Friday, Dec. 21, 2001 | 10:02 a.m.
This week a federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted Tyson Foods and six of its current or past executives on charges of conspiring to bring illegal immigrants into the United States so that they could work for the company's poultry plants. The investigation of the nation's largest meat producer and processor was more than two years in the making and included the use of undercover agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service who posed as Mexican middlemen in a smuggling ring. Government prosecutors said that this was the largest case ever involving the smuggling of immigrants brought against a major U.S. corporation.
It is encouraging to see federal prosecutors crack down on a company that allegedly was part of a scheme to enrich themselves with a cheap source of labor. Usually it is the immigrants themselves who are targeted by INS, but no one, including large corporations, should be allowed to flout immigration law. Immigration officials also should be looking at other meat packing plants to see if they're complying with the law. But violations of immigration law are only part of the story. At the same time, the Bush administration should take just as tough a stand when it comes to the federal government's oversight of an even more important issue involving the industry -- the low wages and dangerous working conditions that are found in many meat processing plants in the United States.
It's difficult to find U.S. workers willing to risk permanent disabling injuries, including the loss of limbs, for starting pay that can be as low as $6 per hour. Illegal immigrants, meanwhile, are desperate for work and are willing to perform jobs in the meat packing industry that are the most grueling and dangerous work that can be found in the United States. Not only should our nation take a stand against domestic meat packers who are willing to exploit workers, but we also shouldn't turn a blind eye to the dangerous conditions at meat packing plants in the rest of the Western hemisphere.
For far too long the federal government has ignored the meat packing industry. The government has failed to require adequate measures to ensure that the meat itself is safe to eat, and hasn't done enough to provide safe working conditions at the plants. The meat packing industry so far hasn't shown an inclination to better the wages and working conditions for its employees -- the status quo is just too profitable. But the Bush administration and Congress should require, at a minimum, a workplace environment in the meat packing industry that isn't dangerous. To do anything less would be inhumane.
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