Beardstown plant to close Monday for immigration rallies

The Entrenched Media gets it wrong again.

BEARDSTOWN - The Cargill Meat Solutions pork-processing plant will close Monday to allow workers to take part in a national day of immigration-rights rallies.

The Beardstown plant is one seven across the nation that Cargill will close that day, company spokesman Mark Klein said Tuesday.

"There seems to be a lot of momentum related to May 1, and it makes sense to go this way," Klein said. "We have similar feelings about immigration-reform proposals that a number of our employees have."

and also this....

Seaboard pork plant to close for immigration rally

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Seaboard Corp. said it will close its Guymon, Oklahoma, pork plant on Monday to allow workers to attend rallies planned for that day in support of immigration reform, the company said.

My real job entails dealing with these plants as I am a meat broker/trader by day. Don't believe the spin being offered up here. These companies have no grand empathy for their hispanic workers or their cause. They simply realize that trying to run a packing plant with 50+ percent of your workforce a no show spells disaster hence they're attempting to get ahead of the curve and bow to the inevitable.

The packing industry has gone through an evolution in labor force starting in the 1960s. Prior to that time the average packing plant worker made $15-$20/hr. with full benefits and a healthy pension. Many local kids went off to earn a four year degree only to come back and work in the plant because it was the highest paying job going. Then in an effort to achieve sector dominance IBP the largest packer at the time began importing labor starting with VietNamese but evolving into predominatly Hispanic, wages were slashed to slightly better than minimum and the pensions evaporated. When IBP did it, all plants were forced to follow suit to compete. Hence the situation we have today. It the reason meat prices have experienced the slowest "inflationary creep" over the past 30 years of practically any commodity.

Today the average beef or pork packing plant maintains a workforce of approximately 50% Hispanic, 20% Black, 2o% Oriental and 10% other.

To insinuate that these plants are gleefully losing a days production because of a sympathies with their workers beliefs is a monumental canard.