Slaughterhouse owner denies allegations

NEW YORK, June 6 (UPI) -- The New York owner of the country's largest kosher slaughterhouse has denied allegations of unethical labor practices at the business.

Aaron Rubashkin, 80, owner of slaughterhouse Agriprocessors, said the high percentage of illegal immigrants working for him is the result of U.S. immigration policy failures and denied claims cited in a government affidavit that workers were paid $5 for an hour's work, the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported Friday.

The owner also denied claims in the affidavit that a Jewish kosher supervisor at the company's Postville, Iowa, plant placed duct tape over a worker's eyes and assaulted him with a meat hook. The affidavit also claims methamphetamine was being produced at the plant.

"Everything is a lie," Rubashkin said of the allegations against his business.

"We got 21 or 23 inspectors," Rubashkin said in a thick Yiddish accent. "Every minute the plant is open, there is (United States Department of Agriculture) inspector. We got maybe 30 rabbis. How can we do something which is wrong? If I want to, God forbid! We are ethical people. We don't do no injustice to nobody, not to a cat."

More than one third of the employees at the Agriprocessors plant were detained by the government on immigration charges during a May 12 raid.