The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.40           November 9, 1998 
 
 
North Carolina Poultry Workers Describe Struggle At Perdue  

BY STU SINGER
LEWISTON, North Carolina - Frank Perdue is more humane toward chickens than he is toward the thousands of workers and farmers whose labor produces the immense wealth the Perdue family lives off.

A worker in the Perdue poultry plant here described the conditions in her department. "You have to pack 32 thighs, 42 drumsticks or 27 whole legs per minute," she said. "The temperature is 28 degrees and there are chicken parts, blood, ice, and water on the floor. Pallet jacks are speeding around the floor, occasionally hitting us. Foreman stand behind you with stop watches timing you and if you don't keep up you're called in to the office and disciplined. There is a very strict attendance policy, seven occurrences, including being one minute late, and you're fired. You need permission to use the bathroom and there may be only one relief person for 100 workers so they can tell you to wait. And they time you in the bathroom."

The large Perdue chicken plant here in northeastern North Carolina was built in the 1970s with a multimillion dollar loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At the same time small farmers, especially Black farmers, in the area were being driven off the land through loan denials and foreclosures by the same government agency.

Members of many families driven out of farming became part of the large pool of workers required for the Perdue operation. There are about 2,500 workers in the plant, the majority of them Black women. The low pay, difficult and dangerous work, and severe discipline imposed by Perdue lead to a high turnover. According to workers in the plant, about 20 workers are hired every week, many of them right out of high school. The pay is $7.15 an hour to start, going up to a maximum of $7.35 an hour. During the last union organizing drive - which was unsuccessful - the company started a bonus program, where after two years, workers get a onetime $200 bonus (before taxes) and after 15 years, a onetime $1,000 bonus.

Perdue's "associates" handbook, which workers are supposed to sign when they are hired, says: "It is our preference that this be a nonunion company.. Therefore it is our firm intention to oppose unionism by every proper and legal means available whenever the need arises." This is similar to what were called "yellow dog contracts," which workers had to sign swearing not to join a union. These were outlawed by federal law in 1932.

In the last union organizing drive, Perdue threatened to close the plant if the union was voted in. A number of unionists were fired. Many believe the company also pressured a local church where the union had been meeting to deny them facilities.

Liz Sessoms is the executive director of the Center for Women's Economic Alternatives (CWEA) and works out of a storefront in the nearby town of Ahoskie. After workers were unable to win representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers for a second time, the union officials left town. The CWEA acts as the only local center now where workers can come for help in dealing with the company, the state, insurance companies, etc. Union literature is available in the office.

Sessoms and Lessie Joyner, a Perdue worker who was fired two years ago after being injured, explained that carpal tunnel syndrome is epidemic in the plant because of the line speed, repetitive motions, and poor design of work stations that require working in awkward positions. Local doctors often are not willing to stand up to the company, and workers are ordered back to work without adequate care or healing time. Suing the company for disability is difficult because local lawyers generally won't take a case against Perdue.

This is one of the poorest areas in North Carolina. There are few other jobs in the area and it's hard for those who were injured at Perdue to find work. As Joyner put it, "nobody will take on what Perdue left off."

A number of workers at Perdue have family and friends who work at the Newport News, Virginia, shipyard even though it takes up to two hours to drive each way. Those workers succeeded in unionizing the yard through tremendous battles with the company and cops in 1978-79.

Stu Singer is a member of the United Transportation Union in Washington, D.C.  
 
 
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