Plant owners: NY workers were in US illegally (block workers from joining a union)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080514/NEWS01/805140358/-1/politics

By CLARK KAUFFMAN • [e-mail] • May 14, 2008

The owners of the Postville meatpacking plant where 390 workers were arrested Monday admitted in court last year that many of the workers in its New York distribution center were in the United States illegally.

That admission is getting new attention in the wake of the raid this week that rounded up 40 percent of the Iowa plant's 968 workers.

Agriprocessors Inc. made the statement about its New York workers in an effort to block those workers from joining a union.


Developing: A list of people detained in the raid: http://data.desmoinesregister.com/results/index.php?info=postville_detainees

The company contended that many of the employees at the Brooklyn distribution center had improperly voted in favor of union representation and were not protected by the National Labor Relations Act because they were undocumented immigrants.

The company contended that the votes of those people should be thrown out in part because of the "recent policy changes and debate over the burden of illegal immigration in this country."

The company also contended that because undocumented immigrants have no legitimate expectation of continued future employment, their interests were different from that of the company's workers who are in the United States legally.

FULL story at link.

[seemunkee]

1. Let me get this straight

They want to throw out a union vote because the people they hired weren't legal? Why hasn't the business been fined and the family put in jail?

[rdenney]

2. Because Americans don't want to pay other Americans a living wage..

thats why.

Big business always wins out, at least under * and the thuglycans.