News
Latino work stoppage slows hog processing
The one-day U.S. work stoppage by many Latino workers on Thursday had an impact on pork processing.
It was a day without many immigrants and other Latinos working in the U.S., those who stayed home in protest of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on people who are in the country illegally.
Charlie Lynch from Waucoma IIowa-basedLynch Livestock tells Brownfield several packers were short-handed. “We know of multiple packers that did not kill today. Others are running at shortened numbers due to the situation.”
Steven Pomaray is a pork marketer for Lynch Livestock. He tells Brownfield when you process more than 440-thousand hogs per day nationwide, a work stoppage has a ripple effect. “Rescheduling transportation across the country, with the plants and the people, and then backing the hogs up one or two days, we have to some way make those hog numbers up.”
Lynch says some packers were shut down and others were operating far below capacity and will likely operate Saturday or overtime next week to catch up. He says the one-day event won’t have an impact on what’s available in the grocery stores.
The USDA is estimating 34-thousand fewer hogs and 17-thousand fewer head of cattle were slaughtered Thursday than a week ago.
If they didn’t hire illegal aliens, they wouldn’t have had this problem!!!!