Turkey service faces fines of $900,000 from Iowa (payroll violations)

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090529/NEWS10/905290375/-1/ENT05

By CLARK KAUFFMAN • ckauffman@dmreg.com • © 2009, Des Moines Register and Tribune Co. • May 29, 2009

The company that for 35 years housed dozens of mentally retarded processing plant workers in an aging eastern Iowa bunkhouse faces $900,000 in state fines for thousands of alleged labor-law violations.

The proposed penalty marks the first government enforcement action against Henry's Turkey Service in the 15 weeks since the company's Atalissa bunkhouse was shut down by the state fire marshal.

Stephen Slater, deputy labor commissioner at Iowa Workforce Development, notified Hill Country Farms of Goldthwaite, Texas, of the potential fines. Hill Country Farms is the parent company of Henry's Turkey Service, which employed disabled men at a West Liberty meat-processing plant.


Hill Country Farms' Iowa attorney, David Scieszinski of Wilton, said the company has 30 days to respond to the notification. He said the company intends to challenge the state's findings.

"We will file our reply to this, and then it will go before an administrative law judge," he said.

"That's where we start, and then the administrative law judge's decision on this might get appealed to a district court judge, and then his opinion could then be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court."

Until February, when the state shut down the Atalissa bunkhouse where the disabled men were living, Henry's acted as the workers' employer, landlord and caretaker. It collected the men's wages from the processing plant, then deducted fees for lodging, food and care.

The result was that some of the men were working for 44 cents an hour in net wages.

Eleven state and federal agencies are investigating Henry's and Hill Country Farms. Those investigations have focused on the companies' payroll practices and its treatment of the Atalissa workers.

Iowa Workforce Development alleges that Hill Country Farms committed at least three types of payroll violations:

- Making improper deductions from the workers' paychecks.

- Failing to pay the minimum wage.

- Failing to provide the workers with pay stubs.


FULL story at link.

an institution the clients are isolated and vulnerable to abuse by there overseers. So Iowa puts these men out into the community and allows the company to become the new privatized institution without oversight. Work, housing and care should always be provided by separate entities so that they act as a checks and balance system.

May God damn this company for its slave trade attitudes toward the least of these. F***kers.