Jewish Labor Committee condemns Agriprocessors

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080524/NEWS/782451842/1006/news

Updated May 24. 2008 11:57AM

By Trish Mehaffey
The Gazette

The Jewish Labor Committee on Friday called on Agriprocessors Inc. to end its campaign of worker abuse and live up to the responsibilities of "corporate citizenship."

Spokesman Arieh Lebowitz said the committee wanted to formally weigh in on the latest reports of troubling practices at the kosher meatpacking company. The Jewish Labor Committee defends human rights and condemns any kind of worker abuse.

The committee has voiced its views against the company in the past for intimidating and harassing employees who have attempted to join a union, said Rosaliand Spigel, acting director, but this is the first formal statement in regard to the May 12 immigration raid at the Postville plant.

Lebowitz said the organization has reviewed the complaints of Agriprocessors employees, some of whom have contended the company abused child labor laws, failed to pay workers full wages, unnecessarily exposed workers to dangerous working conditions and sexually harassed workers.

"Judaism is clear on the topic of treating workers with dignity and respect," Lebowitz said. "We understand that we must treat our workers decently and justly, ethically and legally."

Also Friday, Aaron Rubashkin, the owner of Agriprocessors, announced that the plant is seeking a new chief executive officer after the immigration raid cost it nearly half its work force.

FULL story at link.

[MasonJar]

1. How about the abuse to the animals, being processed by big agri-business.

Read Martha Grimes' new novel Dakota and you'll never eat meat again. I do not eat it now. The next time PETA calls for my help picketing Yum! I will be there. Where is America's humanity to the world and the earth and its creatures? Did we lose or did it never exist? Big and ever-expanding Agro farms must go.