It has not been a good week for AgriProcessors, the world’s largest kosher slaughterhouse. In addition to a falling-out between two of its kashrut certifiers, the company recently lost an appeal in federal court and continues to field attacks from the slaughterhouse workers’ union.

Last week, a federal court of appeals rejected AgriProcessors’ claim that workers in a Brooklyn distribution center should not be allowed to unionize because many of them are undocumented aliens. The decision ended a two-year court battle.

“[AgriProcessors] tied the case up in court,” said Jill Cashen, a spokeswoman for United Food and Commercial Workers, which is the union that represents slaughterhouse employees. She added that the long period during which the case moved through the courts would have given AgriProcessors time to hire a new crop of workers who had not voted to unionize in 2005.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“It’s a union-busting tactic,” she said.

In yet another development, the UFCW, which has long protested AgriProcessors’ labor practices, claims that its chemical tests of AgriProcessors’ meat reveals much higher sodium levels than the company reports on its packaging. The union has also uncovered a letter from four United States congressmen to the United States Department of Agriculture that expresses concern over the plant’s record on health and safety regulations.

Rabbi Menachem Weissmandl, leader of an ultra-Orthodox community in upstate New York, criticized the UFCW for what he called its “agenda” of recruiting uninterested workers into the union. He called a November 2007 UFCW campaign, in which the union phoned religious households with a Yiddish message questioning AgriProcessors’ kashrut standards, “psychological terrorism.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount