Smith Frozen Foods trains employees in three different languages

A food processing plant owned by U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Pendleton) is training employees in English, Spanish and Japanese, according to a spokeswoman for Smith’s re-election campaign.

This was in response to a Democratic Party of Oregon inquiry as to whether the Smith Frozen Foods plant located in Weston had changed its training practices after a 1997 accident at the plant injured two workers.

The accident was blamed on the company for improperly training the workers. Employee training had been conducted in English, and the employees only spoke Spanish.

The DPO brought the issue to light again after the Willamette Week released a series of articles accusing Smith Frozen Foods of employing undocumented workers. On Wednesday, the Pulitzer Prize winning paper released its third article on the issue, detailing a conversation with an undocumented worker that was employed by Smith Frozen Foods for ten years.