State lawyer compares Atalissa bunkhouse to 'cage'

DES MOINES -- In a hearing Tuesday, a state attorney compared the living situation of 21 mentally retarded men who were removed last year from a bunkhouse in Atalissa to living in a cage.

Henry's Turkey Service used the bunkhouse, a former school with boarded up windows, to house workers. The company was under contract to provide workers to West Liberty Foods, a food processing plant.

State labor officials are alleging 9,000 state labor violations by Kenneth Henry and Jane Johnson, doing business as Henry's Turkey Service along with Texas-based Hill Country Farms.

Those alleged violations include failing to pay workers the minimum wage, failing to provide pay stubs to workers and taking illegal deductions from their paychecks.

Henry and Johnson have appealed the violations before Administrative Law Judge Jeff Farrell, who heard testimony in the case this week.

Testimony has shown the workers, who were mentally handicapped, received just $65 of their monthly paychecks. The rest was deducted for room and board and care at bunkhouse.

In February, state officials shut down the bunkhouse after finding safety violations and what has been described as deplorable conditions inside.

Mitchell Mahan, the attorney for Iowa Workforce Development, said the men who worked for the company were underpaid, saw improper payroll deductions and were not provided with pay stubs.

“Clearly, over the years, what you had was simply men being housed in something more like a cage,” Mahan said.

Dave Scieszinski, attorney for Henry and Johnson, cited a number of technical reasons why the alleged violations should not be held up.

He said employees or their attorneys have to make a wage claim to the state, otherwise the state has no authority to proceed.

Scieszinski said non-residents of Iowa do not have a right to make a claim; the workers originally came from Texas.

He said the claim should instead be made against West Liberty Foods, which he contended was the employer of the men.

“I don't think there's any doubt from the framework of this situation that the employer in this case is West Liberty Foods,” Scieszinski said.

A West Liberty Foods official testified this week that the company paid Henry's Turkey Service for providing the workers and did not have an employment relationship with the workers.

Kenneth Henry of Hill Country Farms said the company had planned in recent years to cease its operations in Atalissa, moving some workers back with their families and placing others in Texas facilities.

Although witnesses have said they did business or worked for with Henry's Turkey Service, Henry said the company actually was merged into Hill Country Farms, but continued to do business under the name Henry's Turkey Service.

Hill Country Farms first put employees into the West Liberty plant, then a Louis Rich plant, about 36 or 37 years ago, Henry said.

The company leased an old school building from the city of Atalissa, which they remodeled to hold about 15 workers, Henry said. Employees continuously resided there for more than three decades. The number of workers housed there increased to 60 at one point, before decreasing, Henry said.