. Rubashkin recently announced that his son, Sholom, will no longer serve as chief executive officer of the Postville facility.