To the editor:

Although I once worked at Howard Industries, I am not a typical disgruntled former employee. I simply reached a point at which I realized there was not much of a future for me there, even though I enjoyed a lot of my five years there.

The way I saw some employees treated does make me quite proud that I was able to leave when I did, before things apparently really got bad. Conversations with former coworkers still at Howard Industries have indicated that the regular arrivals of ‘loads’ of immigrant workers have increased the percentage of “non-native” workers to well over 50% of the workforce. I have, for years, been told that it was ‘common knowledge’ in the plant that a substantial portion of the workforce were, at best, of questionable citizenship.

It strikes me as somewhat strange that Mr. Howard would go to the lengths he apparently has for sometime now to “recruit” employees from so far outside the Jones County Area, regardless of their status. Many times, I have read about or heard of his account of how people told him when he first started planning that he would not be able to find enough qualified workers in the Laurel Area to succeed. He has proclaimed a certain “pride” in having been able to prove those people wrong. I wonder when that “pride” apparently faded in favor of exploiting a seemingly endless supply of laborers not even legally qualified to be here. No matter who knew what, Howard Industries has helped facilitate the largest illegal immigrant “raid” operation in U.S. history. At least Mississippi is first on one list…

Roughly 600 “illegals” were at the Howard Industries plant at the time the “raid.” How many other illegal immigrants on the Howard payroll (working later ‘shifts’) were not present to be “rounded up” in the operation? Even if 600 is the total number of “illegals,” that is twenty-five percent of the total workforce. How could anyone in a management position not at least be curious, if not downright suspicious of something being “not quite right?”

I feel I am sufficiently familiar with Mr. Howard to safely state that he is far from ignorant, and is “business-minded” enough to be aware of at least most of what is going on within the business he has led for 40 years. I can’t quite believe that he just wasn’t aware…

After all the money that our elected officials have invested into Howard Industries to help provide jobs for area residents, I believe we all are due an explanation. It is likely that, at times, there were shortages of local people to hire. However, the near-immediate onslaught of applicants following the departure of the illegal workers indicates to me that there has been a substantial supply of local workers for quite sometime.

Many of us are encouraged that some of the problems that Jones County has faced due to the influx of what turns out to be (in many cases) illegal immigrants should decline significantly. I would, however, encourage everyone to remember that not everyone of Hispanic origin in our area is here illegally. Many of them, through no fault of their own, are currently suffering circumstances somewhat comparable to what we all endured following Hurricane Katrina; a monumental upset of their normal lives.

It occurs to me that the illegal workers were here only as a result of someone’s ability to organize an “immigrant worker supply” operation. Someone with no regard for the effect some of those individuals might have on our community. I would like to see the investigation continue until we all know exactly who the organizer(s) of that operation is and justice is served.

— Fred Pittman

Ellisville