Worker shortage hits meat processors

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — When Martha Kebede’s adult sons immigrated from Ethiopia and reunited with her in South Dakota this year, they had few work opportunities.

Lacking English skills, the brothers took jobs at Smithfield Foods’ Sioux Falls pork plant, grueling and increasingly risky work as the coronavirus sickened thousands of meatpacking workers nationwide. One day half the workers on a slicing line vanished; later the brothers tested positive for covid-19.

“It was very, very sad,” Kebede said. “The boys teared up seeing everyone.”

The brothers — who declined to be identified for fear of workplace retaliation — are among roughly 175,000 migrants in U.S. meatpacking jobs. The industry has historically relied on foreign-born workers — from people in the country illegally to refugees — for some of America’s most dangerous jobs.

Now uncertainty about a virus that’s killed at least 20 workers and temporarily shuttered several plants fuels concerns about possible labor shortages to meet demand for beef, pork and chicken.

Companies struggling to hire before the pandemic are spending millions on fresh incentives. Their hiring capability hinges on unemployment, industry changes, employees’ feelings about safety, and President Donald Trump’s aggressive and erratic immigration policies.

Trump has restricted nearly all immigration, but his administration recently granted seasonal workers 60-day extensions, affecting some meat and poultry workers.

Roughly 350 foreign workers were certified for meat

and poultry gigs in 2019, according to Daniel Costa at the Economic Policy Institute. Such H-2B visa holders, capped at 66,000 annually, are commonly used in landscaping and resorts.

But there’s been willingness to expand. A plan to add 35,000 seasonal workers — which Trump supports in tight labor markets — was suspended in April for “present economic circumstances.”

After the outbreak closed several plants, the industry got Trump’s help; he issued an order classifying meat processing as critical.

Migrants make up nearly 40% of the industry’s roughly 470,000 workers, with higher concentrations in states like South Dakota, where they are 58% of workers, and Nebraska, where they’re 66%, according to the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute. Estimates on undocumented migrants vary from 14% to the majority at some plants.

The industry argues it offers ample jobs with benefits and opportunities to advance for all workers. Paulina Francisco said her 21 years at Smithfield in Sioux City, Iowa, helped her buy a home, something she didn’t think possible when she immigrated from Guatemala. She’s now a citizen.

RURAL OPTIONS FEW

Still, most jobs are rural, limiting workers’ access to lawyers, favorable union laws and other jobs. Hourly pay averages as low as $12.50 for backbreaking work, often conducted side-by-side. Workers in the country without authorization fear deportation for speaking up.

“Vulnerable populations work well for them,” Joshua Specht, a University of Notre Dame professor, said of the industry.

Chicken plants extensively recruited migrants in the 1990s as union organizing among majority-black workers increased. One Morton, Miss., plant advertised in Miami’s Cuban stores and newspapers, busing workers willing to accept lower wages, a tactic replicated across the South, according to University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill anthropologist Angela Stuesse.

Initially, it was migrants with work authorization, but they were replaced by undocumented Mexicans and Guatemalans. Argentinians, Uruguayans and Peruvians followed. By the 2000s, the labor pool was self-sustaining with word-of-mouth.

Sudanese refugee Salaheldin Ahmed, 44, heard about Smithfield’s jobs while in New Hampshire and moved to South Dakota six years ago. After escaping war, little fazes the forklift driver, not even a positive covid-19 test.

“They were killing in front of you,” Ahmed, who experienced mild symptoms, said of atrocities he once witnessed. “The coronavirus is nothing.”

TEMPORARY HIRING SLOWDOWN

Some data suggests raids may temporarily decrease migrant hiring.

Noncitizens made up 52% of meatpacking workers in 2006, dropping to 42% by 2008, according to Michael Clemens at the Center for Global Development. He cited an annual March employment survey.

But that trend reversed during the 2008-2009 recession’s high unemployment. By 2011, noncitizens were roughly 56%.

After raids last year on Mississippi poultry plants, some citizens were hired but many migrants returned to work, according to activists and local leaders.

“There is a need of workers and they don’t have any other possibilities,” said Rev. Roberto Mena, whose Forest congregation includes poultry workers.

Koch Foods and Peco Foods, the largest companies targeted, didn’t return messages. Both have touted use of the federal E-Verify system to confirm worker eligibility.

Some blame the business model. With rapid turnover, it’s not uncommon for plants to rehire an entire workforce annually, says worker advocate National Employment Law Project.

The pandemic has accelerated some workers’ decisions.

Guadalupe Paez, 62, likely won’t return to his job cleaning cattle at JBS Packerland in Green Bay, Wis., after being hospitalized for covid-19. Weaker, he fears more illness, says his daughter Dora Flores. Paez immigrated from Mexico through a 1980s guest worker program and obtained a green card.

“He only goes out for the doctor appointments,” she said. “He’s traumatized.”