The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, Va.), March 7, 2005, Monday

Copyright 2005 Landmark Communications, Inc.
The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, Va.)

March 7, 2005 Monday Vp Zone Nc Edition

SECTION: Y, Pg. Y1

HEADLINE: Slaughterhouse safety unchecked

DATELINE: TAR HEEL

BODY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TAR HEEL -- The agency responsible for protecting North Carolina workers has started just its second inspection in 13 years of the Bladen County pork slaughterhouse that a human-rights group called the scene of widespread employee abuse.
About 6,000 people work at the Smithfield Packing Co. plant, the world's largest pork slaughterhouse, where more than 30,000 hogs are butchered every day. The animals are turned into 6 million pounds of shrink-wrapped pork chops and other meat products.
The plant in Tar Heel, about 100 miles south of Raleigh, has been described by some as a harsh and dangerous workplace where people toil until their bodies give out and they either quit or get fired.
Smithfield says injuries at its factories have been declining in recent years as the company has focused on safety.
What goes on at Smithfield Packing is unknown to the state Labor Department.
By law, three or more employees must be hurt in an accident, or a worker must die, before the state is notified. That means tens of thousands of injuries every year may never be recorded.
And while most companies provide a safe work environment for their employees, few ever see a state inspector on their property to confirm it.
The Labor Department's 110 inspectors reach fewer than 6,000 of North Carolina's 230,000 workplaces every year.
In the meanwhile, Smithfield's Tar Heel plant violates internationally recognized human rights because it exposes workers to dangers, coerces injured employees into silence, and denies them compensation, the watchdog group Human Rights Watch said in a report in January.
A Smithfield spokesman dismissed the report and said the company care about employees' health and safety .
"We know our efforts are working because we have seen a 31 percent reduction in worker injuries in our facilities over the last few years," said Jerry Hostetter, the company's vice president of investor relations and corporate communications.
Still, animal-slaughtering and processing plants record some of the highest injury rates in North Carolina: 9.2 cases for each 100 workers in 2003, the last year for which statistics are available. That was a big improvement since 1998, when nonfatal injuries were 18.3 per 100 workers.
A lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations who wrote the Human Rights Watch report questions the accuracy of the numbers.
"There is enormous pressure not to report injuries," Lance Compa said. " The company can always say that you didn't get hurt at work, you got hurt at home moving furniture or working on the car."
One of those who said they were hurt on the shop floor in Tar Heel and cast aside is Ray Hall, 42, of Fayetteville.
To him and thousands of others in eastern North Carolina, Smithfield offered opportunity. The company pays higher wages than many employers in the area. It also offers health insurance, a retirement savings plan, an employee assistance program and discounts on meat for workers .
"I loved the job," said Hall, who never finished eighth grade but made $11.60 an hour hooking split hogs .
The large sides of pork barreled down the conveyor belt, three seconds apart. Hall's job was to wrestle them into position, sink two hooks into them and slide the 50-pound pieces of meat to an adjacent table. An automatic counter made sure he and his co-workers kept up the pace.
On April 12, Hall said he felt something pull in his back. A nurse at the company health clinic told him he had just pulled a muscle and sent him back to work, Hall said.
Hall insists he signed a form saying he had suffered a work-related injury. The company's medical files show no record of that clinic visit. Hall says the document "disappeared."
An MRI showed two herniated discs in his spine.
Smithfield said the injury was not work-related, Hall's medical documents show.
Hall remains unemployed, unable to get medical treatment since he lost his health insurance.

GRAPHIC: SMITHFIELD PACKING CO., shown, employs about 6,000 people and produces 6 million pounds of shrink-wrapped pork chops and other meat products daily. The company says injuries at its factories have been declining in recent years.; HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, a watchdog group, claims in a report published in January that Smithfield's Tar Heel plant exposes workers to dangers, coerces injured employees into silence and denies them compensation for their injuries.; THE LABOR DEPARTMENT reaches fewer than 6,000 of North Carolina's 230,000 workplaces every year. Many injuries are never recorded because by law, three or more employees must be hurt or one must die before the state is notified.TRAVIS LONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS; Johny Madrid, 26, of Chiapas, Mexico, shows scars on his arm from an operation recently in Raeford , after a co-worker accidently stabbed him on a knife line while working at the Smithfield Packing Co. plant.