Minnesota firm aims to recruit from troubled Iowa plant

POSTVILLE, Iowa — A Minnesota firm held a job fair in Postville on Saturday as it looked to recruit workers away from troubled meatpacking plant Agriprocessors.

Officials with Long Prairie Packing, of Long Prairie, Minn., said they are looking to lure workers from Agriprocessors, which has suffered since a massive immigration raid in May that led to the arrest of nearly 400 people on immigration charges. Agriprocessors' owner and four managers also face state charges of illegally using child labor at the plant.

The Minnesota company is promising pay of at least $11 an hour, plus potential bonuses up to $3,000.

Agriprocessors new chief executive officer, Bernard Feldman, called the effort to pluck his workers "inappropriate activity."

But others, including Florabelth De La Garza, who works as a feather cutter at Agriprocessors, said they welcomed the job fair.

"I want to work for a good company forever," said De La Garza, 49. "Here, they trick you and abuse you."

She said she and her husband, Albert Lopez, 39, had only worked at Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant, for 21 days and that they were already fed up.

By 10 a.m. Saturday there were nearly 25 people filing into city-owned Turner Hall Saturday morning to learn more about Long Prairie Packing.

Feldman said Agriprocessors had treated its workers fairly, and he hopes they will stay with the company.

Bill LaMarr, industrial relations manager for American Foods Groups, which owns Long Prairie Packing, said his company had heard of widespread complaints about conditions and pay at Agriprocessors.

He said the company hopes to hire about 100 workers for the plant in Minnesota and another in Nebraska.

Agriprocessors operates a plant near Gordon, Neb.

De La Garza said she and her husband had moved to Postville from Greeley, Colo., after watching a television ad for jobs at Agriprocessors. The ad promised $10 an hour, but De La Garza claimed she had been shorted on her pay in the past.

"I work 31 hours, they pay for 24 hours. We are supposed to get 30 minute breaks. They only give us 20 minutes," she said. "And they are abusive. Supervisors yell at you for no reason."

Another attendee, Ahmed Abdullahi, 25, said he moved to Postville three months ago to take what he thought was a higher paying job.

He said he had moved from working at a Swift Meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colo., where he was making $13 an hour, to Postville after seeing an Agriprocessors add on GoogleJobs.com, which promised more.

Abdullahi said he only makes a little more than $9 an hour after working in the beef kill department at Agriprocessors for three months.

Abdullahi, who is originally from Minneapolis, said he is interested in the opportunity to find a job closer to home — one that pays what it advertises.