REUTEMAN: Tougher laws hurt Cargill hiring

By Rob Reuteman, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Friday, May 9, 2008

Cargill Meat Solutions, which processes 4 million pounds of beef daily at its plant in Fort Morgan, has been 200 workers short for almost two years.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

In December 2006, a federal immigration raid at the Swift meatpacking plant in Greeley resulted in 260 arrests. In January 2007, tougher immigration laws went into effect in Colorado. They target employers who "knowingly" hire illegal workers. Fears were expressed then that immigrant workers would perceive Colorado as a hostile climate and take their labor elsewhere. "The jobs no one else wants" would not get done.

It's no coincidence that Cargill's hiring troubles began at that time. Despite constant advertising along the Front Range and an increased recruitment effort that ranges as far as Puerto Rico, El Paso, Texas, and Minneapolis, they can't hire the people they need.

This came to light in an extraordinarily frank letter printed Tuesday in the Fort Morgan Times, signed by Mary Ginther, human resource manager at the Cargill plant.

She wrote in response to recent efforts by Morgan County, 70 miles east of Denver, to lure a chicken-processing plant. California-based Foster Farms has been scouting locations in either Morgan, Logan or Weld counties. Company President Don Jackson told the Greeley Tribune last month his company would spend nearly $300 million to build a plant that would hire 1,200 workers. Foster also would spend $25 million in annual payroll and another $25 million to area farmers who would raise the chickens for them, he said.

In essence, Ginther's letter asked: If we can't hire 200 people, how the heck are you going to hire 1,200? Further, she expressed irritation with a state agency that told Foster the area could meet its employment needs.

"It is frustrating to be continually searching for a large number of employees while the Eastern Region Colorado Workforce Center is stating that our area could supply an additional 1,200 workers in order to attract new businesses to the area," Ginther wrote. "Please let us know where to find these workers."

Kari Linker, executive director of Morgan County Economic Development, said Friday, "The work force is tight in this area, period."

She held out hope that work in a chicken-processing plant might be more palatable to women, more so than a cattle slaughterhouse.

"They're both kill-floor environments, but the female population might find the work (at Foster) is more doable for them. I could see benefits if (Cargill and Foster) put their recruitment efforts together. Maybe we could attract families. We could employ the wife at one plant, the husband at the other. From an economic- development standpoint, we gave Cargill an opportunity to help our economy, and we want to do the same for Foster."

The pay at Cargill ranges from just under $12 an hour to more than $18 hourly. Foster Farms knows it needs to be competitive in salary, Linker said.

Don Jackson, president of Foster Farms, told me Friday, "We recognize labor is very tight in Morgan County and unemployment is low. We researched it but have not made an assessment that we have to rely on immigrant labor. Surely, there are some hurdles for us, and labor is probably the biggest. But we are not in the business of hiring illegal aliens. If we were to come to Colorado, that's not our practice."

I asked whether labor supply problems in Colorado had caused Foster Farms to suspend its search for a plant site.

"We've not come to that point," he said.

The Greeley Tribune wrote a thoughtful editorial on April 16, "Chicken plant: Good for Greeley?" It said, in part: "The possibility of Foster Farms locating here is a mixed blessing - good for Weld's agricultural community but doubtful for the long-term health of Greeley."

"The worst-case scenario would be a foul- smelling plant near the downtown area that would attract unskilled workers who would need the help of government and charitable organizations to get by, and strain an already-burdened school system. . . . The Greeley area has been working hard to grow beyond being known as just the stinky feedlot and meat-processing center of the Front Range."

Dan Pilcher, chief operating officer for the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry, said the proposed chicken plant raises larger issues: "In effect, illegal immigrant workers have gone to other states. It has created a real labor shortage in agriculture, construction and hospitality. Our economic output as a state is suffering. We have to figure out, as a state and as a country, how we can bring in temporary or permanent immigrant labor to meet these needs."

Added Denver immigration lawyer Ann Allott: "We need to get work authorization and travel permission to the 500,000 undocumented workers in Colorado. This country would boom like it did in the '90s."

Business editor Rob Reuteman can be reached at reutemanr@RockyMountainNews.com. To comment on this column, go to RockyMountain News.com/business.