About this ICE raid! Just as I predicted back when white nationalists started celebrating:
ICE raids followed a massive sexual harassment settlement at Mississippi plants
The raids could discourage future complaints of worker abuse.
Wednesday’s raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which led to nearly 700 workers being detained, targeted seven Koch Foods Inc. poultry plants in Morton, Mississippi. As it happens, last year, Koch Foods
settled a $3.75 million lawsuit for racial discrimination, national origin discrimination, and sexual harassment against its Latinx workers in that very same Morton facility.
According to the suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), supervisors, “touched and/or made sexually suggestive comments to female Hispanic employees, hit Hispanic employees, and charged many of them money for normal everyday work activities.” Many workers were reportedly either discharged or subjected to other forms of retaliation when they complained.
As part of the settlement, Koch Foods not only paid out a massive sum to the victims, but also agreed to implement training for employees and set up a 24-hour hotline for reporting discrimination complaints in both English and Spanish. The settlement lasted three years, which means Koch Foods is still under supervision to continue efforts to reduce discrimination in its work place.
As labor reporter
Mike Elk notes at Payday Report, it may not be a coincidence that the Morton plant was raided. There have been at least two other plants, one in Salem, Ohio, and another in Morristown, Tennessee, where ICE raids have followed complaints of worker conditions. Last year, for example, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined Fresh Mark over $200,000 for three separate incidents in which proper safety guards were not in place in its Salem meatpacking plant. A week later, it was raided by ICE.
Like I said to a certain moderator here last week: if the Government wanted to stop migrants and refugees from going to places like this hellhole in Mississippi looking for work, then why don't the owners get hammered with criminal charges NOT FINES, throw them in jail or prison, because many large employers in the US who want cheap ununionized workers they can abuse physicially and sexually without repercussion, send out flyers....even to Mexico, advertising for workers! Throw them in jail for violating these immigration laws and really come down hard on sexual exploitation......otherwise shut up about it and close ICE.