The Iowa Independent: Postville property company ends contract with Agriprocessors staffing agency
Getzel_Rubashkin
· 1 year ago
This is unbelievable. This article is full of misrepresentations, starting from the headline, and includes a quote from me which is taken from comments on a blog, is totally out of context and misrepresented, and I will be contacting the reporter of this and her editor. I was not contacted for this story, I would not comment, since I am not a representative of the company and was asked not to comment. One more example of the outrageous treatment of this whole episode by the media.
craigede
· 1 year ago
What Postville needs more than a housing code is a renters' rights organization that can provide information about how the various landlords treat their tenants so that renters can make informed decisions about who to rent from.
I'd love to think that this was a move in the right direction by GAL to do the right thing. Maybe it is, but another factor might be that deducting money for rent from checks issued through Jacobsen Staffing makes it very easy to track who is being charged what and who is being paid the rents. Maybe it is seen as better if there is less transparency in thise transactions and that is the reason for the change.
I spoke with a now-homeless woman brought up from Kentucky by a guy named Henry to work for Agriprocessors. She had been "sharing" a small ranch house in Postville with eight (8) others. She finally left, prefering to live on the street, after one of her roomates persisted in "relieving himself" in front of her in their shared bedroom. (The context implyed a sexual relief and not urination.)
Her check stub, which she showed me, listed $100 a week being deducted for housing. Given that rate for her and her roommates, this small ranch house was bringing in $3600/month to this landlord, an amazing amount for housing in small town Iowa. I sincerely hope all this money is being tracked by the IRS and will be suitably taxed. Taking the rent payments off the check stubs will make tracking money paid to landlords harder to track, and it seems likely this is one motivation for doing so.
St. Bridget's church is still paying a hefty amout for the rents of people under house arrest. I hope they see fit to supply this rental payment information to the IRS as well.
Postville has a population of 2200. The May 12 raid resulted in 389 arrests (and, according to some of those under house arrest, approximately 400 employees who immediately fled the town). Thus about 800 new employees were needed at Agriprocessors to bring them back to pre-raid staffing levels. Assuming all 800 will be renters, this gives you an idea of the captive rental market in this small town where, it seems, all the cards are stacked on the sides of the landlords.
In the neighboring town of Decorah, I have never had to pay for utilities like water and sewerage. They were included in my rent, no doubt, and my rent here over the last 3 years has been $330 and $450 a month for better accomodations than I see people in Postville are getting.
It seems evident that by far the largest user of sewerage treatment facilities in Postville *has* to be Agriprocessors. While there seem to be two sewerage treatment plants (one a multi-million dollar facility on the Agriprocessors site and another smaller one near the trailer park on the east end of town), a question I have is how much of the cost of the plants sewerage treatment and water costs are being passed along to those employees paying rents plus sewerage and water bills. Are the sewerage and water costs being expended to run the treatment facilities on the Agriprocessors site totally separate from those in the town, or are their employees being pinged to pay some of these costs for Agriprocessors?
All Comments
I'd love to think that this was a move in the right direction by GAL to do the right thing. Maybe it is, but another factor might be that deducting money for rent from checks issued through Jacobsen Staffing makes it very easy to track who is being charged what and who is being paid the rents. Maybe it is seen as better if there is less transparency in thise transactions and that is the reason for the change.
I spoke with a now-homeless woman brought up from Kentucky by a guy named Henry to work for Agriprocessors. She had been "sharing" a small ranch house in Postville with eight (8) others. She finally left, prefering to live on the street, after one of her roomates persisted in "relieving himself" in front of her in their shared bedroom. (The context implyed a sexual relief and not urination.)
Her check stub, which she showed me, listed $100 a week being deducted for housing. Given that rate for her and her roommates, this small ranch house was bringing in $3600/month to this landlord, an amazing amount for housing in small town Iowa. I sincerely hope all this money is being tracked by the IRS and will be suitably taxed. Taking the rent payments off the check stubs will make tracking money paid to
landlords harder to track, and it seems likely this is one motivation for doing so.
St. Bridget's church is still paying a hefty amout for the rents of people under house arrest. I hope they see fit to supply this rental payment information to the IRS as well.
Postville has a population of 2200. The May 12 raid resulted in 389 arrests (and, according to some of those under house arrest, approximately 400 employees who immediately fled the town). Thus about 800 new employees were needed at Agriprocessors to bring them back to pre-raid staffing levels. Assuming all 800 will be renters, this gives you an idea of the captive rental market in this small town where, it seems, all the cards are stacked on the sides of the landlords.
In the neighboring town of Decorah, I have never had to pay for utilities like water and sewerage. They were included in my rent, no doubt, and my rent here over the last 3 years has been $330 and $450 a month for better accomodations than I see people in Postville are getting.
It seems evident that by far the largest user of sewerage treatment facilities in Postville *has* to be Agriprocessors. While there seem to be two sewerage treatment plants (one a multi-million dollar facility on the Agriprocessors site and another smaller one near the trailer park on the east end of town), a question I have is how much of the cost of the plants sewerage treatment and water costs are being passed along to those employees paying rents plus sewerage and water bills. Are the sewerage and water costs being expended to run the treatment facilities on the Agriprocessors site totally separate from those in the town, or are their employees being pinged to pay some of these costs for Agriprocessors?