IFCO Systems (Houston) today released the following statement regarding information presented yesterday at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement press conference in Washington:
“As it is IFCO's policy to comply with all federal and state employment provisions, we take the allegations made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) very seriously and are committed to resolving this matter as soon as possible. We are very disturbed by these allegations and have immediately begun a thorough investigation of the facts.
“The activities and attitudes outlined in the allegations are counter to everything we stand for at IFCO. We have the highest respect for our nation's employment and citizenship laws and are committed to complying with them.
“IFCO is the industry leader with a business model built on the efficiencies of our logistics systems and physical network and we are deeply committed to our employees. We are proud to offer a level of compensation and benefits to our employees that many of our peers do not. These include competitive wages, workers' compensation insurance, affordable health insurance, 401k, and various other benefits.
“We are cooperating fully with ICE and other authorities including voluntarily allowing ICE to visit many of our facilities this past Wednesday. We are now working to understand the facts and will implement any additional changes necessary to further improve our current procedures. So that we will be able to move forward with confidence, we have begun an internal investigation that will be headed by outside counsel. Pending the outcome of our investigation, the local IFCO managers arrested Wednesday have been placed on temporary leave from the company. In cooperation with ICE, we will be reviewing the status of our temporarily detained hourly workers across the country on a case by case basis.
“All of our facilities are in operation and we are working diligently to meet all of our customers' needs.”
Source: IFCO Systems.
