Can We Keep Meatpacking Companies Accountable for Hiring Undocumented Immigrants?
| Publication year | 2016 |
Can We Keep Meatpacking Companies Accountable for Hiring Undocumented Immigrants?
Sapna Jain
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and its expose of the meatpacking industry was, for many Americans, the first encounter with the unsanitary and unhealthy conditions of the meatpacking industry.1 Sinclair's book led to the implementation of food quality standards, an increase in monitoring of food production, and the strengthening of workers' unions which resulted in better working conditions for meatpacking industry workers.2 Over time, as government subsidies of farms, slaughterhouses, and the meat-producing industry became increasingly common, the demographics of the workers also changed.3 In the early twentieth century, farm workers consisted of mostly blue-collar American citizens; however, as the use of machines increased, immigrants and afterwards, undocumented4 workers took the places of these blue-collar Americans.5
For meatpacking and poultry companies, undocumented workers have filled a void as American citizens have steadily declined minimum wage jobs which require working in often grotesque and unpleasant conditions.6 The work "usually involves blood, unpleasant odors, and repetitive tasks."7 Undocumented workers have provided an ample workforce that is willing to
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work long hours at a minimum wage, resulting in substantial profit for companies, and a supply of affordable meat for the country.8 Yet even though these undocumented workers are key to the meat-producing industry, their status as such presents an issue of corporate governance for companies. How are companies who hire undocumented immigrants (particularly in the meatpacking and poultry industries) to be held accountable if the companies cannot function without this source of labor unless they take steps that would be in conflict with good business ethics?
One suggested solution could be that meatpacking and poultry companies affected by the fines related to employing undocumented workers would need to increase their lobbying power to influence legislators to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, particularly those working in the meatpacking and poultry plants. However, there is no guarantee that former undocumented immigrants will not lobby for higher wages once they obtain citizenship and are protected under minimum wage law. A simple cost benefit analysis demonstrates how this strategy risks cutting into the profits of the meatpacking companies without certainty that Americans will come to work. This strategy is likely more costly than simply paying the fines for hiring undocumented workers since political capital is difficult to describe in monetary amounts and is subject to change at any time.9 A comparison to the pharmaceutical industry in this essay provides an example where the consequences of breaking the law do not deter companies from continuing to engage in practices that violate the law.
The significant mechanical and union changes in the meat and poultry industries from the 1930s to the 1980s led to the demographic shift of the
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many workers on the floor.10 In the 1960s and 1970s, meatpackers' wages were comparable to their blue-collar counterparts working in steel, auto, and other industrial plants.11 Most of these other laborers had strong labor unions, and had bargained and secured favorable working conditions and wages for their members.12
In the 1960s, companies began to move meatpacking plants away from the multistory urban buildings to rural locations, where land was cheaper and plentiful.13 Many of these new facilities were located in the Midwest and Southern United States, and much of the urban unionized labor force did not move to the new rural locations with the meatpacking factories.14 There were two theories behind the shift to the new rural locations: (1) companies would be able to cut costs by locating themselves nearer to the feedlots and the areas where the animals were raised to be slaughtered and (2) companies sought lower labor costs as most rural workers were not organized.15 When companies shifted from their urban locations, the workers that followed the jobs were less likely to unionize because they lacked the similarities and the strength in numbers that had built the significant bargaining power of the unions in the urban areas.16 The new rural plants provided more room to accommodate single floor sprawling layouts for the new high-powered facilities, as compared to the older multistory urban settings.17 Another motivation for relocating was the tax incentives local governments offered companies to bring plants to rural areas that sought economic development.18 As companies built these new complexes, their long organized workers, who had achieved good wages through the bargaining power of organized labor, stayed in the urban areas and a new immigrant population migrated to the rural areas as the rural populations alone could not sustain the demand of workers required by the new meatpacking facilities.19 The immigrant population consisted of mostly low-skilled workers who sought the jobs that the meatpacking and poultry industry provided.20 Thus, the immigrants followed the factories to their new rural
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locations.21 The new immigrant population was not unionized which was advantageous for the meat and poultry employers.22 Meatpacking and poultry management worked to keep immigrant workers from unionizing through threats and firing of union leaders, thereby maintaining low wages for employees.23
With the shift to the rural locations, the ethnic, racial, and gender demographic of the labor force changed dramatically from the more homogenous urban unionized labor force.24 The diversity of the new workforce, linguistically and culturally, compounded with the distance from the urban organized labor force led to difficulties in the rural workforce's ability to organize.25 This inability to organize and bargain for rights led to a backward slide, from a high-wage, stable, unionized labor force to a low-wage, high turnover, and mostly non-unionized workforce.26
Since the 1990s, along with the influx of immigrants working in the meatpacking and poultry factories, there has been an increase in undocumented workers.27 The meatpacking factories provided these often low skilled workers with jobs, replicating the trend after World War i where new immigrants, deemed "cheap labor," often worked in similar jobs producing meat.28 Many of the undocumented workers could be paid minimum wage or lower to work long hours in the factories. Even though the work is dangerous, unpleasant, and dirty, due to the limited options, undocumented workers are less likely to cause problems for management.29
Some suggest that meatpacking employers purposely market to immigrants with limited English proficiency, limited work experience, and limited marketable skills.30 "In pursuit of such a strategy, critics suggest, firms 'deliberately recruit . . . immigrants' who 'almost universally lack any
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knowledge of U.S. working conditions, labor practices, or of their legal rights.'"31 This allows more control of the workers as plant managers can take advantage of workers' fears. Managers are able to wield power over the undocumented workers or those who support undocumented family members by threatening that they will report them or their family members to the authorities.32 Because of their lack of knowledge about their legal rights and precarious legal statuses, many workers are afraid of reporting adverse events that happen at work for the fear of being fired or deported.
An additional incentive for employers to hire undocumented workers is that they are more likely to cooperate with management and comply with procedures since they have fewer job opportunities due to their citizenship status.33 The fear of being fired also leads to underreporting of problems and injuries that occur in the workplace for undocumented workers.34 These shortfalls end up benefitting the company as it does not have to pay out workers' compensation fees and remains unaware of whether the workers have injuries, allowing the company to retain more of the profits.35
A. Lack of Legal Workers
One of the main reasons that the meatpacking industry lacks American workers is simply because many Americans do not want to work for a low salary in unpleasant conditions. Meatpacking companies face a question of whether to hire undocumented workers, who work long hours, complain little to management, and accept the minimum wage salary or to raise wages to try to entice Americans to work in the unpleasant factory conditions?
As companies increasingly seek to balance the interests of investors, shareholders, management, and the Board of Directors, corporate governance
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becomes an important tool in the transparency and communication between many parties. In the meatpacking and poultry industry, questions of corporate governance and accountability arise as information about the hiring and retention rates of undocumented workers in factories becomes more apparent. While many large meat-processing companies have "denied knowingly recruiting or hiring illegal workers," they suggest it is very difficult to get verification about workers' documentation.36 Many times, attempts to scrutinize a worker's documentation can lead to investigations to determine whether companies engaged in employment discrimination, thereby violating the Immigration and Nationality Act.37 While some companies have been fined for hiring undocumented immigrants, it has often been in connection with fraud and identity theft in attempt to secure false documentation for workers.38 Some examples include a former chief executive...
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