• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Agriculture / State reduces fines against Agriprocessors

State reduces fines against Agriprocessors

May 30, 2008 By admin

State officials have reduced fines levied in March for workplace safety violations at the Postville meatpacking plant that was the target of an immigration raid earlier this month. Agriprocessors was fined $182,000 this spring for 39 violations.

The Iowa Division of Labor Services this week agreed to reduce the fine to just less than $43,000 after Agriprocessors officials promised to correct worker safety and health problems identified in the plant. Kerry Koonce, a spokeswoman for Iowa Workforce Development, says reducing such fines is a common practice. "It frequently happens that fines will be reduced," Koonce said. "It has to do with (the company’s) cooperation level in correcting those violations or agreeing to correct them by a certain time, so this is certainly not an unusual instance."

Workplace safety fines are often reduced through negotiations with the company, according to Koonce.  "Usually it comes down to when they agree to correct the violations in a certain way or within a certain time frame or they’re able to demonstrate to us that they’ve already corrected those violations, then we work with them to reduce the fines," Koonce said.

According to the state’s inspections, many of the health violations were described as "serious" and involved hazardous chemicals and blood-borne pathogens. Agriprocessors is also under investigation for violating child labor laws. Koonce says the child labor investigation is separate from the health and safety violations. "That’s an ongoing investigation, but right now we’re in holding pattern because the federal government has a lot of the documents we need to complete the child labor investigation," Koonce said.

The May 12 immigration raid at Agriprocessors was the largest in U.S. history. Around 390 workers were detained.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Agriculture, Business Tagged With: Employment and Labor

Featured Stories

Exhibit features lesser known works of Grant Wood

Testing finds 21 new CWD cases in deer

It may become a crime in Iowa to use fake urine in workplace drug tests

February trending 18 degrees below average temperature

Iowa House Education Committee votes to end tenure at UI, ISU, UNI

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Iowa’s Jack Nunge lost for the season

Key stretch begins for #9 Iowa

Drake’s Roman Penn lost for the season

Drake’s DeVries named to Naismith watch list

State wrestling opens with limited attendance

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2021 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC