A cleaning employee was sentenced to life without parole in prison for killing a coworker last summer at an assembly plant of General Motors near Detroit.
Astrit Bushi, 48, was sentenced on Thursday after a jury found him guilty in March of murder with premeditation in the first degree in the death of Gregory Lanier Robertson of Pontiac. According to WDIV TV
Two men employed by a cleaning company contracted by GM were working in the automaker’s Orion Township assembly plant, located in Oakland County, north of Detroit. The fatal attack occurred in August 2022.
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Robertson was unconscious and bleeding when deputies arrived at the plant around 1:30 am. Robertson was declared dead on the spot despite deputies’ best efforts to save his life.
Bushi was discovered standing next to Robertson’s corpse. He was arrested and accused of murder.
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Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that Robertson died from multiple blunt force trauma. Police claim to have recovered the weapon used in the murder.
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She said that as soon as PSSI learned of the allegations, it began audits and hired an outside law firm to strengthen its policies. She noted that PSSI also provided additional training to hiring managers on how to spot identity theft.
Swenson said that PSSI still employs none of the minors who federal investigators identified. The Department of Labor has also “not identified any managers currently employed by the company” who know of inappropriate conduct, he added.
PSSI has said it employs about 17,000 people working at more than 700 locations nationwide, making it one of the largest food-processing-plant cleaning companies.
The 13 plants that were found to have violations are located in Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Texas. The plants with the highest number of violations were JBS in Grand Island in Nebraska, where PSSI employed 27 children; Cargill in Dodge City in Kansas, where 26 children worked; and JBS in Worthington in Minnesota, where 22 minors. The Labor Department searched a Tyson plant in Sedalia, Missouri, but found no violations.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents workers in meatpacking plants, has called PSSI “one of industry’s worst actors”.
Marc Perrone said that a fine was not enough. Their entire business model is based on the exploitation of workers and ruthless union-busting tactics. They also violate human rights. He urged the meatpacking sector to use its power to stop the exploitation and abuse of children.
When asked about the immigration status, Seema Nada, a solicitor at the Labor Department, said that the department only focuses on whether the children are minors.
Michael Lazzeri is the regional administrator for the Wage and Hour Division of the Department. He said that because the department was a civil law enforcement agency, it could not comment on the possibility of criminal charges being brought against the companies or whether the children involved were victims of trafficking. He said that any trafficking detected is reported to other agencies.
Looman stated that the Wage and Hour Division had seen a 50 percent increase in child labor since 2018. This includes minors working longer hours than allowed in jobs otherwise legal, using equipment they shouldn’t be using while working legal positions, and children working in places they shouldn’t have been employed.