Swift & Co. faced millions of dollars in lost revenues when federal investigators shuttered the Greeley-based company’s slaughterhouses nationwide following a raid Tuesday.
At chain speeds that can reach 300 head of cattle an hour and 18,000 hogs and pigs a day, any production disruption at the company’s four beef and two pork plants can quickly become a costly matter.
But the loses Tuesday were minimized to only “several millions of dollars,” one company executive said.
Swift, one of the nation’s largest meat producers, resumed work at all its plants five hours after agents arrived in a simultaneous raid to ferret illegal immigrants allegedly working under stolen identities.
“It’s still a significant impact to us,” Swift president and chief executive Sam Rovit said. “In the short term the costs are in the several millions of dollars, but we can’t say what the full impact will be until the dust settles. We are able to meet most of our customer commitments.”
Those commitments include millions of dollars in government meat contracts, including the Defense Commissary Agency, which operates 182 military grocery stores in the country. Current numbers were not available, but the company received $44.6 million in defense contracts from 2001 to 2005.
Rovit said the federal investigation would have no impact on the company’s government work. “There is no indication that the company is in any way at fault,” he said. “The investigation appears focused specifically at the employees of our plants, so there is no risk to our contracts.”
The potential for financial loss was enormous, especially at holiday time, industry experts say.
“It could have a tremendous short-term blow, especially as they try to fill Christmas and New Year’s orders of the more expensive cuts of meat,” said Steve Kay, editor and publisher of Cattle Buyers Weekly.
Part of Tuesday’s disruption affected the businesses that work with Swift, such as cattle companies and feed lots that operate on tight deadlines to deliver animals for slaughter. Fiscal damage was minimized, Rovit said, by simply telling suppliers to stop and turn around.
Though the company doesn’t appear to be the focus of the investigation, it still will feel the impact of it, mostly in the diminishment of its workforce, which tops 11,000 nationally.
Staff writer David Migoya can be reached at 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com.
The scene elsewhere
Reaction from five other communities where immigration raids occurred Tuesday at Swift meat-processing plants:
Hyrum, Utah
One sheriff’s deputy described the scene as a circus, according to The Associated Press.
“They’ve got three buses, a bunch of transport vans, a lot of cars and 150 or so agents,” chief Cache County deputy David Bennett said. Bennett said ICE officials didn’t notify the sheriff’s department about the raid. “They didn’t ask for our help,” he said. “We were lucky to find out.”
Marshalltown, Iowa
A group of people gathered outside the plant’s fence as federal agents led workers out of the facility every few minutes. Several buses pulled in shortly before 10 a.m., reported The Associated Press. Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said depending on why they were arrested, those in custody will be deported immediately, will be held while their removal process is underway or will remain in the country to be charged criminally.
Grand Island, Neb.
Police Chief Steve Lamken said he refused to let his officers take part in the raid.
“When this is all over, we’re still here taking care of our community, and if I have a significant part of my population that’s fearful and won’t call us, then that’s not good for our community,” he said, according to The Associated Press.
Worthington, Minn.
“On a purely human level, there are hundreds if not thousands of people in Worthington who are just terrified,” said Bruce Nestor, a Minneapolis immigration lawyer who was heading to the town about 180 miles from the Twin Cities to help the workers and families affected by the raid, reported the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Cactus, Texas
“This is Swift & Co.’s fault because they hired them,” said Blanca Valenzuela, a 61-year-old former Swift worker and union steward, reported The Dallas Morning News. “If immigration is finding people illegal in the computers, why couldn’t (Swift) find them?”
Valenzuela is among more than two dozen former employees suing the Swift plant for wrongful termination regarding workers’ compensation claims. Swift has denied the claims.
DENVER POST NEWS SERVICES
