Mistreatment of Workers is not kosher

Yes! Good people!

There are rabbis saying that mistreatment of workers is not kosher (and I would hope Imams would agree and say the mistreatment of workers is not hallal either!). That we should be treating the people who bring food to our table in a respectful way.

The rabbis know that if there is injustice in any part of the chain that brings our food to the table, then we will consume that injustice, and we will be walking vessels of injustice, constantly at odds with our hearts seeking justice.

This is all coming out because of an article revealing raids in Postville, Iowa,

'There's something bad in this town'

By JON TEVLIN, Star Tribune

There is a small-town stillness here, neat houses and kids riding bicycles down quiet, leafy streets. But in the Guatemalan bakery, in church pews, at the meatpacking plant and the kosher deli, the strained voices almost always dwell on the raid that changed everything.

The stillness is not serenity. It's shock.

Scores of heavily armed federal agents last month stormed into Agriprocessors, which produces up to 70 percent of all kosher meat in America. The feds seized almost 400 of the plant's 900 workers in the largest single roundup of illegal immigrants to date, charging about 300 of them with identity theft and using stolen Social Security cards.

where undocumented workers were arrested at Kosher Food Processing Plant. There are accusations of mistreatment of the workers, and to add insult to injury, the Federal government has raided the factory and punished the workers (even though it is the factory owners who hired them.

Food has a value. Work has a value. Why must we shortchange the workers that bring food to our table? Especially to ensure the integrity of food, be it kosher, be it hallal, or any label, requires an immense amount of faith in everyone along the food chain. If we shortchange these people, harass them, make life bad for them, how can we trust this treatment will not enter our food, and eventually our systems, after we eat it?

If we value and respect everybody with our our personal standards of justice and equality, then these ideas will be a part of what we put into our bodies. I'd rather eat justice, integrity, and equality, than choke on injustice and sadness.

To read more, click here!

In solidarity,
Mero