18/02/2008
A newspaper that spent 22 months investigating conditions at a major North Carolina poultry supplier has uncovered a horrific pattern of worker exploitation and injuries. The Charlotte Observer probed working conditions for the mostly migrant workforce at House of Raeford, a chicken- and turkey-processing company with annual sales of nearly $900 million, and that employs 6,000 people at eight plants in three states, processing 29 million pounds of meat a week. Editor Rick Thames said "the neglect of these workers exposes an ugly dimension to a new subclass in our society. A disturbing subclass of compliant workers with few, if any, rights. Same as slaves and sharecroppers, same as the cotton mill workers derisively termed "lintheads", this subclass is now a scorned bunch. And yet they help power our economy. We live in houses they built. We drive on highways they paved. We eat the chicken and turkey they prepared."

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Source: Risks Newsletter