Greeley – The pending sale of meatpacker Swift & Co. to a Brazilian company adds new drama to already tumultuous events at the company’s Greeley plant, where immigration raids in December resulted in hundreds of arrests.
Workers said Tuesday that they’re concerned about what the sale might mean to their jobs, pay and benefits, but they received few answers during their work shifts. Swift officials said there would be no workforce reductions.
“You hear what you hear. They don’t really tell us anything,” said Margarito Morado, 39, as he left work. “Some people are worried about their jobs. I guess I’m worried too. You want to know what’s going to happen.”
Morado and others said they weren’t particularly concerned that the plant will be owned by a foreign company, as long as job cuts aren’t planned.
J&F Participações SA, which owns a majority of Latin America’s largest beef processor, announced Tuesday that it will buy Swift for $225 million and assume $1.2 billion in debt. The deal, if approved by regulators, will create the world’s largest beef processor.
The Greeley plant has changed hands before. The Monfort family, which started it in 1930, sold it to agri-giant ConAgra in 1987. ConAgra sold it in 2002 to Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst – now HM Capital – and ski resort mogul George Gillett’s Booth Creek Management, the present Swift owners.
Speculation about the plant’s future has swirled for months. Earlier this year, Swift said it was reviewing its operations and looking at a potential sale.
The immigration raids in Greeley and several other Swift locations cost the company tens of millions of dollars, the company has said. Though Swift was not charged or implicated in any crimes, the raids damaged its reputation, analysts have said.
In 2002, the Greeley plant recalled 18.6 million pounds of beef because of E. coli concerns and later was closed for five days by federal authorities who repeatedly found meat contaminated by feces.
Swift also has struggled to recover from bans of American beef in Asia in recent years. Swift employs about 2,000 people at the Greeley plant.
Though it leaves questions unanswered, a sale is better than a closure, said Morado, who is married and has a stepdaughter and two grandchildren.
“Hopefully, the (new) owner will keep the people,” he said. “We need the money to pay our bills.”
Changes at the meat plant send nervous waves through Greeley’s immigrant community. At a trailer park about half a mile from the plant on the north side of town, Maria Anbriz, 45, waited Tuesday afternoon for her husband, Jamie, to return home from his shift at Swift to learn more of the sale.
“We’re afraid the pay rate is going to go down,” the mother of three said. “Right now, we’re just barely making it.”
Jamie Anbriz works daily shifts of more than 12 hours for $11 per hour at Swift’s lamb-processing plant, where he has worked for 15 years, his wife said. With gasoline prices and other costs rising, they’re struggling.
Julio Molina left Jerry’s Market in north Greeley on Tuesday afternoon with similar concerns. His wife, Norma, has worked at the plant for nine years.
“You have to wonder what would happen if they closed, but usually when the owners change, the workers just keep on working,” he said.
Meat cutter Miguel Aguero, 50, said he doesn’t think the new owners will lay off workers.
“I’m not worried because I’ve worked there since Monfort owned it, and they always pay what they owe,” he said.
Staff writer Greg Griffin can be reached at 303-954-1241 or at ggriffin@denverpost.com.
