ICE Arrests at Koch After Hispanic Workers Get Huge Settlement
The raids on Hispanic workers at the Morton, Mississippi Koch plant could be seen as retaliation for workers filing suit against the company for discrimination. Hispanic workers at the Koch Mississippi plant had just concluded a legal fight with the poultry supplier last year who was attempting to obtain citizenship status of the plaintiffs through the Discovery Process. The raids occured on Wednesday and Matt Albence, the interim director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed that the investigation had been ongoing for the last year. This means the investigation likely started around the time the lawsuits had concluded and a settlement had been reached.
One case was brought by 11 workers at the plant and the second was brought on behalf of workers by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC suit alleged that Koch had subjected Hispanic employees and female employees to a hostile work environment that involved disparate treatment based on their race/national origin and sex, and then retaliated against those who who engaged in protected activity.
In their complaint, workers claimed that supervisors touched and/or made sexually suggestive comments to female Hispanic employees, hit Hispanic employees and charged many of them money for normal everyday activities at work — such as using bathrooms, taking leave or requesting job transfers. Additionally, Hispanic employees also alleged that they were subject to retaliation for any complaints about this abusive behavior in the form of termination or other inappropriate punishments.
“We are pleased the EEOC and the plaintiffs have cooperated to resolve this litigation. Koch Foods is committed to continuing to provide a work environment where each person is treated with dignity as we implement the consent decree in this matter." — Bobby Elrod, Director of Human Resources for Koch Foods
The three-year consent decree was entered by Judge Daniel P. Jordan III on August 1, 2018 and provided for $3,750,000 in monetary relief for the victims. In addition, Koch Foods agreed to take specified actions designed to prevent future discrimination, including implementing new policies and practices designed to prevent discrimination based on race, sex or national origin; providing anti-discrimination training to employees; creating a 24-hour hotline for reporting discrimination complaints in English and Spanish; and posting policies and anti-discrimination notices in its workplace in English and Spanish.
After the case was settled, Koch foods issued a statement re-iterating their arguments they had submitted to the court — that the plaintiffs had fabricated their allegations in a coordinated effort to obtain work authorizations through U visas that are available to victims who assist in government investigations. Koch also stated that it had only sought to hire authorized workers, but was attempting to obtain discovery on the U visa information, which would have provided citizenship details on the plaintiffs when the case was settled.
In addition to the case brought by Hispanic workers against Koch, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated the Koch plant in Mississippi after learning two workers suffered injuries in the spring of 2016. In March of that same year, a 42-year-old man suffered a laceration to his right finger after his glove got caught in a conveyor. In April, a 23-year-old gizzard chiller operator had two fingers on her right hand broken while attempting to unjam a piece of machinery. In September of 2016, OSHA issued $88,632 in proposed penalties for “nine serious safety violations” that resulted in “severe worker injuries.”
"Our clients were very brave in making the choice to speak out. We are pleased that after eight years of litigation, our clients and Koch Foods were able to resolve this matter, including implementation of practices that will hopefully prevent the types of abuses alleged in this case from happening in the future. This was important to our clients from the beginning.” — Caitlin Berberich, attorney representing some of the workers
In another federal agency investigation against Koch Foods, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reviewed allegations that the company had used its market power to intentionally harm black farmer businesses in Mississippi between 2010 and 2015. The investigation yielded “evidence of unjust discrimination” by Koch Foods against black farmers in Mississippi, but according to the Washington Post, Koch Foods had still not been penalized as of June 2019.
Koch Foods is a privately held business that makes chicken products under its own brand and through private labels for Walmart and Burger King. The company has headquarters near Chicago and has no relation to the multinational Koch Industries. It employs nearly 13,000 in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois and Ohio. Its Morton, Mississippi plant produces more than 700,000 tons of poultry feed each year. Forbes estimates that its owner, Joseph Grendys, is worth $3.3 billion.
Consider the ramifications for Hispanic workers in the Koch plant and other plants across the nation if this was, in fact retaliatory behavior by Koch to punish workers for suing them. Workers would be silenced for fear of being deported, not just terminated or punished. It makes Hispanic and female workers much more vulnerable to the attacks alleged in the complaint. Considering the company’s history of regulatory abuses detailed above and the timing of the events that culminated in the raid on Wednesday, it is possible that the employees at Koch were ultimately deported as punishment for daring to sue their employer.
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Amee Vanderpool writes the “Shero” Newsletter and is an attorney, contributor to Playboy Magazine, analyst for BBC radio and Director of The Inanna Project. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.