In North Carolina, poultry workers are quitting in large numbers after an unknown chemical was introduced at their plant

Workers at the Mountaire Farms poultry plant in rural Robeson County, North Carolina, say that about four months ago, something changed.

Therein lies another critical information gap: Dubester told The Counter that none of the workers El Vínculo Hispano spoke to were aware of OSH. She also said that neither Mountaire's supervisors and managers nor the staffing agencies they contract with directed workers to OSH or even told them of its existence-though multiple workers reported the effects of their exposure to management.

"They are fainting at work and experiencing pain in their lungs. These are serious symptoms. One man at the plant had to go to the hospital after developing a lung infection. Anything that disturbs your lungs-especially in a poultry plant during a pandemic-should be treated very seriously, but these workers have been scoffed at for months."

The demographics of Mountaire Farms' Lumber Bridge plant are hard to pin down, but workers say that a large percentage of the facility's 3,400 employees are Latino, many of whom are migrant workers.

An investigation into Mountaire Farms' North Carolina operations published earlier this year detailed the poultry industry's two-tiered worker system, propped up by small, hard-to-trace staffing agencies that provide migrant workers to large corporations like Mountaire Farms.

In April of 2020, as Covid-19 cases were mounting in regions of North Carolina with large populations of immigrant poultry plant workers, a Mountaire Farms spokesperson said the company had offered paid sick leave to "All employees," but explained that contractors working for other companies at Mountaire plants did not qualify for the same benefits.

"Some workers have reported recent deaths at the plant that they attribute to chemicals, though I have not been able to substantiate those reports at this time," wrote Justice Center attorney Carol Brooke in the complaint filed with NC DOL. When their colleagues disappeared in large numbers from the poultry lines, workers said their supervisors failed to inform them whether it was because of infections, resignations, or deaths.

https://thecounter.org/mountaire-chemical-exposure-poultry-processing-plant-north-carolina/