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
