Charlotte.com: Special Report | The Cruelest Cuts

Hearings planned on poultry workers

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:26 EST

U.S. Senate and House committees, spurred by an Observer report on N.C. poultry giant House of Raeford Farms, are planning hearings on worker safety in the poultry industry, congressional leaders and aides said.

"All Americans should be horrified at the conditions reported in this investigation," Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said in an e-mail. He said he plans to hold a hearing this spring.

In a six-part series that began last Sunday, the Observer reported that House of Raeford, which has seven processing plants in the Carolinas, had masked the extent of injuries behind its plant walls.

Employees say the company has ignored, intimidated or fired workers who were hurt on the job. Among the Observer's findings were that the company has broken the law by failing to record injuries on government safety logs, a top OSHA official says, and that some seriously injured workers were brought back to the company's Greenville, S.C., plant hours after surgery.

House of Raeford officials have said they follow the law and strive to protect workers.

On Friday, an official with the S.C. Workers' Compensation Commission said his agency will conduct a review to determine whether the company is properly reporting injuries and providing medical treatment for workers hurt on the job.

"The issues raised in your series are very serious ones," said Gary Thibault, the commission's executive director. "...Anyone who needs medical attention should be getting medical attention. And all claims should be reported and filed with the commission."

The Observer found that company first-aid attendants and supervisors have dismissed some workers' requests to see a doctor -- even when they complained of debilitating pain.

"It's unacceptable that in 21st century America any employees are subjected to inhumane and dangerous work conditions," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who chairs the Senate committee on Health, Labor, Education and Pensions, said in an e-mail. "The Observer's reports vividly demonstrate OSHA's ineffectiveness in protecting the nation's poultry workers. Instead of strong action against abuses, its responses are clearly inadequate and our Committee is beginning an investigation."

Kennedy's committee plans to discuss worker safety in manufacturing, including the poultry industry, in a full-committee meeting in late April and a subcommittee meeting earlier in the month, a Senate staffer said. The hearings will address workplace issues, including those reported in the Observer investigation, the staffer said.

In an interview Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., said the Observer's investigation was "disturbing and heartbreaking." Dole, as U.S. labor secretary in 1990, pushed for federal ergonomics standards to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries, which she called then "one of the nation's most debilitating across-the-board worker safety and health illnesses of the 1990s."

On Friday, Dole said she was not in position to "police" businesses in the state. "I'll be staying in close contact with the appropriate agencies to promote the safety and health of all North Carolina workers," she said, declining to give specifics.

U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., said he will contact the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration about how the House of Raeford plant in West Columbia, S.C., was able to report no musculoskeletal disorders over a four-year period. "That really sounds very odd, given industry averages," Inglis said. "You got to wonder how that happened."

Inglis also said the Observer's findings illustrate the need for a comprehensive U.S. immigration policy. The newspaper found the company has increasingly relied on a Latino work force that is often illegal and reluctant to complain.

"It shows a need to get a handle on illegal immigration because it is a system that hurts both the host country, plus the people who come here illegally," he said. "Illegal immigrants can end up in a system of economic slavery because they have no rights."

Workers fearful of a raid

Several workers going home from their shift along a wooded path near the company's Greenville, S.C., plant on Thursday said there is growing concern that immigration agents may raid the plant.They said plant officials have brought several immigrant workers into offices and questioned them about their identification this month. One worker, Pedro Perez, said a human resources administrator told him two weeks ago there was a problem with the Social Security number he gave the plant when hired three years ago. Perez, who's 20 and a native of Guatemala, said he was told he had 30 days to get it corrected with the Social Security Administration.

"I don't know why they grabbed me. ... They never really checked my papers until 2008," said Perez, who acknowledged he is in the country illegally.

Earlier in the week, a spokesman with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency was "aware of the issues brought up in these stories. Now our investigators will likely determine the merits of the information and be able to act appropriately or investigate further."

The company didn't respond to questions Friday, including those about ID checks. The Observer series was based on examinations of government and company records and interviews with more than 120 current and former House of Raeford workers. When it first appeared last Sunday, the company said it was "further investigating allegations by The Charlotte Observer critical of its workplace safety practices and hiring programs."

In the response on its Web site, the company said, "This article does not provide an accurate portrayal of the programs, policies and practices of our company or the poultry industry. We are disappointed that the newspaper chose to highlight allegations of a small number of former employees, many of whose cases we identified as factually incomplete or inaccurate."

The company said it "recognizes the value of all our employees and is dedicated to providing them with a safe and rewarding place to work. Maintaining and improving the quality and safety of our employees' workplace is a continuous priority for our company."

Berry: OSHA must reach out

N.C. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry said the Observer's stories illustrated the need for OSHA to reach out to the state's immigrant workers -- employees who often fear that reporting injuries or workplace problems could get them fired or deported.

"I think it pointed out a challenge we're all dealing with: how to keep fear from preventing someone from notifying us. That's our biggest concern," she said. "Our plan is to work more closely with the growing Hispanic community to let them know we're here."

Workers, she said, can report workplace problems anonymously by calling 800-625-2267 (NC-LABOR).

Said N.C. Gov. Mike Easley: "Every worker deserves a safe workplace with inspections carried out and overseen by OSHA and the State Commissioner of Labor. She (Berry) is aware of the problem and if she needs additional assistance from us in some form we would be happy to help."

The Observer found that state and federal OSHA agencies are no longer keeping a close watch on the poultry industry. Workplace safety inspections at U.S. poultry plants have dropped to their lowest point in 15 years. And it has been nearly a decade since OSHA fined a poultry processor for hazards likely to cause carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis and other musculoskeletal disorders that are common to the industry.

One former OSHA head said regulators need to be more vigilant about protecting workers.

Charles Jeffress, who headed N.C. OSHA in the mid-1990s and federal OSHA in the late 1990s, said the Observer's series highlighted the "inadequacy" of state and federal governments.

"Clearly the public has to demand that the safety and health protections for workers be strengthened. That is not going to happen voluntarily," he said. "The experience of House of Raeford shows you what happens when employers are placing profits above people.

"The organizing on behalf of worker health and safety has fallen way down on people's priorities. I hope something like this would help get it back up there."

Jackie Nowell, health and safety director for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, said her organization plans to use the opportunity.

"We will lobby Congress," she said. "We will get workers at hearings. We will use those hearings to promote stronger enforcement."

She and other industry observers said that changes are needed at the Department of Labor and OSHA, including bringing back ergonomics standards and paying greater attention to line speed standards. Also, she said, unions and workers' rights groups need to work together to reach vulnerable immigrant communities.

Industry leaders have said poultry companies are contributing to safety efforts. "The chicken industry is playing a responsible leadership role in improving worker safety in its workplaces and reducing the incidence of injuries and health problems such as conditions associated with repetitive motion," said National Chicken Council spokesman Richard Lobb in an e-mail last month, pointing to U.S. Labor Department surveys that have shown a steady decline since 2000 in reported poultry work injuries. He had no further comment Saturday.

Critics say those survey data are misleading, that companies often ignore and underreport the injuries workers do complain about.

"I don't think the problems are limited to House of Raeford or the poultry industry or North Carolina," said AFL-CIO Safety Director Peg Seminario. "The problems are systemic and nationwide, and need really aggressive oversight and scrutiny by authorities and the safety and health communities at large."

Experts agreed that fixing the problems won't be easy.

"Some of it has to be a long, slow, cultural change," said Adam Finkel, head of health standards at OSHA from 1995 to 2000 and now on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. "We have to get people to start thinking that tragedies in the workplace are at least as unacceptable as environmental tragedies we get upset about."

Politicians and regulators

OVER WORKPLACE SAFETY:

• George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of House committee on Education and Labor: 202-225-2095, http://georgemiller.house.gov/contactus• Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of Senate committee on Health,

Labor, Education and Pensions: 202-224-4543, http://kennedy.senate.gov

• N.C. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry, 919-733-7166;

Commissioners.Office@nclabor.com

• S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, director Adrienne Youmans, 803-896-4390; http://www.llr.state.sc.us/

• N.C. Industrial Commission, administrator Barbara Levine,

919-807-2507, levineb@ind.commerce.state.nc.us.

• S.C. Workers' Compensation Commission, executive director

Gary Thibault, 803-737-5744; www.wcc.sc.gov

GOVERNORS

• N.C. Gov. Mike Easley, 800-662-7952 (N.C. only) or 919-733-4240; www.governor.state.nc.us/Contact.asp

• S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, 803-734-2100; www.scgovernor.com/contact

N.C. SENATORS

• Elizabeth Dole, 202-224-6342, http://dole.senate.gov

• Richard Burr, 202-224-3154, http://burr.senate.gov

N.C. REPRESENTATIVES

• District 7 - Mike McIntyre, 202-225-2731, www.house.gov/

mcintyre/contact_mike.html

• District 8 - Robin Hayes, 202-225-3715, http://hayes.house.gov

S.C. SENATORS

• Jim DeMint, 202-224-6121, http://demint.senate.gov

• Lindsey Graham, 202-224-5972, http://lgraham.senate.gov

S.C. REPRESENTATIVES

• District 2 - Joe Wilson, 202-225-2452, http://joewilson.house.gov

• District 4 - Bob Inglis, 202-225-6030, www.inglis.house.gov

• District 6 - Jim Clyburn, 202-225-3315, http://clyburn.house.gov

CAROLINAS AGENCIES

Those with information or complaints about workplace hazards or conditions can call:

• N.C. Department of Labor 800-NC-LABOR (800-625-2267) or 919-807-2796.

• S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation - Betty Harmon, 803-896-7825

Workers can also fill out a complaint form online by visiting: http://www.osha.gov/pls/osha7/eComplaintForm.html

For questions about workers' compensation in North Carolina, call

800-688-8349 or visit http://www.comp.state.nc.us/

In South Carolina, call 803-737-5700 or visit http://www.wcc.sc.gov/

How to reach the reporters

Ames Alexander -- 704-358-5060; aalexander@charlotteobserver.com

Kerry Hall -- 704-358-5085; khall@charlotteobserver.com

Franco Ordoñez -- 704-358-6180; fordonez@charlotteobserver.com

(Ordoñez speaks Spanish.)

Peter St. Onge -- 704-358-5029; pstonge@charlotteobserver.com

How the Observer analyzed OSHA data

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:24 EST

Facts on workplace safety inspections, violations and penalties came from data kept by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The Observer relied primarily on a database detailing more than 238,000 OSHA inspections in poultry and other manufacturing industries from 1997 through 2006, and the more than 965,000 citations that resulted from those inspections.

The Observer also obtained paper documents concerning hundreds of OSHA inspections and citations at poultry plants.

Figures on serious workplace violations cited by OSHA are based on the three most serious categories of OSHA violations. These include violations involving a substantial probability of death or serious injury, violations intentionally committed and repeat violations.

Counts of OSHA violations include citations that are eventually dropped during the settlement process.

N.C. backs off poultry scrutiny

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:41 EST

North Carolina bolstered its workplace safety program after a chicken plant fire killed 25 workers in Hamlet in 1991. But the state's focus on keeping poultry workers safe has waned since the mid-1990s, an Observer investigation has found.

THE FINDINGS

• The number of poultry plant inspections in North Carolina fell from 25 in 1997 to nine in 2006. The number of poultry workers, meanwhile, has changed little. Some large poultry plants haven't been inspected in more than five years.

• The number of comprehensive inspections at poultry plants -- in which regulators inspect wall to wall -- dropped from 10 in 1997 to two in 2006.

• Fines for serious violations by poultry plants average about $500 in North Carolina -- less than half the national average.

• Only 1 of every 1,800 violations found at N.C. manufacturing plants during the past decade has been deemed "willful," a designation that can result in steep financial penalties and hurt a company's reputation. Nationally, about 1 of every 300 citations against manufacturers is labeled willful.

WHAT THE STATE SAYS

Officials with N.C. OSHA note that the agency conducts more inspections than most states, and that the rate of reported workplace injuries has declined. "We are, as a program, in great shape," said division director Allen McNeely. "People look to us actually from other states for how we did it and why we did it that way."

WHAT SAFETY ADVOCATES SAY

Safety advocates contend that a pro-business approach increasingly endangers workers.

While resources for enforcement have remained flat in recent years, the state has sharply increased money for voluntary compliance programs -- in which companies request safety evaluations with the understanding that they won't be fined.

"We're really kind of selling out our population to bring in business and industry," said Amy Kaufman, who formerly headed the N.C. Occupational Safety and Health Project.

Workplace inspections at 15-year low

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 05:38 EST

Poultry processors face few consequences when they ignore hazards that can kill and injure workers.

Weak enforcement, minimal fines and dwindling inspections have allowed companies to operate largely unchecked. An Observer investigation found:

• Workplace safety inspections at poultry plants have dropped to their lowest point in 15 years. The industry has kept steady employment over that time and has leaned heavily on illegal immigrants to fill jobs.

• Fines for serious violations -- including conditions that could cause deaths and disabling injuries -- are usually cut by more than half, to an average of about $1,100.

• It has been a decade since OSHA fined a poultry processor for hazards likely to cause carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis and other musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) that are common to the industry.

• The federal government has made it easier for companies to hide those MSDs. Regulators in 2002 stopped requiring companies to identify injuries associated with repetitive trauma.

Officials with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration say poultry plants are safer than ever, pointing to a decade of declining rates of reported injuries. They credit enforcement programs and a growing recognition among industry leaders that reducing injuries is good for business.

But the Observer found that the official injury statistics aren't accurate and that the industry is more dangerous than its reports to regulators suggest. Current and former OSHA officials say the agency has made it easier for companies to hide injuries, and has all but abandoned its mission to protect workers.

It's happening at a time when poultry workers are particularly vulnerable. Unlike some other manufacturers, which have largely automated their plants, poultry processors still depend heavily on manual labor to cut and package meat. Most line workers are immigrants, and many are afraid to complain about injuries for fear of being fired or deported.

"It's really a national tragedy that OSHA is so invisible, so silent these days," said Dr. Michael Silverstein, who served as OSHA policy director from 1993 to 1995. "I think OSHA is not a factor in many companies' decision-making. Their presence is neither seen nor felt."

Declining scrutiny

OSHA was created in 1971 following congressional hearings that highlighted dangerous working conditions. Congress told the agency to craft and enforce regulations to protect workers.Regulators recommended that plants in high-hazard industries -- including poultry -- be randomly inspected once every two years.

That's not happening. Today, many of the nation's more than 500 poultry plants go far longer between OSHA inspections. Some processing plants, including Wayne Farms in Dobson, N.C., haven't been inspected since 2000.

In 2006, regulators conducted 94 inspections at poultry plants -- about half the number done in 1999. That works out to about one inspection for every five poultry plants.

And when inspectors do visit poultry plants, they tend to spend less time inside them. From 1999 to 2006, the number of comprehensive inspections -- where federal or state OSHA officials examined an entire poultry plant -- dropped from 71 to 22.

Regulators say they're visiting fewer poultry processors because most have become safer; the industry's reported injury and illness rates have dropped by more than half since 1999. OSHA now reserves its broadest inspections for the plants with the most reported injuries.

"I'm not convinced from the data that our approach is not working," said Richard Fairfax, OSHA's director of enforcement.

But the Observer found that the statistics are misleading because injuries inside poultry plants are going unreported. OSHA requires companies to record injuries but rarely checks whether the reports are accurate.

Bob Whitmore, a veteran director of OSHA's national injury record-keeping system, noted that some poultry plants have reported no injuries for an entire year, a claim he finds implausible.

"Using such highly suspect data to drive your inspection program is akin to letting the foxes guard the henhouse," said Whitmore, who has studied injury statistics for two decades. "Faulty data leads to faulty conclusions and then faulty decision-making."

Unkept promises

OSHA once tried to regulate musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), the most common workplace injuries in American factories.

In 1990, U.S. Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole announced "a major initiative" to prevent those injuries. After a decade of research and debate, OSHA in January 2001 issued a collection of rules -- known as the "ergonomics standard" -- that required employers to address hazards likely to cause sprains, strains and repetitive motion injuries.

But under intense lobbying from businesses, Congress and President Bush repealed the regulations two months after they took effect.

Half the states -- including the Carolinas -- run their own OSHA programs, and were free to enact their own rules. N.C. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry scrapped the state's version of the regulations the same month Congress rescinded the federal rules. Opponents said compliance costs would have devastated small businesses.

When the standard was scrapped, inspectors lost their most promising tool for enforcing ergonomic violations. But they still had what's called the "general duty clause."

This longstanding provision allows regulators to penalize companies for workplace hazards not spelled out in other OSHA regulations. To document such violations, inspectors may interview workers and hire experts to determine, for instance, whether conditions inside a factory are likely to cause MSDs. The process can take months.

A year after the ergonomics standard was repealed, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said her agency would use the general duty clause as part of a comprehensive strategy to battle MSDs.

But since that 2002 announcement, federal and state agencies have penalized companies for ergonomic problems about six times a year, on average. Those cited included nursing homes and manufacturers, but none of the companies were poultry processors.

Regulators once were far more aggressive about pursuing such cases. That was particularly true from 1989 to 1992, under the first President Bush, when state and federal OSHA inspectors issued an average of almost 250 ergonomic citations annually.

Enforcement began to decline sharply under the Clinton administration, when OSHA agencies handed out an average of about 21 ergonomic citations per year. In recent years, the penalties became even more rare; just six ergonomic citations were issued in 2007, all but one of them in Puerto Rico.

The U.S. Labor Department didn't make Secretary Chao available to comment for this story. Fairfax, OSHA's enforcement director, said it can be difficult to cite companies under the general duty clause because the courts have set "a fairly high burden of proof."

Today, OSHA officials say they still look for ergonomic hazards during inspections. When regulators find problems, they send letters informing employers of the hazards and detailing "possible measures" they can take to protect employees, an agency spokesman said. From 2002 to mid-2007, federal OSHA mailed about 580 such letters, five to poultry plants.

Critics say OSHA needs to be more aggressive.

"They've turned their backs on a significant workplace problem," said AFL-CIO safety director Peg Seminario. "Workers in the poultry industry are left on their own."

A `blind eye'

It used to be easier for the government to track injuries caused by repetitive work. OSHA once required companies to record those ailments in a separate column on workplace injury logs -- documents that regulators examine to look for trends.Faced with a legal challenge from manufacturers, OSHA removed the column in 2002. Companies still had to report these ailments but could include them with other injuries.

That made it harder for regulators to detect patterns -- and easier for businesses to hide such disorders.

The cumulative effect of removing the column and killing the ergonomics standard was to "turn a blind eye to a lot of what happens in poultry plants," said Charles Jeffress, who led OSHA from 1997 to 2001.

The number of repetitive motion injuries reported at some factories plunged. In 2001, for example, Tyson Foods' Clarksville, Ark., plant reported more than 150 injuries associated with "repeated trauma," according to injury logs obtained by the Observer. Two years later, the plant reported fewer than 10.

Asked about the decline, Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said managers have made the 1,300-employee plant safer by introducing adjustable work stands, a job rotation system and equipment to eliminate lifting. But the company declined to answer some of the Observer's questions -- such as how much work is still done by hand.

Jeffress and other workplace safety experts said they believe some companies are keeping repetitive motion ailments off logs to avoid inspections and fend off future regulatory attempts.

"One way to keep OSHA off your back: Deny the evidence," Jeffress said. "Don't write down the evidence. Don't record it."

Little deterrent

Even when inspectors do find problems, poultry companies frequently avoid stiff penalties.

About three-quarters of fines proposed against poultry companies have been lowered or eliminated during the past decade. While the average proposed fine for each serious violation in the poultry industry has been about $2,300 in recent years, companies wind up paying an average of about $1,100. Tyson Foods, a multi-billion-dollar company, earns that much profit every three minutes.

Low OSHA fines and large penalty reductions aren't unique to the poultry industry. OSHA officials say they often reduce fines in exchange for an employer's promise to fix problems promptly. When employers contest citations, safety problems may not be addressed for months or years, they say.

Regulators note that the law limits the size of fines they can impose. For a "serious" violation, for instance, OSHA can't fine a company more than $7,000.

Regulators can impose far stiffer fines -- up to $70,000 per violation -- if they determine a company's breach to be "willful." Such violations also hurt a company's reputation and make it harder to win contracts. But OSHA rarely uses that tool. Only about one of every 200 violations in the poultry industry is designated as willful, the Observer found.

Visiting Tyson Foods' Wilkesboro, N.C., plants in 2001, state OSHA inspectors found more than 30 violations, including hazards that could have led to amputations, fractures and deadly falls. Regulators proposed about $13,000 in fines, but dropped it to less than $1,800.

"It's aggravating to see that happen," said Rebecca Israel, one of the N.C. OSHA inspectors who visited the plant. "...Do (companies) get the message? I don't know that they do."

OSHA also reduced fines against Tyson when, in 2003 and 2004, two of the company's Wilkesboro employees died in workplace accidents -- deaths that regulators determined the company might have prevented. The final penalties in each case: $2,500.

Tyson officials say they've taken additional steps to ensure the safety of workers. "There's nothing more important to us than the safety and well-being of our people," company spokesman Mickelson wrote in an e-mail.

OSHA officials say most companies work hard to make their plants safe without the threat of inspections and huge fines. That reflects a philosophical shift inside the agency. Since the late 1990s, OSHA has devoted more money and attention to programs that let companies voluntarily comply with workplace safety laws. Companies that participate in such programs are exempt from penalties if regulators find violations.

Former OSHA chief Jerry Scannell, who served under the first President Bush, said there are times when only a steep penalty will prompt a company to change.

But many of today's fines don't make companies flinch, he said.

"It's always very disturbing when you hear or read about workers so severely injured they'll never work again. And you hear the penalty was just $3,000," Scannell said. "No question, it doesn't pinch the corporate bottom line. And you say, `It should.' "

Rules? What rules?

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:28 EST

After a conveyer broke her arm and ripped off the tip of a finger, a worker in a poultry plant in Greenville, S.C., was back on the job the next morning. Cornelia Vicente said the plant nurse told her at the hospital she had no choice.

Think that sounds right? Neither do we. Ms. Vicente, a former line worker for House of Raeford, is one of hundreds of poultry workers interviewed by the Observer during a 22-month investigation. It found weak safety rules and slack government oversight have made it easy for a dangerous industry to exploit illegal workers and underreport injuries.

You can read Ms. Vicente's story today, the fifth in a six-part Observer series. It shows how, in many cases, hurt workers (often illegal immigrants such as Ms. Vicente) endured inhumane treatment or wound up with permanent injuries because gaping holes in the regulatory safety net lets companies such as House of Raeford get around rules about reporting accidents.

• The Observer found the House of Raeford plant where Ms. Vicente worked kept a five-year safety streak going by sidestepping regulations and rushing hurt employees back to work.

• Reporters found that many workers reporting hand pain from repetitive motion injuries at House of Raeford were given painkillers and sent back to work, not sent to a doctor.

How could such things happen? Rules and oversight by federal and state Occupational Safety and Health agencies are toothless when it comes to such medical practices.

For one thing, companies aren't required to provide suitably-trained on-site medical staff, even in poultry processing plants, where the risk of dismemberment and musculoskeletal disorders is high.

Meanwhile, there's financial incentive not to do the right thing when employees are injured. A company saves money when it doesn't have to compensate workers for lost time or medical care. Sending injured employees back to work also keeps their names off a plant's injury logs and helps avoid scrutiny from safety regulators.

Those loopholes need to be closed -- now. Reform should begin with a federal investigation that focuses on hiring practices, working conditions and injury reporting by poultry processors in the Carolinas. That inquiry should include a specific, in-depth look at government oversight and worker safety rules for poultry plants. Neither is working.

Celia Lopez lifted and weighed hundreds of turkey breasts each day at a House of Raeford plant near Fayetteville. When her hands began to throb, a company first-aid attendant gave her pain relievers and sent her back to work. When she finally saw a doctor on her own and had surgery for carpal tunnel injury, it may have been too late: The damage could have been avoided, but now it may be permanent.

That's an outrage. Nobody should have to pay that price.

Close outrageous loopholes

Carolinas lawmakers should call for a federal investigation that focuses on hiring practices, working conditions and injury reporting by poultry processors in the two states.

Pain behind safety streak

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:55 EST

Cornelia Vicente was packing chicken tenders at House of Raeford Farms' plant in 2003 when a conveyor belt snagged her hand, snapped her right arm and ripped off the tip of her index finger.

Maintenance workers struggled to free her, and paramedics rushed her to a hospital.

Hours after surgery, Vicente recalled, a House of Raeford nurse who had come to the hospital gave her some news: She was expected back at the plant early the next day.

The following morning, managers put Vicente to work wiping down tables and handing out supplies, she said.

When she asked for time off, she said, the nurse said no.

"So, of course, I stayed so I didn't lose my job or my salary," Vicente said.

The nurse declined to be interviewed for this series.

House of Raeford boasts that its Greenville plant has gone more than 7 million hours without a "lost-time accident," meaning no worker has been injured badly enough to miss an entire shift. But according to the company's own safety logs, Vicente was among at least nine workers at the plant who suffered amputated fingers or broken bones -- all during the time the plant claimed to have millions of safe working hours dating back to 2002.

Managers have kept the streak alive by requiring injured workers to return to the plant -- in some cases hours after medical procedures.

The Observer located four of the nine workers; three said supervisors denied them time off to recuperate. Because none missed a complete shift, the company kept its streak intact.

A plant the size of Greenville's, which employs roughly 700 workers, can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in workers' compensation costs by returning injured workers to their jobs quickly, insurance experts say. By reporting fewer lost-time accidents, a company also can reduce the likelihood of workplace safety inspections.

Caitlyn Davis, a former human resource administrator who quit in July, said injured employees often were required to work.

"People get hurt all the time," she said. "They (managers) just put them in the office to pass out supplies."

House of Raeford did not respond to specific allegations that it sometimes required injured employees to return to work.

"Employees are returned to light duty and to full duty on doctor's orders," Greenville complex manager Barry Cronic said in a written response to Observer questions.

Asked whether the company was motivated by workers' compensation costs, Cronic replied: "We followed doctor's orders on every case."

`I wanted to be at home resting'

Vicente's accident occurred months after she arrived in the United States in 2003 from her native Guatemala. She took a job in the chicken plant, she said, to support her parents and two children.Vicente said she was groggy from medication so didn't question the House of Raeford nurse when she told her to return to work the next day. She said she went back wearing a cast, her arm in a sling.

"It was very, very strong pain," she said. "My whole arm was swollen. I lost three fingernails."

After days of wiping down tables and passing out supplies, Vicente said, managers told her to sweep, a task she described as impossible given her broken arm.

"I wanted to be at home resting," she said.

Belem Villegas, an employment supervisor who left the plant in 2005, said she remembers Vicente sitting in the office looking "sad and depressed." She said Vicente occasionally asked for permission to go home.

"I'd have to say no," Villegas recalled. "(Managers) wouldn't let people go home."

The company recorded Vicente's broken arm -- but not the amputated finger -- on injury and illness logs as required by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Those logs show she was placed on light duty for 64 days.

Because she didn't miss a complete work shift, her injury was not counted as a lost-time accident.

Doctors contacted by the Observer said patients who suffer fractures and amputations need initial time to heal before returning to work.

House of Raeford did not respond to questions about Vicente. In workers' compensation documents, the company said it returned her to work following her doctor's orders.

The doctor who treated her, John Millon, declined to comment.

The company fired Vicente seven months after her accident after learning through a workers' compensation case that she is an illegal immigrant. A judge ruled in 2006 that Vicente was entitled to additional workers' compensation benefits because her injury limited her ability to work.

A petite woman with long black hair that brushes her waist, Vicente hides her hand when talking with strangers.

In late September, she was unemployed. Her arm still burned, she said, and she couldn't fully move it. She said she can't do many things she once did, such as braid her hair. She avoids escalators, she said, because they remind her of the accident.

"I'm still scared of all the machines."

A tragedy in 2001

House of Raeford's safety streak was preceded by tragedy.

Longtime plant worker Jerome Sullivan had the sort of job few wanted -- operating an auger at the Greenville plant that disposed of chicken feathers.

The auger is a spiral-shaped shaft resembling a drill bit. Sullivan's job took him up on a catwalk overlooking the massive machine, which transported feathers into waiting tractor trailers.

About midway through Sullivan's shift on Dec. 15, 2001, an employee noticed what appeared to be blood coming from the auger, according to S.C. OSHA documents. Another employee climbed onto the catwalk, peered down, and saw Sullivan's body wrapped around the auger shaft.

Sullivan had died after falling into the machine, his body ripped to shreds, according to the autopsy report.

The report also showed that Sullivan had too much alcohol in his system to legally drive a car.

Inspectors found that Sullivan was not wearing a harness and that the catwalk had inadequate safety railings. They also noted that the auger was missing its protective guard.

Shortly after Sullivan's death, plant managers ordered repairs on equipment throughout the plant, former workers and supervisors told the Observer.

"Stuff started getting fixed left and right," Villegas said. "There were safety committee meetings constantly."

Safety milestones were marked by parties, where managers handed out T-shirts and sweatshirts imprinted with the plant's safety mascot, a rooster named Strut McClucker. Managers also awarded $10 and $25 gift certificates to employees in a free drawing. At a party in November 2006, managers cooked and served free hot dogs for employees on their lunch breaks.

None of the seven former supervisors who spoke with the Observer was told to lie about accidents, they said. But in the aftermath of Sullivan's death, some said, plant managers became more focused on eliminating lost-time accidents.

Villegas said her boss, human resources director Elaine Crump, told her lost-time accidents would increase workers' compensation costs.

Crump declined to comment for this article.

The plant fired Villegas in spring 2005, alleging she was "accepting money to provide employment favors to potential employees." Villegas denies those claims. She said she was forced out after speaking up for injured workers, including Vicente.

About six months after Sullivan's death, the Greenville plant had begun its safety streak, which by last summer had topped 7 million safe hours.

Former line worker Alberto Sosa still has a T-shirt he received at one of the parties. It reads: "4,000,000 hours without a lost-time accident."

"It's a lie," said Sosa, who said he suffered from wrist and hand pains when he worked on the line de-boning chickens. "It's a party for no accidents, but there are accidents."

Injuries affect costs

Few things affect a company's workers' compensation costs more than lost-time injuries. Workers' compensation, a form of insurance that most employers are required to carry, pays medical expenses for workers hurt on the job, as well as a portion of wages when they're unable to work.When companies record injuries and illnesses on their logs, they must include how many days injured employees spend away from work or on light duty. It's an honor system, and companies aren't required to share the information with regulators unless asked.

According to those logs, the Greenville plant averaged 30 injuries a year between 2002 and 2006. All were serious enough to require medical treatment beyond first aid or a transfer to light duty. But only two resulted in time away from work, records show, and those occurred before the company's safety streak began in mid-2002.

Petrona Agustin suffered the kind of injury that can drive up a company's cost for workers' compensation.

On June 11, 2003, the tip of her left little finger was severed when it got caught in a machine used to clean chicken gizzards. She said a company employee drove her to a hospital, where she had surgery.

Immediately after, Agustin was driven back to the plant to fill out paperwork so she could be moved to the day shift, she recalled. The next morning, she was back at work.

She spent more than a month passing out supplies and wiping down tables in the break room, becoming depressed and crying often at the thought of her lost finger, she told the Observer.

She said she would have gladly taken time off but said a company supervisor told her no. "I didn't want to work," said Agustin. "I was worried it would happen again."

House of Raeford wouldn't comment specifically about Agustin, citing medical confidentiality, but said her account "does not represent the full story."

"Any and all accidents are regrettable," the company said. "House of Raeford Farms, Inc. depends upon the advice of local doctors to let us know when an employee is eligible to work, and we abide by these doctors' orders."

Company logs show Agustin spent 47 days on light duty. As of September, she still worked at the plant.

She sometimes wears a prosthesis -- a fake fingertip -- colored to match her skin tone. She said she wears it to parties so she doesn't have to explain what happened.

"I was very sad. I couldn't look at my hands," she said. "I was embarrassed. I could never get my finger back."

Unhealthy practice?

Consultants who advise employers on ways to save money on workers' compensation costs say they sometimes recommend injured workers return to the workplace quickly. The sooner they are brought back, the consultants say, the sooner they are likely to resume their regular jobs.

A quick return can boost morale and speed recovery, they say. It also can help maintain their income, because workers receive partial pay when out on disability.

But several doctors who spoke to the Observer were skeptical of returning workers too quickly.

Dr. Blake Moore, who lives in Columbia, and has treated dozens of poultry workers, said bringing seriously injured workers back immediately "borders on reckless disregard."

Dr. Franco Godoy said it's inappropriate to bring employees back immediately following surgeries for fractures or amputations.

"The surgery has to heal first," said Godoy, who has treated roughly 100 poultry workers since joining the Emmanuel Family Clinic in Newberry, S.C., two years ago.

Neither Moore nor Godoy treated any of the workers named in this article.

In April 2004, paramedics were called to the Greenville plant after a man fainted. He'd had surgery the previous day to repair an elbow he broke in a fall at work, EMS records show.

The injured man had returned to work and was sitting in the plant's medical office reading magazines, according to the EMS report. He became sick after being given a dose of OxyContin, a powerful painkiller, which his doctor had prescribed, the report said.

Paramedics said the worker was "very upset." He and the plant's staff disagreed about whether his doctor had cleared him to return.

"Patient kept saying that he just wanted to go home," the paramedics wrote in their report after taking the man to a hospital.

Reluctant to return

Some injured workers returned to the plant voluntarily; one cited financial pressure, another said he feared being fired.Roman Tronco says he returned voluntarily after his fingertip was severed in August 2002 while cutting chicken wings with a saw.

He showed up for his next shift, company records show. He spent the day wiping tables and sweeping, his arm in a sling, he said.

Company documents show he was on light duty for 85 days.

Tronco said he was thankful for his job, which paid almost $9 an hour, a dollar more than he made at a company making bed comforters. He left the plant a year and a half after the accident.

Jimmy Cortez, a maintenance supervisor, said he returned for his next shift after slicing open the tip of his thumb with a saw in 2006.

The company didn't force him back, he said, but he feared being fired if he took a day off.

"If you get hurt, you got to work the next day," he said. "I wanted a day to recuperate, but I didn't have any other choice."

Worker's version disputed

Jaime Hernandez said a supervisor drove him back to work directly from surgery to remove a cyst from his hand. He said he was dizzy from pain medication and asked to go home.

"They told me I could not have a day to recoup," Hernandez said. "Not hours or even the rest of the day."

Hernandez, who worked under the name "Pablo," said he started at the plant in 2002, working on the de-boning line. He later moved to folding cardboard boxes, as many as 700 a day. Hernandez said he believes his cyst was caused by repetitive motion at work.

He complained to a plant nurse in 2003 after a ball formed on his right wrist. Hernandez said he visited first-aid attendants several times at the plant, only to be told he was fine and to return to work. The company later sent him to a doctor, who drained the cyst. Hernandez said the cyst returned and a doctor removed it.

A human resources employee drove Hernandez to his 10 a.m. surgery, he said, and afterward back to the plant.

"I asked, `Am I going to go home? I'm totally dizzy. I can't work,' " Hernandez recalled. "She said, `No, I have to take you to work.' "

Hernandez said he spent the rest of the shift sitting in an office chair, at times putting his head on the desk to sleep.

Asked about Hernandez, Cronic, the plant manager, said the Observer's account was inaccurate but didn't elaborate. "The company had specific reasons for its actions," he said. Because personnel records are confidential, he said, "This is all the company can say at this point."

House of Raeford fired Hernandez after he applied for workers' compensation benefits and disclosed that he is an illegal immigrant.

Cronic said that when the company learns of a worker's illegal status through a workers' compensation case, it is required by law to fire him.

House of Raeford

The privately held company, based in Raeford, is among the top 10 U.S. chicken and turkey producers.

Chairman: Marvin Johnson.

Processing plants: Four in North Carolina, three in South Carolina and one in Louisiana.

Employees: About 6,000.

Annual sales: Nearly $900 million, including some to China,

Afghanistan and other countries.

Ranking: It's among the nation's top 10 chicken and turkey producers.

Production: Slaughters and processes about 29 million pounds of chicken and turkey each week.

Customers:

• Restaurants including Blimpie, Golden Corral and Ryan's. • Schools around the U.S., including Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

• Stores including Food Lion and Lowes Foods. The company's deli meat is marketed under the name "Lakewood Plantation."

• Distribution companies that supply food to restaurants and institutional kitchens.

Sources: Observer research, House of Raeford, Dun & Bradstreet, Watt Publishing, National Poultry and Food Distributors Association

Judge criticized Tyson guidelines

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:13 EST

A judge sharply criticized policies at one large poultry company that encouraged nurses to delay medical treatment for some injured workers.

Tyson Foods, in a manual once issued to company nurses, provided the following guidance on how to handle workers with symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome, a painful hand ailment: Treat them in-house and "if not improving after 4 weeks, refer to a physician."

Administrative Law Judge Murphy Miller concluded in 2002 the policy left Georgia worker Carolyn Johnson with permanent injuries.

"An employer that ... requires four weeks of in-house treatment before a physician referral charts a collision course with medical disaster," the judge wrote. "The employee's permanent nerve damage is the foreseeable result."

Tyson said its guidelines were based on recommendations from medical providers. But the company has since modified them "to ensure everyone clearly understands workers have the option of immediately being referred to a physician at their request," a company spokesman wrote in an e-mail to the Observer.

At Tyson's Buena Vista, Ga., plant, Johnson pulled thousands of chicken breasts from their carcasses each day.

In 2000, she told supervisors she was suffering from hand pains, according to workers' compensation documents. She later visited company nurses, who gave her 2,400 milligrams of ibuprofen a day -- twice what manufacturers recommend for those without prescriptions. Experts warn that too much ibuprofen can lead to ulcers, liver damage and even death.

The company didn't send Johnson to a doctor until three months after she first complained to supervisors, records show. By that time, tests found she had severe carpal tunnel.

Tyson said it could not discuss the details of Johnson's case. But a spokesman wrote that company officials "work diligently" to make sure injured workers receive proper medical treatment.

A worker's grueling day

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:12 EST

Celia Lopez felt lucky when she was hired at the House of Raeford Farms turkey plant in Raeford. But after six years, the 44-year-old mother of three said she feared the "hands that take care of my family" are ruined. Last February, Fayetteville Dr. Stanley Gilbert performed carpal tunnel surgery on her left hand. In June, he performed surgery on her right hand. At the Observer's request, Lopez recounted a typical day:

6:45 a.m. -- Lopez walks through the gate of the sprawling plant. She's struck by the pungent smell of ammonia.

She punches her timecard and puts on her gear -- rubber boots, apron, hairnet and two pairs of gloves. She rushes to position. Workers must be at their posts before the production line starts. No excuses.

7 a.m. -- The line starts. Lopez begins by grabbing and placing turkey breasts on plates to be weighed. Each plate must weigh between 6 and 6 1/2 pounds. She grabs meat with her right hand and uses her left to hold the plate, then pushes the turkey along the line. She'll repeat this process hundreds of times an hour.

9:30 a.m. -- If Lopez needs a bathroom break, she must wait until a supervisor finds someone to replace her on the line. This can take minutes or hours - if approved at all. "Bathroom breaks are a privilege, not a necessity," she said her bosses told her. If granted, she has 10 minutes to remove her gear, use the facilities and return.

11 a.m. -- Lunch.

11:30 a.m. -- Back on the line. She has processed hundreds of pounds of meat. The line is moving fast; workers struggle to keep pace, she says. Conversation is minimal.

2 p.m. -- Break. She looks for a wall to press her back against and stretch her muscles.

2:30 p.m. -- The next two hours are the hardest -- the piles of meat seem endless, she says. Her back cramps, pain spreading to her shoulders, arms and hands. She is exhausted from standing. Sometimes she feels dizzy.

4 p.m. -- She punches out. She changes out of her work clothes, washes her face and leaves.

4:30 p.m. -- She arrives home and takes a shower. "The meat smell gets stuck in your skin," she says.

About 7 p.m. -- She helps cook dinner for her family. Grasping a spoon is hard, she says. She uses two hands to carry a dinner plate. Basic tasks take longer because of the pain. "It's like ants crawling through my hands, up my arms," she says.

9 p.m. -- She takes two ibuprofen pills before rubbing her hands with alcohol and lotion -- a nightly routine.

9:30 p.m. -- She goes to bed.

Midnight -- 2 a.m. -- Lopez frequently wakes up, hands cramping. She squeezes her fists and rubs her fingers to get blood flowing. She may wake up four times a night; each time the pain is worse. She swallows more ibuprofen.

5 a.m. -- Her alarm sounds. The line starts in two hours. "Sometimes I cry. I just pray to God that he will show me the way."

Workers question medical care

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:52 EST

More than 30 say House of Raeford did little

Mike Flowers is a powerful gatekeeper. He often decides whether to send poultry workers to a doctor when they get hurt on the job or complain of chronic pain.

"I think we do a pretty good job of taking care of these folks," said Flowers, who treats workers at the House of Raeford Farms plant in West Columbia, S.C.

Ernestina Ruiz thinks otherwise.

In 2006, after months of de-boning thousands of chicken breasts each day, her hands and wrists began to hurt. She complained to Flowers at least three times, she said, but each time he gave her pain relievers or a bandage and sent her back to work.

" `You're going to be fine,' " she recalled him saying.

A large lump grew on her left wrist. The pain got so bad, she said, she went to a private doctor and had surgery.

Day after day, poultry workers are cut by knives, burned by chemicals or hurt by repetitive work, according to dozens of injury logs compiled by plants across the South.

Because many workers are illegal immigrants and can't afford private care, their health rests largely with company medical workers.

Those in-house attendants are supposed to help workers heal. Instead, some have prevented workers from receiving medical care that would cost the company money, an Observer investigation has found. And in some instances, the treatments they provide can do more harm than good.

At House of Raeford, some health care workers lack medical credentials. At least two came to their jobs with felony records.

House of Raeford officials said they staff plants with trained personnel who use accepted first-aid practices to handle minor injuries. Workers needing advanced care are referred to doctors, the company said.

"I believe we have provided the care for our employees that's expected," said Gene Shelnutt, the company's human resources director.

In communities near House of Raeford's four largest plants in the Carolinas, more than 30 workers told the Observer that company medical attendants did little to help them when they suffered injuries or complained of pain. More than a dozen, including Ruiz, said those attendants refused their requests to see a doctor.

Ruiz, who began working at the West Columbia plant around 2000, said her hands were hurting after she was moved to the de-boning line, where workers make thousands of cutting and grasping motions each day.

She recalled how sharp pains shot through her hands and wrists each time she grabbed a piece of chicken streaming down the production line.

Medical experts say cysts like the one that grew on Ruiz's wrist often result from repetitive work.

Flowers told the Observer that Ruiz never asked him to see a doctor. And the company had no proof her injury was work-related, he said, noting that the cyst wasn't on her dominant hand.

Ruiz said she used both hands on the de-boning line.

In interviews last year, Ruiz said her hands still ached. She said she could no longer tie her children's shoes, and when she lifted her 1-year-old daughter, she did it with one arm.

"I can't hug her with two hands," she said. "It's not the same."

The cost of care

Companies aren't required to provide on-site medical staff, but many poultry plants have employed them for decades.In an industry known for the pain it inflicts on workers' hands, deciding when to send employees to doctors can have far-reaching effects.

Companies must compensate workers if they are injured on the job and require a doctor's treatment or can't work. Productivity suffers.

When injured workers require treatment beyond first aid, employers also must record those injuries on federal logs; too many injuries can draw scrutiny from workplace safety inspectors.

In this environment, medical gatekeepers can often face a choice: provide workers with the care they need or save the company money.

One House of Raeford worker with carpal tunnel syndrome said a first-aid attendant blamed her hand pain on driving a five-speed car. Another with tendinitis recalled a company nurse saying her pain resulted not from cutting thousands of chickens each day but from a previous case of meningitis.

Doctors say they've heard the stories, too.

Dr. Jorge Garcia, a physician in Newberry, S.C., has treated about 1,000 poultry workers from House of Raeford and two other companies in the past seven years. In about half the cases, he said, the workers' conditions deteriorated because they didn't see a doctor quickly enough.

"They won't send people to a doctor for a week or two or three until the problem gets worse," Garcia said. "I hear that probably 90 percent of the time. By the time they come to me ... they're not getting any better."

`Not the same hand'

Help came too late for former House of Raeford worker Celia Lopez.

Lifting and weighing thousands of turkey breasts each day at a House of Raeford plant near Fayetteville, her hands began to hurt so badly she could barely keep working, she said.

She said she complained to a company first-aid attendant, who gave her pain relievers but didn't send her to a doctor. Months later, in 2006, she saw Harry Cross, a physician assistant on contract with House of Raeford who gave her more pain relievers but recommended no further treatment or testing for her hands, she said.

Lopez went to an independent clinic months later and was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome -- a debilitating hand ailment that can be caused and aggravated by repetitive work. Last year, she had surgeries on both hands to correct the problem.

Dr. Stanley Gilbert, who performed the operations, said that by the time Lopez came to him, her injuries were already serious. Had she come sooner, he said, treatment might have prevented the need for surgery.

"If you don't treat it early enough, you can have permanent damage to the nerve," the Fayetteville doctor told an Observer reporter who accompanied Lopez on a follow-up visit last summer.

It's unclear whether the damage to Lopez's hands is permanent, Gilbert said.

Lopez said she still had trouble lifting dishes and changing her grandson's diapers. Sitting in Gilbert's office, she stared at her hands and lamented the damage: "My left hand -- it's not the same hand."

Asked about Lopez's case last year, House of Raeford said it couldn't comment because she'd hired an attorney. Cross didn't respond to questions about her case.

Lopez, who worked under the name Milagro, was charged last summer with identity theft; police say she assumed another woman's name and Social Security number to get a job.

House of Raeford also declined to comment on the cases of other workers who complained about plant medical care, saying that, without signed releases, it was unable to discuss details of their health or employment. The company said it found "many inaccuracies" in the information workers provided to the Observer but declined to elaborate.

"The allegations made by these former employees do not fairly or accurately represent the policies or management practices of House of Raeford Farms," the company wrote.

Big job, little training

When N.C. OSHA investigated injuries at one House of Raeford plant in 1999 and 2000, it concluded that company policies were inhibiting workers from seeking medical care.The inspectors were trying to determine why many workers at one of the company's plants in Raeford were suffering from injuries commonly caused by repetitive motion.

"We were concerned they weren't going to get the medical treatment, and their symptoms were going to be ignored and just made worse," J.D. Lewis, the state's lead inspector in the case, told the Observer.

In court documents, regulators said a first-aid attendant at the plant had "no special training for the position" and was not licensed as a health care provider or even certified in first aid. Yet the attendant was responsible for evaluating injured workers, treating them and deciding whether to send them to licensed medical providers, the state said.

The state dropped the case in late 2000 after Superior Court Judge Jack Hooks refused to let regulators interview hundreds of workers inside the plant. The judge said inspectors had no authority to investigate further because compliance deadlines for new ergonomics rules had not yet kicked in.

Today, at a neighboring House of Raeford plant, the job of treating and evaluating workers falls to Theodocia Richardson.

Her only formal health care training consists of a daylong CPR class each year, she said.

Still, she said, experience has taught her a lot. Twenty years ago, the company moved her from a job on the production floor to the first-aid station. She said she picked up many of her skills from another company first-aid attendant.

"I don't know where she got hers from, but I got mine from her," Richardson said.

She said she never provides more than basic first aid, but she can call Cross, the physician assistant on contract with the company, if she encounters a situation that's "over my limit."

The company says it follows the plans prescribed by doctors.

"We value our employees and strive to treat them in a fair and respectful manner at all times," the company said in a written response.

`Not right all the time'

At the West Columbia plant, some workers think Mike Flowers is a doctor.

Flowers, the plant's health and safety manager, isn't a doctor -- or even a nurse.

He previously worked as a paramedic -- which requires about a year of training -- and as a deputy coroner. After going to work at the plant in the early 1990s, he said, he also received training on injuries and safety hazards common in poultry factories.

Flowers said he has never represented himself as a doctor, but noted that a receptionist once called him "Dr. Mike" and the name stuck.

"With my experience, I'm able to handle a lot of issues," he said during an interview last year.

Five workers told the Observer that when they complained to Flowers about injuries or persistent pain, he told them they were fine or sent them back to the line after giving them bandages or pain relievers.

Asked whether he ever refused to send workers to a doctor, Flowers said: "I may have, but I say they can go on their own, and if the doctor decides it's work-related, they can bring the bill and I'll file the claim."

But going to a doctor on their own isn't always an option. Some workers can't afford the company's health insurance or treatment from a private doctor. Others are illegal immigrants who fear they'll be fired or deported if they seek medical help.

When employees complain about pain, Flowers asks about their work and medical history and talks with their supervisors before deciding what to do, he said.

"You have to make a decision," he said. "I'm not right all the time, but I'm certainly not wrong all the time."

While carpal tunnel syndrome is common among poultry workers, Flowers' plant didn't record a single case from mid-2003 to early 2007.

Flowers described a test he uses to determine whether workers under his care suffer from carpal tunnel: The thumb, forefinger and middle finger of one hand must all be numb.

Five doctors not associated with House of Raeford criticized that test, telling the Observer it would fail to catch many serious cases of carpal tunnel.

"That's crazy," said Dr. Paul Perlik, a Charlotte hand surgeon. "...If you isolate your diagnosis to that, you could miss a whole lot of stuff."

Questionable treatments

At House of Raeford and other poultry companies, first-aid workers sometimes provide treatments that may harm workers more than help them.Some attendants, for instance, have dipped workers' aching hands in hot wax or water.

Doctors say the heat momentarily eases pain but can cause inflamed tendons and tissues to swell more.

One worker at House of Raeford's Greenville, S.C., plant said that when he awakes, the fingers of his left hand are often locked into a half fist. The worker, who asked not to be named because he fears losing his job, said he must pull each finger straight. The pain, he said, feels like pulsating needles.

When he visited the company first-aid station, he said, "all they give you is cream, maybe dunk your hand in hot water ... and send you back to the line."

A company nurse refused to send him to a doctor, he said. But he went on his own and was told he was developing carpal tunnel.

"I can put my hand in hot water at home," the worker said. "What do I need a nurse for?"

The nurse at the Greenville plant declined to comment. She is a licensed practical nurse trained in ergonomics, said complex manager Barry Cronic.

"If an employee has even a slight injury or discomfort, (she) takes aggressive medical management to relieve symptoms before a little problem becomes a big problem," Cronic said in a written response to Observer questions.

Trouble with the law

The Observer discovered that two medical workers responsible for the health care of plant employees have criminal records.

Steffeny Harris came to House of Raeford with a record dating to the early 1980s, including felony convictions for forgery and obtaining property under false pretenses. In 1997, she pleaded guilty to misappropriating more than $2,000 from an 84-year-old resident at an assisted living home she ran in Greenwood, S.C.

Soon afterward, she responded to a newspaper ad and was hired as medical director at House of Raeford's Greenville plant. Trained as a certified nursing assistant, Harris said she felt well-equipped to handle the job.

During her time at the plant, from the late 1990s until 2002, Harris said she treated about 50 workers who complained of sore hands and wrists and sent about 15 to a doctor. She referred those workers to physicians only if they complained more than twice, she said.

She said she learned to distinguish between employees who truly needed help and those simply seeking a break from work.

"You can just tell," Harris said.

She said a manager at the plant once summoned her to his office shortly after she was hired and asked why she was sending so many workers to the doctor.

She said she explained that workers were getting hurt.

The manager, she said, told her it was her job to keep workers from going to the doctor.

Harris said she continued to send workers to the doctor if she believed they needed to go.

In a letter to the Observer, Cronic, the complex manager, said: "We absolutely have no recall of such a conversation."

Cross, the physician assistant who has treated House of Raeford workers, also has had trouble with the law.

In 2002, he was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for submitting false Medicare claims. Among other things, he was accused of submitting bills for examining patients who had already died.

His medical license was reinstated in 2004, after he was released from prison and paid restitution. As of last year he was under contract to provide medical care for House of Raeford workers.

He declined to be interviewed at length but said his criminal record isn't relevant to his work today. "All I'm trying to do is help people on a daily basis," he said.

Shelnutt, House of Raeford's human resources director, said the company didn't know about Cross' criminal record until recently. However, he said, that record "had nothing to do with the treatment of patients.

"I believe people deserve a second chance," he said.

-- Staff writer Karen Garloch and researchers Maria Wygand, Sara Klemmer and Marion Paynter contributed.

Throwaway workers

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:30 EST

You may not like the fact illegal immigrants break the law to come to this country for jobs. Yet they do come, and Americans want the low-priced products and services their cheap labor provides. But we should be appalled by what's happening to thousands of immigrant workers who do dangerous, dirty work in pain factories in the Carolinas.

They are being exploited, abused, then thrown away when they are injured or when they speak up. Companies can get away with it, in part, because politicians in Washington don't have the conscience or will to fix failed immigration policies.

Here are the facts: A 22-month Observer investigation into poultry processing found that feeble rules and lax oversight have made it easy for a dangerous industry to exploit illegal workers, underreport injuries and manipulate a regulatory system that essentially lets companies police themselves.

In particular, the report found that poultry processor House of Raeford is relying heavily on Latino immigrants to do dangerous jobs for low pay. When workers complain, their complaints are ignored. When they are hurt, crippling injuries are often hidden from government scrutiny.

That treatment is by no means exclusive to meat processing. The truth is, illegal immigrants exist in the shadows. They are perfect targets for unscrupulous employers, and many freely take advantage of them. Having that kind of sub-class is in no one's best interest.

First things first. Carolinas lawmakers ought to call for a federal investigation into hiring practices, working conditions and injury reporting by poultry processors. The record is clear: No one is watching out for workers who perform risky, repetitive work on high-speed processing lines.

Job No. 2 is comprehensive immigration reform. Politicians in Washington have put rigid ideological views and emotional demagoguery above reasoned compromise. The U.S. needs sensible reform that secures borders, expands the guest worker program and provides a path to legal status for illegal workers already here.

The nation's outdated immigration policies are not adapted to a global economy. Think about it: There are jobs on this side of the southern border. On the other side? Intense poverty and hundreds and thousands of willing workers who want those jobs. Yet guest worker programs and immigration quotas severely curtail who can come here legally. It's despicable for this nation and its elected officials to ignore reforms that would give immigrant workers the basic protection decency demands.

It's easy to take a hard line on illegal workers. It's much harder to see their plight, and take practical policy steps to prevent the kinds of abuses that left Karina Zorita, 32, a former House of Raeford worker, with gnarled and damaged hands.

Remember this: They are human beings. Yet that's not how they are treated. They are treated as desechables -- disposables. That's wrong.

A boss's view: Keep them working

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:37 EST

The production lines rarely stopped.

An endless stream of raw chickens -- thousands an hour -- had to be sliced and cut into pieces for family dinner tables.

It was Enrique Pagan's job to keep his part of the line running.

He paced and often screamed at Mexicans and Guatemalans cutting chicken thighs. He demanded they move faster and scolded them when they left too much meat on the bone.

Pagan said most of his 90 workers in 2002 suffered hand and wrist pains. But he had production goals to meet. And he knew that workers wouldn't complain because many were in the country illegally.

"A lot of people didn't like me," he said.

Pagan (pronounced Puh-GAHN) had been hired in 1999 and promoted to supervisor about a year later when House of Raeford Farms' work force was in transition. By the early 2000s, Latinos had replaced most African Americans on production lines. The company needed supervisors who could lead and speak Spanish. Pagan could do both.

He described himself as a loyal employee, but he would come to question company tactics. He would confront both the pressure for profits in the billion-dollar poultry industry, and the suffering that resulted.

He said his bosses never told him to intimidate his fellow Latino workers but never reprimanded him for doing so. He says he didn't have a choice -- his job was at stake.

First impression

Pagan remembers the day he came to work. He had never seen anything like the Greenville chicken plant, known locally as Columbia Farms. It was almost the size of a soccer field.Inside the plant, hundreds of Latinos stood inches apart, wielding knives, cutting up thousands of chickens a shift.

It was cold, wet and noisy. Workers wore earplugs to protect their hearing from the clanking conveyor belts.

Pagan, then 47, and Lydia Torres, 34, had left Puerto Rico, where they were U.S. citizens, to "echarse adelante" -- a Spanish phrase meaning to succeed and get ahead. The couple moved to Buffalo, but after working odd jobs for a few years relocated to Greenville, where a Honduran friend told them the climate was warm and jobs were plentiful.

They were among the growing number of Latinos who found work in poultry plants throughout the Southeast, usually in the most dangerous jobs for the lowest pay.

Pagan drove a bus in Puerto Rico and made $100 to $250 a week. Now, he could make $300 a week at the processing plant cutting wings and thighs.

He was quick with a knife and scissors on the de-boning line. In just over a year, he was promoted to supervisor. That meant an extra $100 a week, he said. He would wear a hard hat signifying his new role as a boss.

Pressure to produce

Pagan's department was required to keep production levels between 150 to 160 birds a minute, about 70,000 a day, he remembers. No excuses.

If his workers fell behind, it was his job to make sure they caught up. If they could not get the work done in eight hours, they stayed overtime until they finished, he said.

Managers warned workers that the plant lost money every second the line slowed or stopped.

Upper management in white hard hats pushed production managers in red hard hats -- who pushed supervisors like Pagan, in orange hard hats. Workers received the brunt.

Latino workers were accustomed to their American bosses yelling at them. But what really hurt, several workers said, was the disparaging treatment by Latino supervisors who shared their background and understood the struggles of being an immigrant in the U.S.

One Guatemalan line worker, Miguel, said several supervisors treated fellow Latinos as if they were "desechables" or disposables.

"They treat you like you're not human," said Miguel, who asked that his last name not be used for fear of losing his job.

Barry Cronic, House of Raeford's complex manager in Greenville, said in a written response that "our supervisors were never asked to use fear and intimidation against our employees."

Pagan acquired a reputation as one of the toughest line supervisors, particularly with Guatemalan workers who often spoke Mayan dialects and knew little Spanish. He had a short temper and spoke rapidly when angry, workers recalled.

Former line worker Alberto Sosa called Pagan abusive and once confronted him in a storage area after he berated a Guatemalan for working too slowly. You don't have to treat people that way, Sosa remembers saying.

Pagan said he didn't recall the incident, but didn't deny it.

The workers, he said, didn't understand that missed production goals could cost him his job.

A wife's warning

Torres never wanted Pagan to be a supervisor.All day, knife in hand, Torres made hundreds of cuts an hour. After about six months, her hands began to hurt. She said a supervisor screamed at her to work faster even after she complained about being in pain.

At home she had trouble cooking and cleaning. She couldn't open jars.

Torres' hands worsened. She would awake with her hands curled in a claw. The company sent her to a doctor who diagnosed her with carpal tunnel, she said. She had surgery. She went back to work, but left several months later because of the pain, she said.

Torres worried Pagan would become like her supervisor, who often scolded her. But Pagan dismissed her concerns. He said she just had a bad boss. He would never be like that.

Touched by pain

Veronica Zapot worked on Pagan's line. She was a quiet, petite woman who kept her head down. But in 2001, she began to complain about her hands. Pagan conceded the work was difficult, but if she wanted the job she would need to keep up, he said.

He later learned Zapot, then 30, lived a few blocks from his apartment. She told him about coming to the Carolinas from Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. She told him about her life as a single mother, and the challenges of raising children in the U.S.

He later invited Zapot to leave her baby with Torres, who was then taking care of several workers' children for extra money.

Pagan watched as Zapot struggled. She de-boned 200 to 300 chicken thighs an hour. Eventually, she said, the fingers of her hand locked into a claw -- the way Torres' had. Unable to straighten them, she said she would have to tilt her hand to let the knife slip out.

"She'd come to me. She'd be holding her wrists," Pagan said. "You could see it in her eyes that she was in pain."

He sent her to the first-aid attendant, who gave Zapot over-the-counter pain pills and a bandage, suggesting her throbbing hands came from cooking at home.

"She'd say, `You Mexicans, you make so many tortillas,' " Zapot said.

When Zapot visited a doctor on her own, she said she learned she had tendinitis. She later had surgery and won a worker's compensation settlement, according to her attorneys.

"The tendons in my fingers were in knots," she said.

House of Raeford declined to comment on many of the employees' specific allegations, saying that, without signed releases, it was unable to discuss details of their health or employment. In general, the company said it found "many inaccuracies" in the information workers provided to the Observer but declined to elaborate.

"The allegations made by these former employees do not fairly or accurately represent the policies or management practices of House of Raeford Farms," the company wrote. ... "We value our employees and strive to treat them in a fair and respectful manner at all times."

`Tell them to wait'

Pagan said he worried about his workers, but giving them breaks left him with fewer hands on the line. A boss once admonished Pagan for sending workers to the first-aid station, he said.Three other ex-supervisors and a former human resources employee similarly described a culture where supervisors dismissed employee's complaints. Caitlyn Davis, who worked in the human resources department until she quit in July, said one supervisor referred to his Latino assistants as "Thing 1" and "Thing 2."

Another former supervisor told the Observer: "They tell you to not let people off the line. `To wait. To wait. Tell them to wait until the break. Tell them to wait until someone else can replace them. Tell them to wait until after work.' It's always to wait. The pain doesn't wait."

The supervisor said he was fired after receiving three or four reprimands, the last for a safety violation. He requested his name not be used because he still has relatives working for the company.

Cronic, the Greenville complex manager, said in a written response, "If any supervisor is discouraging employees from reporting injuries, that supervisor is in violation of company policy."

New pressure

In 2004, four years after becoming a supervisor, Pagan woke up in a sweat. It was about 2 a.m. He was shaking.

Torres asked what was wrong. He said a boss was increasing the pressure on supervisors.

My stomach's tied in knots, he said. I don't know how long I can stay.

Torres said he often came home angry. He became detached. He lost his sense of humor. It affected their sex life.

"I didn't have any will to do anything," Pagan said.

In early 2005, good news came. A social worker told the couple that a family had offered a baby for adoption.

Pagan had four children from a previous marriage. Torres had none and did not want to go through infertility treatments she needed to become pregnant.

Three days later, on Feb. 14, they brought Bryant home. He was four days old and weighed less than 9 pounds.

"He was the tiniest thing," Torres said.

The couple knew that social workers would visit the family regularly to check on Bryant's progress. They would want to know that the boy was being well cared for and that the family had the financial means to support the child. It would be two years before Bryant would be officially theirs.

Pagan needed his job more than ever.

House of Raeford

The privately held company, based in Raeford, is among the top 10 U.S. chicken and turkey producers.

Chairman: Marvin Johnson.

Size:

Eight processing plants and 6,000 employees.

Customers:

• Restaurants including Blimpie, Golden Corral and Ryan's.

• Schools around the U.S., including Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

• Stores including Food Lion and Lowes Foods. The company's deli meat is marketed under the name "Lakewood Plantation."

Sources: Observer research, House of Raeford, Dun & Bradstreet, Watt Publishing, National Poultry and Food Distributors Association

Final conflict

Pagan was overseeing more than 100 workers.He quietly began to warn some about their hands. He allowed more first-aid breaks.

After work, mothers would come to Pagan's home to pick up their children from Torres. They would often complain about their hands. Several, like Carolina Cruz, did not have the hand strength to hold their children. Cruz relied on her forearms to lift and hug her young son, Jose.

Pagan said he felt bad for the workers but angry at them for enduring the pain. He never advised them to quit because he knew their families needed the money. But he encouraged them to look for other jobs.

"You shouldn't do this work," he recalls telling them. "You'll ruin your hands.

"Look at Veronica. Look at Lydia. She can't even brush her hair."

Pagan said he was meeting his production goals in early 2006, but was being blamed more for workers' mistakes.

A boss pulled him into an office, he said, and reprimanded him for leaving too much meat on the floor.

Pagan said he was told to sign a disciplinary note for his personnel file. He was being punished, he believed, for giving workers too many breaks.

He refused to sign and walked out.

`I'll never go back'

Torres gave their dining room table to a niece. Pagan sold his car to a friend. They took most of the pictures off the wall, but left U.S. and Puerto Rican flags hanging in the living room. They packed their belongings into 40 boxes and shipped them to Puerto Rico.

Pagan said he planned to buy a used bus and hoped to get a public route again.

Before leaving, he made one last visit to the plant. He walked along one of the wooded trails lined with discarded gloves and hairnets. He stopped near a picnic table and spoke about his former job.

He had hoped for more when he came to Greenville. He and Torres did make enough money to buy a four-room house in Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, and they adopted their son, Bryant.

But he said he'll never forget how Latinos were treated at the poultry plant -- and how he felt forced to treat them. Did he have a choice? No, he says, not if he wanted to keep his job.

"I'll never go back," he said.

Moments later, a man with a red hard hat walked out a plant door. Pagan took a long look. It was one of his former bosses.

"We should go before he says something," he said.

Pagan turned away from the poultry plant and walked back up the path.

Epilogue

In August, Pagan and Torres moved back to Puerto Rico.

Torres stays home with Bryant. Pagan drives a bus again.

{quot}I feel good here,{quot} he says. {quot}I have family. The only thing is, you don't make much money to save.{quot}

Misery on the line

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:34 EST

Illegal immigrants say it's easy to get a job at House of Raeford Farms.

Of 52 current and former Latino workers at House of Raeford who spoke to the Observer about their legal status, 42 said they were in the country illegally.

Company officials say they hire mostly Latino workers but don't knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

But five current and former House of Raeford supervisors and human resource administrators, including two who were involved in hiring, said some of the company's managers know they employ undocumented workers.

"If immigration came and looked at our files, they'd take half the plant," said Caitlyn Davis, a former Greenville, S.C., plant human resources employee.

Former Greenville supervisors said the plant prefers undocumented workers because they are less likely to question working conditions for fear of losing their jobs or being deported.

In the early 1990s, when another company owned the Greenville plant, most workers were African Americans. Now, most are Latino.

"We can only hire those who apply to work for us, and at the moment between 85 percent and 90 percent of our job applicants are Latino," said Greenville complex manager Barry Cronic in a written response.

Handling IDs

Federal immigration law requires little of companies when checking applicants' IDs. Employers don't have to verify workers' immigration status or check that their IDs are valid. Instead, companies must accept applicants' documents if they "reasonably appear to be genuine."Davis, the former Greenville human resources employee, said she was told not to examine actual IDs when hiring, but instead to copy the IDs, then review the black-and-white images. She said some Latino applicants provided discolored Permanent Resident Cards, but such flaws did not show up in the black-and-white copies.

"We knew for a fact that some of the IDs were fake," said Davis, who worked at the plant for two years until this past summer.

If questioned by authorities, the company could show copies of the IDs, which appeared authentic, she said.

Cronic, the Greenville complex manager, said the plant examines all documents as presented and makes copies only for its records.

"All Human Resource personnel are trained to examine documents," he wrote. "We are not document experts."

Workers from House of Raeford's plants in Raeford, Greenville and West Columbia, S.C., spoke to the Observer about their status. Some said House of Raeford questioned worker IDs less than other employers. One worker said he got a job at the same plant twice using different names and IDs.

House of Raeford's Carolinas plants do not participate in a free federal program that allows companies to verify applicants' Social Security numbers, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

"It is a common misconception that the employer must check social security numbers of applicants or employees in order to determine their immigration status," Cronic said in a written response.

Former poultry worker Jose Lopez told the Observer he used fake documents to get work at the Greenville plant. He said family and friends from Guatemala told him that there were good-paying poultry jobs in the Carolinas, even for illegal immigrants who didn't speak English.

In 2004, he paid a smuggler $3,000 to guide him on a two-week journey across the desert and into Arizona before catching a series of buses. He said $100 bought him a fake Permanent Resident Card and Social Security number, which he says he used to get his job.

Industry of undocumented

It's unclear how many illegal immigrants work in the poultry industry. One 2006 study estimated more than a quarter of meat-processing workers nationwide are undocumented. Some experts say even more work in poultry because its jobs are less skilled.

A 900-employee Crider poultry plant in Stillmore, Ga., lost 75 percent of its mostly Latino work force during September 2006 immigration raids. No Carolina poultry plants have been raided in the past five years, according to immigration officials.

The immigration case against Tyson

The 2003 federal trial involving Tyson Foods provides a rare glimpse of how some poultry plant managers filled their chicken lines with illegal immigrants. The company was cleared of wrongdoing, but two managers pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to hire illegal immigrants. Another manager committed suicide shortly after the charges became public. tinkHere are excerpts from the thousands of more than 5,000pages of transcripts and court documents:

• Federal agents posing as human smugglers secretly taped some plant managers, such as Robert Sanford in Monroe, requesting illegal immigrants to work on the production lines. "Hell, I put over 700 people to work," said the voice identified as Sanford. "I'm going to need to replace 300 or 400 people -- maybe 500. I'm going to need a lot."

• Some plants skirted immigration scrutiny by giving federal officials the impression they verified workers' legal status. While the company policy called for using a federal program to verify applicants' Social Security numbers, several plants used in-house temporary employment agencies that did not scrutinize worker IDs.

• In 1995, a Tyson plant in Shelbyville, Tenn., that had only a few Latino workers boosted production by increasing its staff to about 80 percent Latino, according to a former manager. In that year, production surged from processing 900,000 chickens a week to 1.3 million -- impossible without the help of illegal labor, the former manager told a federal jury.

• A security guard at the Tennessee plant said he was told to turn away black or white job applicants who approached the gate, but to let Latinos in.

The company, headquartered in Arkansas, said illegal immigrants were hired because of a few rogue managers.

-- Franco Ordoñez

House of Raeford's West Columbia plant stopped production when about 10 percent of its work force did not show up during a May 1, 2006, national boycott calling on Congress to support efforts to legalize undocumented workers.

James Mabe, the West Columbia complex manager, said 90 percent of the 800-person plant is Latino and turnover exceeds 100 percent a year. Many workers, he said, stay for six months and then return to Mexico. They may or may not come back, he said.

Mabe said the company in 2006 hired an Atlanta law firm that completed an audit and found the plant was in compliance with federal requirements.

Asked if the company hires illegal immigrants, he said: "Not that I know of."

Changing work force

Hundreds of Latino poultry workers live in mobile homes and apartments near the Greenville plant. "Welcome to Yuxquen" was spray-painted in black letters across one apartment complex driveway, referring to a community in Northern Guatemala.Workers walk to the plant along wooded paths littered with torn aprons, gloves and hairnets.

Over a decade ago, pockets of the neighborhood were predominantly African American, former workers said. But as the plant hired more Latinos, those employees displaced many blacks in their jobs and later in their homes.

Experts have long debated whether illegal immigrants take jobs away from U.S. citizens, or take jobs U.S. citizens don't want.

Former union steward Joann Sullivan said the number of Latinos increased at the Greenville plant after House of Raeford bought it from Columbia Farms in 1998. She said Latinos replaced many of her African American colleagues.

"You were seeing Hispanics coming in and no blacks," said Sullivan, an African American who worked at the plant for more than 20 years. Soon, she said, Hispanics were being promoted over blacks with more experience.

Some African Americans in neighborhoods near the plant said they came to believe blacks wouldn't be hired there.

The work force change was no accident, said Belem Villegas, a former employment supervisor at the Greenville plant. She said a plant manager told her in 2001 to stop hiring African Americans.

"They want people who do not complain," said Villegas, who handled much of the hiring until she was fired in 2005 after about five years at the plant. "It's a benefit to them to be in control. To have them illegal."

Cronic declined to answer questions about Villegas' allegations. But he said, "It is the law of supply and demand, not discrimination that has led to us having today a work force that is predominantly Latino."

The company said it fired Villegas because she was "accepting money to provide employment favors to potential employees." Villegas denies the claim and says she believes she was fired, in part, because she started speaking up for workers.

When problems arise, illegal immigrants often won't pursue typical avenues of recourse, such as joining unions or hiring attorneys, because they fear exposing themselves to greater risks.

Villegas, who was born in Texas, said some company managers would hold the workers' immigration status over their heads if they complained too much. One manager kept a list of illegal immigrants who could be fired if they caused problems, Villegas said.

"They don't play fair," she said. "They knew they had the upper hand."

-- researchers sara klemmer and maria wygand contributed.

Needed: A watchdog

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:40 EST

Marvin Johnson is not the only businessman to try and get his way on worker safety. The trouble is, when special interests go too far, government oversight becomes a joke. Workers pay the price in pain.

That's happening in Mr. Johnson's poultry processing plants in the Carolinas, and likely elsewhere. It's shameful. It won't change until state and federal lawmakers stand up for workers by passing strong, specific worker safety rules and approving funding to enforce them effectively.

An 18-month Observer investigation uncovered a record of pain, injury and poor treatment of workers in Mr. Johnson's House of Raeford factories in the Carolinas. Slack oversight and slack rules have made it easy for a dangerous industry to exploit illegal workers, underreport injuries and manipulate a regulatory system that essentially lets companies police themselves.

Among the findings:

• House of Raeford broke state law by failing to record injuries on government safety logs.

• At four of the company's largest Carolinas plants, first-aid attendants and supervisors have dismissed workers' requests for a doctor's care.

• The company's Greenville, S.C., plant kept a five-year safety streak alive by returning employees to the factory hours after surgery.

How can those things happen? Nobody's watching. The government is inspecting poultry plants less because it says fewer injuries are being reported. Yet it rarely checks to see whether reports are accurate.

Another factor: The voices of businessmen such as Mr. Johnson carry more weight with enforcers and elected officials than the voices of injured workers.

Today, an Observer profile of Mr. Johnson shows he has built his poultry empire while repeatedly defying government regulators and backing political candidates who are sympathetic to the meat industry.

His success has helped tilt the policies of federal and state Occupational Safety and Health Administration agencies toward business and industry and away from worker protection.

The record of Mr. Johnson's own company shows why that's wrong. Specifically, the Observer's investigation found it ignored and fired workers who complained about injuries. It has been cited for at least 130 serious workplace violations since 2000 -- among the most of any poultry company.

Behind those statistics are workers such as Claudette Outerbridge of Raeford, who pulled out turkey guts and trimmed parts, and was brushed off and given a cream when she reported intense hand pain. That's disgraceful.

Taxpayers aren't paying for oversight that plays lapdog to business, we're paying for oversight that protects workers. Changes ought to start with these steps by lawmakers:

• Launching a federal investigation to look into hiring practices, working conditions and injury reporting in poultry processors.

• Reinstating critical federal ergonomic safety standards thrown out by the Bush Administration in 2001.

• Increasing federal funding to help states such as North and South Carolina enforce rules in dangerous industries.