Can We Eat THIS Meat of the "People of the Book"?

After Iowa Raid, Immigrants Fuel Labor Inquiries

POSTVILLE, Iowa — When federal immigration agents raided the kosher meatpacking plant here in May and rounded up 389 illegal immigrants, they found more than 20 under-age workers, some as young as 13.

Now those young immigrants have begun to tell investigators about their jobs. Some said they worked shifts of 12 hours or more, wielding razor-edged knives and saws to slice freshly killed beef. Some worked through the night, sometimes six nights a week.

One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not have time to do anything but work and sleep. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like I was a slave.”

At first, labor officials said the raid had disrupted federal and state investigations already under way at Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s largest kosher plant. The raid has drawn criticism for what some see as harsh tactics against the immigrants, with little action taken against their employers.

But in the aftermath of the arrests, labor investigators have reaped a bounty of new evidence from the testimony of illegal immigrants, teenagers and adults, who were caught in the raid. In formal declarations, immigrants have described pervasive labor violations at the plant, testimony that could result in criminal charges for Agriprocessors executives, labor law experts said.

Out of work and facing deportation proceedings, many of the immigrants say they now have nothing to lose in speaking up about the conditions in the plant. They have told investigators that they were routinely put to work without safety training and were forced to work long shifts without overtime or rest time. Under-age workers said their bosses knew how young they were.

Because of the dangers of the work, it is illegal in Iowa for a company to employ anyone under 18 on the floor of a meatpacking plant.

In a statement, Agriprocessors said it did not employ workers under 18, and would fire any under-age worker found to have presented false documents to obtain work.

To investigate the child labor accusations, the federal Labor Department has joined with the Iowa Division of Labor Services in cooperation with the state attorney general’s office, officials for the three agencies said.

Sonia Parras Konrad, an immigration lawyer in private practice in Des Moines, is representing many of the young workers. She said she had so far identified 27 workers under 18 who were employed in the packing areas of the plant, most of them illegal immigrants from Guatemala, including some who were not arrested in the raid.

“Some of these boys don’t even shave,” Ms. Parras Konrad said. “They’re goofy. They’re teenagers.”

At a meeting here Saturday, three members of the House Hispanic Caucus — including its chairman, Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois — heard seven immigrant minors describe working in the Agriprocessors plant.

Iowa labor officials said they rarely encounter child labor cases even though the state has many meatpacking plants.

“We don’t normally have many under-age folks working in our state,” said Gail Sheridan-Lucht, a lawyer for the state labor department, who said she could not comment specifically on the Agriprocessors investigation.

Other investigations are also under way. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is examining accusations of sexual harassment of women at the plant. Lawyers for the immigrants are preparing a suit under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act for wage and hour violations.

Federal justice and immigration officials, speaking on Thursday at a hearing in Washington of the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee, said their investigations were continuing. A federal grand jury in Cedar Rapids is hearing evidence.

While federal prosecutors are primarily focusing on immigration charges, they may also be looking into labor violations. Search warrant documents filed in court before the raid, which was May 12, cited a report by an anonymous immigrant who was sent to work in the plant by immigration authorities as an undercover informant. The immigrant saw “a rabbi who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.” Jewish managers oversee the slaughtering and processing of meat at Agriprocessors to ensure kosher standards.

In another episode, the informant said a floor supervisor had blindfolded an immigrant with duct tape. “The floor supervisor then took one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatemalan with it,” the informant said, adding that the blow did not cause “serious injuries.”

Source: NY Times

Food for thought: given the work conditions the employees at this Kosher meat packing plant were subjected to, would it still be permissible to eat this meat of the "people of the book"? And even were it permissible, would it not still be preferable to avoid it?

Hypocrisy of (Arab) Muslim "Brotherhood"

I read the following at BBC News. Now before people get upset and nationalistic, I want to spell out a few things:

This could be true for any group of people, does not have to be limited to Arabs and how they treat immigrant workers, however, this gives a good example to a point I am trying to make.

The story allows me to use this as an example, while I would love to give Muslims 70 excuses, I doubt that we will ever be able to fix our problems with out looking at the issue, discussing it and at least walking away better educated, or educating others, or better yet, working to change things. Not to belittle the 70 excuses hadith, I do believe that this falls outside its scope and context, since its to better the general sense and sensibility of the Muslim Ummah.

Please look at the content of whats being present, and don't contact me to provide me naseeha if you wish regarding how I am approaching this, there are all to many posts that have lost there purpose in the policing of "wayward ways". (Contact Affad via facebook or my personal blog)

The reason this piece uses such a strong word -"hypocrisy"- is because it applies. Before going out to do good, its important to make significant change in my own backyard. Read the article here and the gist of the article is below:

Troops from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been delivering humanitarian aid to their fellow Muslims and, on occasion, fighting their way out of Taleban
ambushes. Though Jordanian forces have been carrying out some base security
duties, the UAE's troops are the only Arab soldiers undertaking full-scale
operations in the country.

Now I commend them for doing the work they are doing. However, when we talk about brotherhood, how about considering the treatment of the brother and sisters that are brought into the country to do certain jobs, ie construction, nannies, house cleaners, cab drivers?

Its good to be able to connect with the Afghan people based on shared religious beliefs. Yet I think back to how Muslims from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh are treated in the Middle East and it all seems hypocritical to me. This is so bad that I hear WHITE NON-MUSLIMS telling me about how horrendous the treatment is. The double standards are just repulsive. Yet this is just Muslims, imagine the treatment of non-Muslims which is just as worse. (Is this the dawah we were instructed to do?)

Lets not argue about how Islam is not being practiced the way it should be, because I hear anecdotes from families and friends who are religious trying to justify the horrible behavior toward these migrant workers.

I was talking to some one about Sri Lankan nannies and how many kids in the Middle East are raised by Sri Lankan nannies. The Muslim mothers are the equivalent to OC Mommies- maybe the prescribed psycho-drugs haven't reached there. These nannies are treated like they do not exist, like expendable rubbish, a pair of 1000 dollar jeans you buy, wear and then toss. They go home to see their family once a year if they are lucky, but they spend their entire time with people who don't care for them, their lives, treating them with contempt.

A good example of this behavior is that of Mexicans and immigrants from South America are treated, the perception from the pro-border enforcement "activists"and the consistent criminalization and dehumanization of being foreigners, especially through semantics like "illegal aliens"- connoting it being illegal to be working at measly pay, and that because one is an alien one is less human. God forbid we run into a person who is half terrorist and half illegal alien- yes, its like Muslims being treated like TERRORIST here in the States, but that is ten times better then the treatment fellow Muslims (and non-Muslims) receive in the Middle East.

This might be a generalization, and its true that this is applicable to Pakistani's, as it would be to Muslims here in the US or any other group, though being Muslims and touting the equality of races makes it more incumbent upon us to truly live this as a reality. The internal racism, stereotypes and prejudices that are persistent in the way we behave toward others, the way we view inter racial marriage and do business, or even run the Masjids is a contradiction to what Islam teaches, yet we continue to buy into the things that divide us.

Sheikh Tajudeen Shoieb in his khutbah at IIOC today talked about the "engineering required to build social relationships" and how Muslims are sorely lacking it, yet we hold this ideal of what Hajj does for the community, of how even the Prophet lived with the sahabah. Yet what surprised me was that there are two extremes- the one where people buy into the racial prejudices, and the other being that of whitewashing cultural differences and not appreciating the variety that exists.

Where is the balance? What can we do as young activists to bring about the necessary change, something more then talking about it and thinking its bad? What to do? So what is real "brotherhood", that was the question Sheikh Tajudeen Shoieb left the congregation to ask itself at IIOC and I extend that to you all.