By Clark Kauffman in the Des Moines Register, Associated Press:

An administrative law judge has ruled that a Texas company accused of abusing and underpaying workers with intellectual disabilities need only pay  a fine of $174,660, or 15 percent of the fine proposed by an Iowa state agency. Either side can appeal the ruling.

Judge Jeffrey Farrell concluded that the company had been acting in good faith, and had complied with the law for the first 40 years it did business. The company, Henry’s Turkey Service, has been accused of housing its workers in unsafe conditions in a delapidated bunkhouse, and paying them only about $65 per month regardless of the hours they worked.

Iowa Workforce Development, the agency that enforces state labor laws, had proposed a fine of $1,164,000.

Earlier posts here.

See also:

4 Atalissa men’s welfare doubted — by Clark Kauffman in the Des Moines Register.

Four of the mentally retarded men who worked for Henry’s Turkey Service in eastern Iowa are now the focus of an escalating battle involving mental health advocates, the Texas attorney general and the family that founded Henry’s.

“These men are still being held hostage by the family that ran the Atalissa bunkhouse,” said Sylvia Piper of Iowa Protection and Advocacy.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 9:58 am and is filed under Atalissa, employment/jobs, intellectual/developmental disabilities, NOT2BEMISSED. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.