Union accuses Greeley’s JBS slaughterhouse of human trafficking

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 is urging federal, state, and local authorities to investigate JBS USA Holdings, Inc. over potential human trafficking and labor violations at its Greeley, Colorado plant.

UFCW Local 7 alleges that hundreds of immigrant workers, including Haitians and French-speaking Africans, faced abusive practices such as inflated charges for squalid housing, transportation fees, and job application costs. The union also alleges workers endured intimidation, unsafe conditions, withheld wages, and coerced agreements waiving legal protections.

KGNU’s Alexis Kenyon spoke with Kim Cordova the president of UFCW Local 7 about the complaint.

Alexis Kenyon: How did the union first start looking into these allegations? Where did this begin?

Kim Cordova: We represent between 3,300 to 3,500 production workers at the JBS Greeley beef plant. In the fall of 2023, we began noticing an unusual number of workers coming from West Africa, specifically Benin. When they were hired, they filled out union applications, and on those applications, they listed their HR manager’s home address.

We had never seen workers apply using their supervisor’s address as their home address. This started happening in large numbers. Then we began receiving complaints from workers that they were being charged fees for jobs at JBS. Some workers from Benin had been recruited and were asked to sign employment contracts, paying someone between $10,000 and $17,000 for a promised job at JBS.

Alexis Kenyon: So the workers had to pay between $10,000 and $17,000?

Kim Cordova: Yes, that’s why we believe this is essentially human trafficking, in our opinion. These workers were being pushed to the front of the line for jobs at the plant. After the pandemic, these were hard-to-fill jobs—everyone knows the risks involved, like exposure to COVID and what happened with essential workers during that time. So, they were brought in to fill these positions.

Alexis Kenyon: Just to fill people in who might not know, JBS faced a lot of criticism during the pandemic, especially at the beginning, when they refused to shut down despite a massive COVID outbreak at the Greeley plant, where I think six workers died. They eventually shut down for a couple of weeks after pressure from officials, but they reopened shortly afterward. Throughout the pandemic, they were accused of pressuring sick workers to keep coming in and experienced several other massive outbreaks. Is that pretty much the gist of it?

Kim Cordova: Yes, that’s correct. At one point, the Greeley plant had the highest death count in the industry during COVID. Many workers ended up on ventilators or got seriously ill. It was a big national fight between my union and the plant.

Kim Cordova: These workers have already been through so much working for JBS. Then, at the end of 2023, we began seeing this new group of workers coming in through a different type of recruitment process. Some were paying fees for employment contracts, while others reported paying the HR manager directly for a promised job.

The living conditions they endured were awful. They were housed at the Rainbow Motel in Greeley, living in squalid conditions. Many workers arrived in the U.S. with no money, having paid exorbitant fees to secure these jobs. They were crammed into rooms, with reports of 30 to 50 people staying in each room, and were being charged additional fees by their supervisor. The money they made went right back to their supervisor.

When I became aware of the situation as union president, I notified JBS about the complaints we were receiving. They conducted their own internal investigation and put the supervisor on leave for a while, but eventually, he was brought back.

After that, we saw a new pattern emerge. Workers were being recruited via TikTok, and this time there was a third party involved—a man named Mackinson Remy, who was recruiting Haitian workers. We saw a big influx of Haitian workers, and again, they were paying someone—this time, it was the third party—for their applications, but still listing their HR manager’s home address.

Alexis Kenyon: So after you filed your initial complaint about the workers from Benin, they pivoted, and you started hearing from Haitian workers who had been recruited via TikTok?

Kim Cordova: Yes, but it was essentially the same scheme. This time, it wasn’t just the HR manager involved; there was also the third party recruiter, Remy Mackinson. These two, the HR manager, Edmond, and Mackinson, rented houses and charged boarding fees to house workers in overcrowded, deplorable conditions. They were cramming multiple people, including women and children, into small houses with only one bathroom.

Workers reported that if they tried to quit, they were threatened. Mackinson told them his wife was in the military and implied there would be consequences, including threats to their immigration status or their visas. Workers felt compelled to stay in these conditions and continue paying fees.

Alexis Kenyon: A lot of this, if not all of it, sounds illegal. Is any of this actually illegal? What are you finding?

Kim Cordova: Yes, we believe it is illegal. There are other concerning issues as well. For instance, workers from Haiti speak Creole, and there have been cases where injured workers didn’t receive proper care. One worker was taken to the hospital after a serious injury and left there, having to find his own way home. When he returned to work, a translator was put on the phone, and the worker was told that if he wanted his medical bills paid, he had to sign a document. But the document was actually a waiver, releasing the company from liability.

I raised these issues with JBS and with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. We’ve also raised concerns that their injuries aren’t being properly reported to OSHA or Workers’ Compensation. Workers are coming forward with medical bills, and we’re constantly filing complaints about what we believe is human trafficking and worker exploitation.

Alexis Kenyon: It almost sounds unbelievable when you hear all of this.

Kim Cordova: Yes, it does. But it’s happening.

Alexis Kenyon: There’s another major complaint the union has filed with OSHA regarding JBS increasing its line speed—the rate at which the plant processes cattle. The current line speed is 430 cattle per minute. To give listeners some perspective, imagine standing in a line where your job is to chop up an onion. With a line speed of 430, you’d have 14 seconds to chop that onion, and you’d have to do that over and over again. But unlike onions, in a slaughterhouse, you’re using sharp knives and heavy equipment, making it incredibly dangerous. Between 2015 and 2018, the Greeley plant was one of the most dangerous plants in the country, with an OSHA finding that every other day, a meat processing employee was losing a body part or being hospitalized for serious injuries. Since then, JBS has further increased its line speed.

Kim Cordova: That’s right. It’s very fast and very dangerous—one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. They are exploiting these vulnerable workers, running the line at an extremely fast pace at the expense of the workers’ health, safety, and well-being.

Alexis Kenyon: Is there anything else you’d like to share before I let you go?

Kim Cordova: I just want to emphasize the need for more oversight in these types of production facilities. This type of exploitation is prevalent in the meatpacking industry in general. These plants are built in rural communities, often out of sight, so people don’t see what’s happening inside. It took a global pandemic to shed light on how dangerous these jobs are.

This is hard work. JBS is the largest protein and food producer in the world. We are doing everything we can to intervene and stop what’s happening. I also want to mention that we’ve received complaints from our immigrant members, particularly Somali and Burmese workers, that they can’t get hired anymore. It seems that once these workers learn their rights, they’re pushed out, and the company brings in new groups who are unaware of their rights. They think no one will hold them accountable, but we need to ensure there is