Corn is used in everything from potato chips to jet fuel. A major industry player that processes the raw material has relied on a labor contractor, T. Bell Detasseling, that has violated multiple federal labor laws over more than a decade.
The modern meatpacking industry was built on immigrant labor, but some of the biggest US meatpacking companies are filling labor shortages with foreign workers.
Immigrants are a major component of Iowa's agriculture labor force. But the state’s new immigration law allows law enforcement to arrest and charge noncitizens with a crime if they are found in the state after previously being deported or blocked from entering the U.S.
Thousands of immigrants have worked at Pilgrim’s Pride’s Moorefield poultry plant, the area’s largest employer. After arrival, they have a hard time finding affordable housing, paying rent and understanding complex immigration and benefits systems.
For over three decades, people have come from all over the globe to work for Pilgrim’s Pride’s Moorefield chicken factory. Inside the plant, immigrant workers shoulder a disproportionate amount of the danger.
Labor officials and farmworker advocates praise the new rules, which aim to hold farmworker employers who violate workers’ rights accountable. But the acting secretary of labor says the agency needs more resources to get more ‘boots on the ground.’
