TAR HEEL, N.C. — Last November, immigration officials began a crackdown at Smithfield Foods giant slaughterhouse, eventually arresting 21 illegal immigrants at the plant and 28 others from their homes 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
· hiring men from a nearby homeless mission
· providing free van transportation to many workers
· ran a flood of television advertisements boasting that the company is a good, safe place to work
So far, Smithfield has largely replaced the Hispanics with American workers, who often leave poorly paid jobs for higher wages at the plant here. Many find the work grueling and the smell awful.
Smithfield’s recruiting challenges are harder because
· many local residents have worked there before and soured on by their prior experience
· As a result, Smithfield often looks far afield for new employees
· are high stress and unsafe, with stingy benefits
· Many are injured or don’t want to work in such an oppressive atmosphere
· the word gets around about peoples bad experiences
Several of the newly hired workers pay $40 a week for the ride in the van. Many said they are unhappy and thinking of quitting because the commute is far and work is so hard.
The average pay at the plant is around $12 an hour, many spend hour after hour slitting hogs’ throats, hacking at shoulders and carving ribs and loins.
Employee turnover has long been a problem at Smithfield and other meat-processing plants, but the problem has grown worse recently. Dennis Pittman, a Smithfield spokesman, said
· 60 percent of the new workers quit within 90 days of being hired
· compared with 25 percent to 30 percent two years ago when many new employees were illegal immigrants.
One of the toughest challenges, Mr. Pittman said, has been training new employees to handle the highest-skilled jobs at a plant that processes 30,000 hogs a day.
Hector David, a longtime worker from Mexico who quit in February, sees it, Smithfield had been eager to hire Hispanics because they worked so hard. “The Americans just don’t work as well,” Mr. David said. “In Mexico, we work from the age of 5 in the corn fields. We’re used to working hard.”
The immigration arrests have also created problems for the union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union
· Mr. Bruskin, the union official, added, “It’s extremely difficult for workers to stand up for their rights when they’re threatened with arrest or deportation.”
Union officials recently organized educational forums at a Roman Catholic church in Red Springs, where immigrant workers were advised, among other things, to sign power of attorney forms designating someone to take care of their children, finances and homes if they were arrested.
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