Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Swift Foods gets RAIDED by ICE
Here is the news release on the Swift Foods site on this wondrous event:
U.S. IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS COMMENCE EMPLOYEE INTERVIEWS
AT SIX SWIFT & COMPANY FACILITIES
GREELEY, COLO., December 12, 2006 – Swift & Company today announced that this morning, agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division and other law enforcement agencies commenced employee interviews at six Swift & Company production facilities, located in Cactus, Texas; Grand Island, Nebraska; Greeley, Colorado; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minnesota, in connection with an investigation of the immigration status of an unspecified number of Swift workers. All the facilities except Hyrum are unionized. No civil or criminal charges have been filed against Swift or any current employees.
Operations at the affected Swift facilities have been temporarily suspended pending the anticipated end-of-day completion of the interview process. Shortly thereafter, Swift expects to resume operations, but production levels will depend on the number of employees, if any, detained for further interviewing or otherwise unable to return to work.
At this time, Swift cannot assess how, if at all, the results of the employee interview process will affect its business or results of operations. Any loss of a significant number of employees at any facility could adversely affect the operations of that facility until Swift is able to replace any lost members of its workforce and return to normal production levels. The six facilities represent all of Swift’s domestic beef processing capacity and 77% of its pork processing capacity. The Company also operates a pork processing facility in Louisville, Kentucky.
Swift believes that today’s actions by the government violate the agreements associated with the Company’s participation over the past ten years in the federal government’s Basic Pilot worker authorization program and raise serious questions as to the government’s possible violation of individual workers’ civil rights.
Swift & Company President and CEO Sam Rovit said: “Swift has never condoned the employment of unauthorized workers, nor have we ever knowingly hired such individuals. Since the inception of the Basic Pilot program in 1997, every single one of Swift’s new domestic hires, including those being interviewed today by ICE officials, has duly completed I-9 forms and has received work authorization through the government’s Basic Pilot program. Swift has played by the rules and relied in good faith on a program explicitly held out by the President of the United States as an effective tool to help employers comply with applicable immigration laws1.”
Basic Pilot fact sheet
Rovit added: “We are committed to maintaining production at all Swift facilities while, to the extent necessary, actively managing customer service levels. While the specific financial impact of today’s government actions is not yet known, we are currently comfortable with the financial flexibility afforded to us by our existing credit agreement.”
Swift & Company’s comprehensive work authorization diligence has included, since 1997, participation in the federal Basic Pilot program – a voluntary, online verification system that allows employers to confirm the eligibility of new hires by checking the personal information they provide against federal databases. Today, Swift remains one of the very few employers to use the system. All Company domestic production facilities have agreements in place with the federal government under Basic Pilot – agreements which contain provisions that are supposed to protect employers who properly comply with the Basic Pilot program from government-initiated civil and criminal penalties.
Here is the kicker that made me sit up and take notice
Current law limits an employer’s ability to scrutinize the background and identity of new hires, and – as Swift learned first-hand – employers can, in fact, be punished for probing too deeply into applicants’ backgrounds. Specifically, in 2001 the Department of Justice’s Special Counsel for Unfair Immigration-Related Employment Practices brought a complaint against Swift for an alleged “pattern and practice” of document-based discrimination against job applicants, and sought civil damages of $2.5 million. After two years of cooperation and negotiation, Swift settled the claim, with no admission of guilt, for approximately $200,000.
So in 2001 Swift was pressured BY OUR GOVERNMENT for wanting to verify citizenship of potential employees and dragged through court for TWO YEARS when they finally settled for $200,000. Now, in 2006 the government is saying they did not do ENOUGH? WAIT a minute there.. that does not seem fair does it? Once again we see the source of the problem is our freaking GOVERNMENT.
Swift & Company fully supports comprehensive immigration reform to address the significant policy tension that exists between the need for employers to accurately determine workers’ eligibility versus the need to address privacy and non-discrimination concerns. The Company remains committed to preventing the employment of unauthorized workers in its workforce.
With the above being said, Swift should NOT really be so concerned here because ICE has not charged SWIFT with any wrong doing. They are simply cleaning up the mess they created and collecting up illegals like they SHOULD have been doing. The interesting thing to ponder is.. what prompted ICE to conduct these raids? Do they suddenly feel the egg dripping off their faces?
U.S. IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS COMMENCE EMPLOYEE INTERVIEWS
AT SIX SWIFT & COMPANY FACILITIES
GREELEY, COLO., December 12, 2006 – Swift & Company today announced that this morning, agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division and other law enforcement agencies commenced employee interviews at six Swift & Company production facilities, located in Cactus, Texas; Grand Island, Nebraska; Greeley, Colorado; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minnesota, in connection with an investigation of the immigration status of an unspecified number of Swift workers. All the facilities except Hyrum are unionized. No civil or criminal charges have been filed against Swift or any current employees.
Operations at the affected Swift facilities have been temporarily suspended pending the anticipated end-of-day completion of the interview process. Shortly thereafter, Swift expects to resume operations, but production levels will depend on the number of employees, if any, detained for further interviewing or otherwise unable to return to work.
At this time, Swift cannot assess how, if at all, the results of the employee interview process will affect its business or results of operations. Any loss of a significant number of employees at any facility could adversely affect the operations of that facility until Swift is able to replace any lost members of its workforce and return to normal production levels. The six facilities represent all of Swift’s domestic beef processing capacity and 77% of its pork processing capacity. The Company also operates a pork processing facility in Louisville, Kentucky.
Swift believes that today’s actions by the government violate the agreements associated with the Company’s participation over the past ten years in the federal government’s Basic Pilot worker authorization program and raise serious questions as to the government’s possible violation of individual workers’ civil rights.
Swift & Company President and CEO Sam Rovit said: “Swift has never condoned the employment of unauthorized workers, nor have we ever knowingly hired such individuals. Since the inception of the Basic Pilot program in 1997, every single one of Swift’s new domestic hires, including those being interviewed today by ICE officials, has duly completed I-9 forms and has received work authorization through the government’s Basic Pilot program. Swift has played by the rules and relied in good faith on a program explicitly held out by the President of the United States as an effective tool to help employers comply with applicable immigration laws1.”
Basic Pilot fact sheet
Rovit added: “We are committed to maintaining production at all Swift facilities while, to the extent necessary, actively managing customer service levels. While the specific financial impact of today’s government actions is not yet known, we are currently comfortable with the financial flexibility afforded to us by our existing credit agreement.”
Swift & Company’s comprehensive work authorization diligence has included, since 1997, participation in the federal Basic Pilot program – a voluntary, online verification system that allows employers to confirm the eligibility of new hires by checking the personal information they provide against federal databases. Today, Swift remains one of the very few employers to use the system. All Company domestic production facilities have agreements in place with the federal government under Basic Pilot – agreements which contain provisions that are supposed to protect employers who properly comply with the Basic Pilot program from government-initiated civil and criminal penalties.
Here is the kicker that made me sit up and take notice
Current law limits an employer’s ability to scrutinize the background and identity of new hires, and – as Swift learned first-hand – employers can, in fact, be punished for probing too deeply into applicants’ backgrounds. Specifically, in 2001 the Department of Justice’s Special Counsel for Unfair Immigration-Related Employment Practices brought a complaint against Swift for an alleged “pattern and practice” of document-based discrimination against job applicants, and sought civil damages of $2.5 million. After two years of cooperation and negotiation, Swift settled the claim, with no admission of guilt, for approximately $200,000.
So in 2001 Swift was pressured BY OUR GOVERNMENT for wanting to verify citizenship of potential employees and dragged through court for TWO YEARS when they finally settled for $200,000. Now, in 2006 the government is saying they did not do ENOUGH? WAIT a minute there.. that does not seem fair does it? Once again we see the source of the problem is our freaking GOVERNMENT.
Swift & Company fully supports comprehensive immigration reform to address the significant policy tension that exists between the need for employers to accurately determine workers’ eligibility versus the need to address privacy and non-discrimination concerns. The Company remains committed to preventing the employment of unauthorized workers in its workforce.
With the above being said, Swift should NOT really be so concerned here because ICE has not charged SWIFT with any wrong doing. They are simply cleaning up the mess they created and collecting up illegals like they SHOULD have been doing. The interesting thing to ponder is.. what prompted ICE to conduct these raids? Do they suddenly feel the egg dripping off their faces?
