Agriprocessors
Agriprocessors was the corporate identity of a slaughterhouse and meat-packaging factory based in Postville, Iowa, best known as a facility for the glatt kosher processing of cattle, as well as chicken, turkey, duck, and lamb.
In the 1980s Aaron Rubashkin, a Russian-born Lubavitcher Hasidic butcher from Brooklyn, decided to take advantage of economic structural changes to bring mass-production to the kosher meat production business.
In 1987 he bought an abandoned slaughterhouse outside Postville, a town undergoing a major employment crisis in northeastern Iowa and opened a processing plant creating some 350 jobs.
Governor Dave Heineman presented a $505,000 gratuity check to Rubashkin on behalf of the city of Gordon, as part of an incentive package that brought the factory to the town.
[10] In late 2004, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) released a video filmed undercover at Agriprocessors, showing gory details of cattle having their tracheas and esophagi ripped out of their necks and surviving for minutes after shechita (ritual slaughter).
[11] Noted animal welfare expert and meat scientist Dr. Temple Grandin called Agriprocessors procedures an "atrocious abomination" and worse than anything she had ever seen in over 30 kosher abattoirs.
Under pressure from the Agriculture Department, the Orthodox Union kosher certification authority, and Israel's chief rabbinate, the plant changed its practices.
[16] Another PETA undercover video, reportedly taken on August 13, 2008, showed violations of the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act, including the use of saw-like, multiple, hacking cuts in the necks of still-conscious animals.
[22] A December 2008 story in the Village Voice featured allegations of sharp business practices by the Rubashkins: intimidating rivals (with threats of physical violence), manipulation of the kosher certification system, collusion with suppliers to withhold supplies from competitors, etc.
[24] ICE spokesman Tim Counts said that “the raid was aimed at seeking evidence of identity theft, stolen Social Security numbers and for people who are in the country illegally”.
[25] Sources quoted in the affidavit and application for search warrant alleged the existence of a methamphetamine laboratory at the slaughterhouse, and that employees carried weapons to work.
In late July, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with workers and community leaders, after a United States House of Representatives' subcommittee had heard testimony about the raid and its impact on the families and the town,[27] and a rally with some 1,500 participants, organized by the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, Jewish Community Action and St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church was held in Postville in support of the detained Agriprocessors workers and their families.
He was finally replaced as CEO in September 2008 by Bernard Feldman, a New York attorney who had worked as counsel for the family, after child labor charges against Aaron and Sholom Rubashkin had been announced, and the Orthodox Union had threatened to withdraw their kosher certification.
Shmarya Rosenberg, author of the Failed Messiah blog, uncovered that two posts under the name of Rabbi Morris Allen of Hechsher Tzedek, a critic of Agriprocessors, were part of a sockpuppeting scheme.
Alarming information about working conditions at the Postville plant - including allegations ranging from the use of child labor in prohibited jobs to sexual and physical abuse by supervisors; from the nonpayment of regular and overtime wages to the denial of immediate medical attention for workplace injuries - brought to national attention by the raid forces me to believe that, in contrast to our state’s overall economic-development strategy, this company’s owners have deliberately chosen to take the low road in its business practices.He also directed Iowa state agencies to prohibit Agriprocessors from listing their jobs on state job lists, and ordered his Attorney General to prosecute all violations backed by sufficient evidence.
[44] Aggravated identity theft charges had formerly been dismissed against human resources employee Laura Althouse, supervisor Brent Beebe (one of two operations managers at the Agriprocessors plant), and Sholom Rubashkin, the motion contended.
[52] In the plea, Beebe admitted that he had conspired with Sholom (identified in the proceedings as a former vice president) and others a week before the May 12, 2008 immigration raid at the plant to buy fake identification documents for 19 employees.
[61] On August 29, 2013, Amara signed a plea deal, admitting that he "conspired with Agriprocessors CEO Sholom Rubashkin and other executives for at least five years before the raid to harbor immigrants 'knowing and in reckless disregard of the fact' they had come to the U.S.
He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to harbor undocumented immigrants for profit, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, though federal sentencing guidelines called for a shorter term.
Attorneys Office said any conviction on the immigration charges would not affect his sentence, writing, "dismissal will avoid an extended and expensive trial, conserve limited resources, and lessen the inconvenience to witnesses.
[80] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has criticized the three-day series of court hearings in the aftermath of the raid, and has published a copy of a "script" that attorneys were given to use in discussing possible plea agreements with their clients.
[81] Officials from the office of United States Attorney Matt Dummermuth, whose staff assisted in the preparation of the documents used in the hearings, have defended the proceedings.
Chet Culver, governor of Iowa, criticized Agriprocessors in a guest editorial on August 24, 2008, comparing it to Upton Sinclair′s 1906 novel The Jungle: "Alarming information about working conditions at the Postville plant ... brought to national attention by the raid forces me to believe that, in contrast to our state's overall economic-development strategy, this company's owners have deliberately chosen to take the low road in its business practices.
Jewish organizations had voiced concern about Agriprocessors meat products meeting ethical standards of kashrut ever since the first criticisms of its slaughtering methods and working conditions were leveled, in large measure by the animal rights organization PETA,[85] brought to the attention of the general public by The New York Times in November 2004,[86] and notably to that of a Jewish readership by the newspaper The Forward in 2006.
[89] Hence, in the wake of the raid, Modern Orthodox rabbis met in Los Angeles on May 18, 2008 to put in motion the corresponding creation of a kosher certification (hechsher) serving to address ethical issues for their own congregations.
"[92] The liberal Orthodox Jewish organization Uri L'Tzedek [93] (English: "Giving Light to Righteousness"), founded in 2007, called for a boycott of Agriprocessors products.
[94] The boycott was lifted six weeks later, after Agriprocessors had appointed a former U.S. attorney as compliance officer and had promised changes in their treatment of workers,[95] even though the management had not been replaced, contrary to the announcement made by the plant's owner immediately after the raid.
According to Novak et al, "The psychosocial, economic, communal and identity-based stressors activated by the Postville raid may have interfered with Latina mothers' neuroendocrine balance and coping resources, leaving infants vulnerable to a dysregulated endocrine environment."
[106] Agriprocessors was bought at auction in July 2009 by SHF Industries, a company formed by Canadian plastics manufacturer Hershey Friedman, an observant Orthodox Jew, and his son-in-law, Daniel Hirsch.
[112] In the same year, seven men who were arrested in the raid wrote a play in Spanish, la Historia de Nuestras Vidas (The Story of Our Lives) and performed it at Lutheran churches in Decorah, IA and Minneapolis.
