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MARK STEIL: Jose Maldonado has worked nine years at the Swift pork plant in Worthington. Ask him how many people from his first day of work are still there today and he pauses, looks out his kitchen window at a snow-filled yard before answering.

JOSE MALDONADO: I know, probably, one or two, I think. Yeah, it's about one or two people.

MARK STEIL: That's one or two out of some 600 workers on the night shift. Maldonado says at least 30 new employees are hired each week to plug holes on the kill line. It's a tiring, relentless job. A hog carcass moves past a worker every 3 and 1/2 seconds. They make their assigned cuts with blood and fat-slicked knives. They must sharpen the knife several times a minute or risk falling hopelessly behind the onslaught of meat and bone. Many last only a few hours or a few days.

JOSE MALDONADO: They thought it was a McDonald's or something, and they get in there, they find out that it isn't, so they don't stick around for too long.

MARK STEIL: Swift officials will not comment on their employee turnover rate. A union source says it's 20% a month. Others put it closer to 8%. That means the plant hires somewhere between 1,400 and 3,600 workers each year to maintain 1,500 jobs. Mark Grey of the University of Northern Iowa says his research shows that sort of turnover rate is common in the meat industry. He says it creates problems for cities which host a meatpacker.

MARK GREY: When you have high turnover in the plants, you have high turnover in the community. That means that you have a considerable proportion of your population, which doesn't stay put. They come into town. They may stay for weeks. They may stay for months. But we know that in many cases, hundreds, if not thousands of them will not stay for very long.

MARK STEIL: Grey says among the first to feel the impact of high employee turnover rates are schools.

MARK GREY: This wreaks havoc on your curriculum. It wreaks havoc on your instruction. It wreaks havoc on your ability to plan for staffing, plan for curricular materials, plan for classroom space.

MARK STEIL: Worthington school officials have seen the effect of high turnover at the town's largest employer on their enrollment. Many of the new workers at Swift are Hispanic. At Central Elementary School, the number of Spanish-speaking children increases each year.

CHILDREN: (SINGING) This is the way we cut the tomato, cut the tomato, cut the tomato.

MARK STEIL: Amy Japa teaches a class which helps children improve their English skills. She says most of her students have a parent who works in meatpacking.

AMY JAPA: It's really hard when students come right in the middle of the year and you just get-- you just start working with them and figure out where they're at and where they need to be, and then sometimes some of them will leave.

MARK STEIL: At Central Elementary, about 40% of the minority students enrolled at this time last year are gone. Another area affected by high turnover is housing. So many workers pass through Worthington that there isn't enough housing for all of them. It's a common problem in meatpacking towns.

Officials in Lexington, Nebraska, found a solution which they believe could also work in Worthington. They bought a house where job seekers can stay for a few days, free of charge, until they get settled. Maricela Romero is director of Haven house.

MARICELA ROMERO: (ON PHONE) It's scary in some communities where you go to work, you have to sleep in the car or under a bridge because there is nothing else to stay in. But here in Haven house, they know that we're available for them to stay until they get their first paycheck.

MARK STEIL: Romero says the House also serves as a gathering place where new arrivals swap housing and other information. In Worthington, that role has been filled by volunteers like Martha Cardenas.

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On her own time and at her own expense, she's helped hundreds of Hispanics who've arrived to work at the meatpacking plant. Their names fill this notebook. She says they come to her for one major reason.

MARTHA CARDENAS: Because then I speak English.

MARK STEIL: Cardenas is their guide, helping new arrivals find food, transportation and housing. She'd like to secure a house for new arrivals like the one in Nebraska, but those efforts have stalled because of funding problems. Worthington city administrator, Bob Filson says he'd like to see packinghouse workers stay longer and maybe buy more houses. He says the worst aspect of the rapid turnover, is that it prevents new arrivals from forging ties with the community.

BOB FILSON: About the time they're getting settled in and starting to understand how things work, we see a new wave come through. So there's no consistency and no permanence. The immigrants need to learn North American ways, and North Americans need to understand maybe the point of view of the immigrants.

MARK STEIL: What everyone wants is for the turnover rate to drop. Researcher Mark Grey says that's not likely to happen. The quickest way to lower turnover is to make the job less demanding. That means slowing down the kill line. Grey says meatpackers won't do that because they're afraid it'll reduce profit. He says as long as meatpackers can attract workers, they'll accept high turnover as part of the cost of doing business. This is Mark Steil, Main Street Radio.