GREELEY, Colo. — The JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley promised a path to a better life in America. For the immigrants who came from all over the world to work there, many said it became a nightmare.
It started with a TikTok video. Then hundreds of people from Haiti came to Greeley after being promised a job. Now a labor union is alleging mistreatment, abuse and labor human trafficking of immigrant workers at one of the largest meatpacking companies in the country.
"I saw the video on TikTok and I got in contact with Remy. This is how I was able to come here," one JBS employee told 9NEWS in an interview.
9NEWS spoke with two Haitian men who said they have been employees with JBS in Greeley for seven and eight months, respectively. Through a representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union, the interview was translated from Haitian Creole to English.
The men said they were scared to show their faces on television or share their names out of fear that they would be fired by JBS for speaking out about working conditions at one of the biggest food production companies in the country.
"We’d prefer not to have any retaliation against us after that," the men said through the union representative, Tchelly Moise.
The men from Haiti ended up in Greeley after seeing a TikTok video posted by a man named Mackenson Remy. Remy never officially worked for JBS, but the union alleged he was often at the plant, and JBS knew exactly what he was doing. He used social media to recruit hundreds of people from Haiti to work there. He charged each of them hundreds of dollars, stashing them in overcrowded motel rooms and homes when they arrived in Colorado.
"It was a house with five bedrooms with around 40 people inside the house. There was only one kitchen and two bathrooms for 40 people," one of the JBS employees told 9News.
The men said the working conditions inside the plant are dangerous, pushing them to process meat at unsafe speeds and show up to the factory even while they’re sick.
"My biggest concern right now is that sometimes when I’m working, and I’m not feeling good, and I ask to go home, and they don’t let me go home," the other man said.
OSHA is now investigating workplace safety and health conditions at JBS. The meatpacking company also fired its HR Director at the plant along with another HR official. JBS said it's cooperating with all investigations and finds any allegations of poor living conditions unacceptable and upsetting.
The union said these men, and many others, came to Greeley legally with nothing but the promise of a job and a better life. They are sharing their story with the hope they are treated the way they should be.
"Who is supposed to get a better living condition?" he asked. "Us or the cows that we are killing?"