DALLAS (AP)--Former employees are suing Swift & Co. for $23 million, alleging the meatpacking company conspired to keep wages down by hiring illegal immigrants.
The 18 former employees are U.S. citizens and legal residents who worked at a plant in Cactus, Texas, north of Amarillo, one of six facilities raided in a multistate federal sweep that led to the arrests of nearly 1,300 employees and temporarily halted Swift’s operations.
“These plaintiffs are...victims in a long-standing scheme by Swift to depress and artificially lower the wages of its workers by knowingly hiring illegal workers,“ said their attorney, Angel Reyes. “By lessening its labor costs and increasing its profits, Swift has severely damaged the potential earnings and livelihood of these hardworking men and women.“
A spokesman for Greeley, Colo.-based Swift didn’t immediately return calls Monday, but President and Chief Executive Sam Rovit has said the company has never knowingly hired illegal workers and doesn’t condone the practice.
The Dallas investment firm that owns Swift, HM Capital Partners LLC, said in a statement that the lawsuit is “completely without merit.“
The lawsuit was filed late Friday against Swift and HM Capital Partners in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The plaintiffs contend Swift and HM Capital Partners engaged in racketeering to manipulate commerce.
“When the Swift plant opened in Cactus, wages were approximately $20 an hour,“ said Michael Haygood, another attorney for the plaintiffs. “Now, the average wage is approximately $12 to $13 an hour. Illegal immigration has fueled this depression in wages.“
The raids were part of an investigation into the theft of Social Security numbers by people to work at Swift plants in Cactus, Texas Grand Island, Neb. Greeley, Colo.Hyrum, UtahMarshalltown, Iowa and Worthington, Minn.
Although no charges were filed against Swift, Reyes said the plaintiffs believe company officials looked the other way when hiring workers from Central America willing to work for less money. Over time, those workers began replacing legal residents and U.S. citizens, many of them Hispanic, Reyes said.
The lawsuit stems from a separate case in which former Swift employees claimed they were fired for filing workers compensation claims, Reyes said.
Swift bills itself as the world’s second-largest beef and pork processor.
Source: Dow Jones Newswire