More than 200 workers at an Ottumwa meatpacking plan were notified this month by their employer that their work visas have been revoked, and now face potential deportation, according to a union official.
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Articles Tagged: Meat processors
The owner of an Omaha food packaging company says his business has been unfairly hamstrung by federal immigration officials, who raided the plant and arrested more than half its workforce.
Across the Midwest, meatpacking plants -- including Agri Star in Postville -- often pollute non-white communities and low-income neighborhoods, according to an Investigate Midwest analysis of two decades of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enforcement data.
Wastewater, including blood from Agri Star’s beef processing facility, went into Williams Creek before Postville city staff discovered the problem, diverted the waste into a holding tank and alerted Agri Star.
The Labor Department asked a federal judge for an injunction to halt the employment of minors by Tennessee-based Fayette Janitorial Service LLC, saying it believes at least four children were still working at one Iowa slaughterhouse — Seaboard Triumph Foods — as of Dec. 12.
It’s not easy, even with the help of federal grants
In the wake of supply chain and customer base issues spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic, several meat farms in Iowa have shifted business models to find alternate path to sell their products.
“While American farmers and ranchers have been responding to the demand to produce more, their communities have struggled to see their share of the benefits,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.
ChopLocal.com, an Iowa-based online market created in 2020 to connect small meat producers with customers, now is helping 45 farms and butcher shops in 12 states sell their products directly to consumers.
One of the former supervisors filing lawsuits is a Waterloo plant manager accused of arranging a COVID-19 office pool and encouraging interpreters to mislead workers about the coronavirus pandemic.
Two meat plant workers from Iowa and one from Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit accusing 11 of the United States’ largest beef and pork producers of conspiring to depress wages and benefits.
An investigation into the theft this summer of several semitrailers loaded with frozen beef from Nebraska has led to arrests and uncovered a multimillion-dollar theft ring targeting meatpacking plants in six Midwestern states, federal authorities said.
Some say the deal supports their concerns about how a lack of competition in the beef industry affects prices to consumers.
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