Former Dallas employees sue Swift alleging wage manipulation

The Associated Press
December 19, 2006

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DALLAS -- 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 suing Swift are U.S. citizens and legal residents who worked at a plant in Cactus, north of Amarillo, one of six facilities raided an 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 longstanding 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."

Greeley-based Swift spokesman Sean McHugh called the lawsuit "completely without merit."

"That's the only statement that we have on the issue," he said.

President and Chief Executive Officer Sam Rovit has said the company has never knowingly hired illegal workers and does not condone the practice.

The lawsuit was filed late Friday against Swift and HM Capital Partners in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. They 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 another plaintiffs attorney, Michael Haygood. "Now, the average wage is approximately $12 to $13 an hour. Illegal immigration has fueled this depression in wages."

Wages at the Greeley plant have generally risen at the local Swift plant over the past decade, a union spokesman said.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7, which represents workers in the Greeley plant, successfully negotiated a wage increase within the last year, spokesman Dave Minshall said. The workers now earn between $9.50 and $11.50 an hour, and wages have generally increased over the past decade.

Last Tuesday's raids were part of an investigation into the theft of Social Security numbers by people to work at Swift plants in Cactus, Grand Island; Neb.; Greeley; Hyrum, Utah; Marshalltown, Iowa; and Worthington, Minn.

Although no criminal charges have been 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.

Tribune reporter Meghan E. Murphy contributed to this story.