Americans found to replace illegals at slaughterhouse work

NY Times:

Last November, immigration officials began a crackdown at Smithfield Foods’s giant slaughterhouse here, eventually arresting 21 illegal immigrants at the plant and rousting others from their trailers in the middle of the night.

Since then, more than 1,100 Hispanic workers have left the 5,200-employee hog-butchering plant, the world’s largest, leaving it struggling to find, train and keep replacements.

Across the country, the federal effort to flush out illegal immigrants is having major effects on workers and employers alike. Some companies have reluctantly raised wages to attract new workers following raids at their plants.

After several hundred immigrant employees at its plant in Stillmore, Ga., were arrested, Crider Poultry began recruiting Hmong workers from Minnesota, hiring men from a nearby homeless mission and providing free van transportation to many workers.

So far, Smithfield has largely replaced the Hispanics with American workers, who often leave poorly paid jobs for higher wages at the plant here. But the turnover rate for new workers — many find the work grueling and the smell awful — is twice what it was when Hispanics dominated the work force.

Making Smithfield’s recruiting challenge even harder is the fact that many local residents have worked there before and soured on the experience. As a result, Smithfield often looks far afield for new employees.

Fannie Worley, a longtime resident of Dillon, S.C., a largely African-American town of sagging trailers and ramshackle bungalows, quit her $5.25-an-hour, part-time job making beds at a Days Inn motel four months ago to take a $10.75-an-hour job at Smithfield. But Ms. Worley remains ambivalent.

“It pays a lot better,” she said. “But the trip is too long.”

Around 1 p.m. each day, C. J. Bailey, a Smithfield worker, picks up Ms. Worley and 10 other employees in his big white van. They arrive at the plant around 2:15, and he drops them back home after 1 a.m.

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Last November, the company notified 640 employees that their identity information did not match government records. In January, federal agents arrested 21 workers at the plant, and in August, helped by information the company provided, agents arrested 28 more, many at home.

Mr. Pittman said cooperating with immigration officials “serves our goal of 100 percent compliance 100 percent of the time.” But for many families, the cooperation has come at a price.

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The fact is they are finding citizens who will do the job. They may have to increase the pay to attract enough of them, but that is a reflection of a market economy.

Many of the former Hispanic workers are self deporting and those who were arrested are being processed for deportation. The deportations are effecting some businesses that served the illegal immigrant community. The union that has been trying to organize the plant also suffered a setback, witht eh loss of some of its stronger backers. The turnover of new employees probably also effects its ability to organize.