Factories Turn to Refugee Workers

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The Wall Street Journal

Factories Turn to Refugee Workers
After Government Crackdown, A Texas Town Taps Burmese
By MIRIAM JORDAN
June 6, 2008; Page A1

CACTUS, Texas -- Eighteen months ago, a federal roundup of hundreds of undocumented Latino workers nearly crippled a giant JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant here. Today, the slaughterhouse is on the rebound, thanks to an unexpected influx of refugees from Myanmar. Since January, the Swift plant has hired more than 200 workers from the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma. Most of the new legal hands came from a large refugee population that had been resettled in Houston, 12 hours away by car. The typical pay: $12.15 an hour, or more than double the state's minimum wage.

A growing crackdown on illegal immigration has put some labor-intensive sectors of the U.S. economy in a bind. Throughout the 1990s, companies tapped workers by the hundreds of thousands from Mexico, Guatemala and other points south of the border. But lately, illegal crews have been the target of federal immigration authorities. In fiscal 2007, arrests at factories and plants jumped to more than 4,000 people, a 10-fold increase over 2002. Last month, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency mounted its biggest raid of the year when it arrested nearly 400 Hispanic workers at Agriprocessors Inc., a large kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa. No company officials have been charged.

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With no quick fix in sight, "there are millions more jobs in the U.S. economy than there are legal workers to fill them," says Craig Regelbrugge, co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, which represents hundreds of farmers and ranchers. Irvine, Calif.-based Western Growers, an association of farmers and their suppliers, reports that some companies have recently downsized production by 25% because of labor shortages. Increasingly, farmers are moving to Mexico to fill the gap. The group estimates that California could lose more than $667 million in agricultural economic activity to Mexico this year.

For most meatpackers, relocating south of the border isn't an option. "Our jobs can't be exported. The animals are here so the jobs are here," says Dan McCausland, a director at the American Meat Institute. So to replenish its workers, the meat industry here has tapped into a new source of foreign, legal workers: refugees. It's hardly a panacea. Thousands of illegal workers have lost their jobs as a result of the increased federal scrutiny. But it's something. The U.S. absorbs more refugees than any other nation -- 41,279 in 2006 and 48,281 in 2007. They hail from the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states as well as from Iran and Somalia. In the past two years alone, some 20,000 refugees have arrived from Myanmar, which is ruled by a military junta. Most entered the U.S. after years of political strife and weren't victims of the country's recent deadly cyclone.

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Recruiting was especially tough at the Cactus beef plant, a sprawling complex adjacent to a run-down town in the middle of the High Plains. The odor of cow dung hangs in the air. Cattle outnumber human residents. Housing is in short supply. Summers are sweltering, winters are frigid, tornadoes wreak havoc. The closest major city, Amarillo, is 60 miles away. Initially, Swift tried to attract American workers who lived within a 60-mile radius of the plant. In a "war room," company officials posted maps on the walls and circled a target recruitment area that stretched from Amarillo to Liberal, Kan. It advertised on billboards, on the radio and in newspapers. It worked local job fairs and set up a recruiting station at Amarillo's unemployment office. Despite pay that exceeds other low-skill jobs in retail and construction -- and even some teaching posts -- takers were few. American workers came and went or didn't come at all and the circle on the map ballooned. In early 2007, the company began free bus service from Amarillo to Cactus. Somali refugees, who were already living in the area, started signing on in greater numbers. Productivity improved -- but not by enough. The plant, still operating at about half capacity, sorely missed its deported Latino hands. Then last fall, Swift poached two veteran Burmese workers from competitor Tyson Foods in Amarillo. Motivated by the company's referral bonuses ranging from $650 to $1,500 per hire, the pair phoned their Burmese contacts in Houston and other cities.

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1. self kick

Two years ago, when we first saw (mostly) Mexicans marching in the streets demanding changes in our laws, some on DU said: "they are here for the jobs" and I remember replying that there are many other groups, across the globe, in a real danger of their lives, who should have first priority..