Thread: GA: The Cochran Firm Alleges the Poultry Industry Owes

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070125/aqth035.html?.v=1

Press Release Source: The Cochran Firm

The Cochran Firm Alleges the Poultry Industry Owes Billions of Dollars in Back-Wages
Thursday January 25, 8:30 am ET

ATLANTA, Jan. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- With the average American consuming about 100 lbs of chicken each year, the poultry industry is big business in the United States. Stock shares of major publicly traded food giants, the nation's largest chicken and beef producers and others could be affected as lawsuits are filed alleging unjust employment mechanisms of the poultry industry.

Recently, The Cochran Firm, founded by the late, famed attorney Johnnie Cochran, began work on potentially thousands of claims for workers in the poultry processing industry. These claims stem from a recent Supreme Court decision where industry workers may be given back wages for time required to be on the job, which was not fully compensated. The Cochran Firm has filed suits representing clients in a multi-state area of the Southeastern U.S.

Unbeknownst to the average American is the controversy existing within the U.S. poultry industry, with employees allegedly receiving improper wages and working under diseased, inhumane conditions.

Poultry plants, such as those located and operated in the southeastern states are inhabited by employees that are exposed to long work hours, repetitive motion injuries, ammonia and CO2 leaks; floors slick with water and blood.

In recent years, poultry workers are predominately young immigrant males. Turnover rates range from 90-250%. Long-term workers are generally single minority females, many of whom are parents.

In the state of Georgia, poultry laborers are hired to work in plants at an average annual wage of $16,000. The federal poverty rate for a single parent with two children is around $15,000.

"The poultry industry employs a vast number of Asian and Latino immigrants because a lot of Americans will not work in the industry, due to the fact that their wage rates are the lowest of all meat and food processing sectors," says Robert Camp, a former poultry industry human resources executive turned worker advocate.

"Immigrants are also less likely to report Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations, less likely to claim unemployment or workers' comp benefits, less likely to participate in law suits, enroll in company benefits and less likely to participate in union organization," he continues.

"Immigrants are afraid of deportation and they don't like money deducted from their checks that they cannot send home," says Camp.

Even with the under-reporting of injuries, the poultry industry has the highest rate of OSHA incidents of all manufacturing industries in the country.

Working under severe conditions, employees are exposed to feces, blood and flying entrails. Various illnesses & injuries such as TB, Chicken Rash and Carpel Tunnel Syndrome are elicited. Deaths relating to lock-out/tag-out violations and exposure to chemicals and gases such as ammonia, CO2 and chlorine have been recorded.

Poultry workers in first processing work hang chickens on shackles, cut, dismember and disembowel the animal, working on average 40 hours a week under the industry's current time keeping practices.

Under the same time keeping system, employees in second processing debone, cut, marinate and pack the poultry product for distribution.

Very few supervisors are employed at the poultry plants, sometimes as many as 100 employees report to one supervisor. Managers overseeing 100-plus employees is considered acceptable, due in large to the fact that plant costs are reduced with fewer members of management. Employees therefore are all paid the same number of hours each week, regardless of the actual time worked under a master time system; master time was introduced to address the absence of managerial figures since in their absence time clocks cannot be monitored.

In 2006, nationally, plant workers were hired on average at a rate of $7.89 per hour. The annual wage based on a 40 hour week averages $19,600.

"I estimate that if workers' hours are recorded correctly, workers could earn an additional $6,000 to $8,000 annually, depending on their wage," says Camp. "These people must be properly compensated."

Camp sums the collective yearnings of the poultry workers best within a few sentences: "These workers have the least among us. These people work hard to put food on our table while struggling to put food on their own. They are not asking for a lot, they just want to be paid according to the law.

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May be payback time for Tyson Foods

Tyson Foods

Boo Hoooooo

Pay a living wage to an American citizen and you won't find this kind of slave labor in America!

for once Im proud of the Cochran Firm.

Not once did the word "illegal" proceed the word "immigrant."