Klemke Sausage Haus Face Heat From Unpaid Employees

UPDATE: Hayley Klemke called us to ask why we were "calling all of her employees". When clarification was made that we had only spoken to one employee at the time, Klemke then went on to explain that "all employees have been paid in full". She added that the employee who spoke to us was the only one who had not gotten their money because it was "in the drawer." Klemke finished by indicating that the employee will be receiving pay for work performed soon.

On Saturday, July 6th, the community of Slaton hosted a "Save Our Sausage Haus" event to help raise funds in an effort to rebuild businesses destroyed during a massive fire that occurred in the early morning hours on June 15th.

A GoFundMe campaign called Klemke Sausage Haus Relief Fund was created by Chad Wilson the same day as the devastating fire and as of this writing over $8,500 have been raised.

Efforts to rebuild the business are ongoing. People from all over the South Plains have happily joined in contributing, in various ways, to help ensure that the famous sausage plant will open it's doors again.

However, not everyone is happy about how things are being handled with the rebuilding effort and the funds that have been raised so far. Employees of the business reached out to express frustration with lack of pay and added that many had grown concerned about comments that the company was facing financial difficulty before the fire occurred.

We spoke to one employee who claims that work was performed at the sausage plant during the weeks leading up the fire and that some of the plant employees have not been paid wages for that week. The employee, who wishes to remain anonymous, indicated that attempts to seek answers from owner, Rod Klemke, and his daughter, Hayley Klemke, have been met with, "we are working on it", but that nothing has been done to pay employees who have also been harmed by the sudden interruption to business operations.

We will update this story as new information is obtained.