Isabel Bautista has been working at Superior Farms in Denver since Sept. 19, 2000. Her mother worked in the harvest department at the time and encouraged Bautista and her brother to join her at Superior. The two siblings began the same day. She was a single mom with a three-month-old baby in a new city and spoke only Spanish.

Bautista said her intuition from day one was that Superior Farms was a good company. She stayed and worked on the cleaning crew on the harvest floor. She and her mother and one other woman were the only three females in the harvest department. Learning English as she worked there, she was promoted to quality control.

“They always, always try to promote within the company,” she said. “They get to know the employees and if they have potential, they support them, coach them, and be sure they are promoted and that’s what happened to me.”

---

---

From cleaning the harvest floor, she worked in quality control for over 15 years before becoming the Operations Manager, who reports directly to the general manager, Gustavo Fernandez.

“I had the opportunity to work in every single department,” she said. “Being in the quality control department, I get to see everything: receiving of the livestock to shipping of the final product.”

---

---

“We are worried, of course, because we feel like we’ve been attacked,” she said. “We’re the only facility that slaughters in Denver so it’s not like there are many or not like we’re this huge company. We’re employee-owned, and we’re very proud of the job we do here. We work under USDA inspection in the facility, and we have to follow rigorous and strict programs.”

She said the proponents of the ban have accused Bautista and the other employees at Superior Farms of mistreating the livestock or lying about the animals being processed so the meat can be Halal certified.

“It’s not true,” she said. “That’s a lie.”

She said being accused of lying about a job she takes so much pride in is disrespectful.

“I’m not going to lie and I’m not going to disrespect my coworkers by saying things that aren’t true,” she said. “We open the doors to anyone who wants to visit the plant because, again, this is what we do on a daily basis and there is nothing to hide.”

She said that morning the plant underwent an animal welfare audit and performed well. The plant also undergoes audits by the Halal company as well as the constant presence of a USDA inspector. Without the inspector, she said, they don’t work.

She said most of the employees have been with Superior Farms for more than 15 years. Each year, each employee owner receives a certificate detailing their retirement funds and the value of their share of ownership in the company. They also receive training and education to help earn bonuses and promotions.

“That’s a fact,” she said.

Bautista said in her years at Superior, she has had the opportunity to meet and know some of the ranchers who utilize the plant. She has even visited one of the larger ranchers, Harper Ranch, and seen firsthand where and how the livestock is raised. Oftentimes, she said, those ranchers also place orders for finished, processed products to take back to the ranch because they appreciate the high quality of lamb and how well it is prepared for consumers.

She said the ranchers are worried about losing the plant as well.

“I don’t know what the (proponents) picture,” she said. “They don’t realize how much damage that is going to make to many different groups of people. Not just Superior Farms and the 160 employees we have here, but what about the ranchers, what about the local vendors we have? There are many who will be affected by this, not just the employees. The company that makes the boxes and the bags and the film; they have employees and facilities, too. What’s going to happen with them?”

Bautista said she respects the opinions of the proponents, but said the attack is unfair.

“We’re here for a reason,” she said. “We’re here to generate a paycheck to support our families. I have my kids.”

Bautiste is a single mom and said when her children were younger, she was able to work toward promotions and a good paycheck and still have the flexibility to take her children to the doctor or school and to handle her responsibilities as a single mother.

“I was able to provide them with a good life thanks to my job here,” she said.

Bautista said the COVID outbreak and the related processing gluts, empty grocery shelves, and closures brought the Superior Farms crew together, and were never forced to close the doors. To meet the needs of customers, all employees pitched in, she said, to process products for consumers.

“There’s many things (proponents) don’t realize,” she said. “This is going to impact the community, the economy, many different things. If they were telling true facts, okay, but they’re not. They’re lying. That’s very unfair to people and Denver voters because they’re not hearing the truth from them. But they’re hearing the truth from us.”

As for other employment opportunities available to Bautiste, she said it’s a hard question, even though the ballot question saddles the City of Denver with the responsibility of helping the 160 employee owners with workforce training and jobs. New hires, she said, without any experience, start at nearly $20 per hour plus ownership in the company, bonuses and prizes, especially around the major holidays, safety incentives monthly, and full benefits.

“I would have to start from zero and try to find a job,” she said.

She said the money she has earned as an employee owner will have to be used, rather than for her own retirement, for her living expenses while she is a job seeker.

“It’s not just me,” she said. “It’s all of the families that work here. And some of the families, the wife, the husband, the son, they all work here. It’s not just one person that will be affected in the family, but some of the situations will be the whole family will be jobless.”

She said Colorado Lamb Processors, a similar business, is over 60 miles away in a different town than the one she has made her home for 24 years.

“Unfortunately, (proponents) are not thinking on the big picture,” she said. “They just have this experiment that they’re doing with us and they just want to see if it’ll pass and then they’ll move on. But they don’t realize everything they’re going to destroy.”

Bautista said proponents argue that the employees in the harvest department are “mentally ill” because of the process, something she said is also untrue.

“People are scared and afraid of what is going to happen,” she said. “It generates a lot of stress obviously. It’s just not right. It’s just not right.”

Bautista said she’s not aware of any of the proponents reaching out to employees for input.

Bautista said the employee owners are 99% Hispanic and hail from many different countries including her home country of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, plus Africa and Muslim countries. More than half of the employees are women, she said, including a harvest lead, multiple supervisors, and 50% of the management team as a whole.

“It’s equal opportunity for everyone, and I’m a clear example of that,” she said.