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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Breaking News-Perdue Farms Layoffs

Salisbury News has learned that Perdue Farms laid off 100 chicken catchers today. This clearly is horrible news for our local economy.

15 comments:

Daddio said...

I want to know if this is the beginning of the fallout from the ridiculous requirements that have been laid at the poultry farmers lately.

New houses have not been built, all in the name of protecting the environment.... what is the percentage of empty chicken houses around here?

BeachGirl said...

I'm done with Perdue. I'll go hungry before I give them one dollar.

lindsey white said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

YOU may be done with Purdue but, unless you are a medical professional (or Government employee), the employer choices around Salisbury are getting thinner.

Please share your suggestions for improving employment in the area. They don't need to be Perdue jobs.

Beezer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
lastword said...

Salisbury, Maryland-based Perdue Farms Inc. says it plans to layoff about 100 employees at the end of next month.

Perdue has hired North Carolina-based subcontractor Unicon to employ chicken catchers at its processing plants in Georgetown, Delaware and Accomack County in Virginia.

The company's vice president of corporate communications, Luis Luna, says the decision was made to costs. He says Perdue is one of the last poultry companies on the Delmarva peninsula with its own catching crews.

Chicken catchers at Perdue's poultry plant in Milford, Delaware have already been laid off and subcontracted. Luna says the same change is being assessed at the company's site in Salisbury

Beezer said...

Bah-hum-bug The Daily Times.

Just two weeks ago in your Sunday Feature Headline story you informed your reading audience that the worse was over - at least here locally.

Simultaneously - SBYnews informed our audience that there was a stark contrast in the Daily Times reporting standards verses SBYnews.

Well folks - we were once again out in front of the pack.

Anonymous said...

the new FDA certified hormone and antibiotic free chickens just walk right up a ramp and onto the trucks themselves and they pluck each others feathers off before it gets to the processing plant

Unknown said...

Here's a wild idea. Those guys that Perdue laid off go get a job with the Catching Contractor.

Tarheel said...

Didn't you see the news on TV? They interviewed one of the men that had been working for Perdue for several years as a chicken catcher. He said he made $40,000.00 a year and this new company will hire him for $25,000.00. They interviewed his wife as well. They are devastated as they have a young family and felt Perdue was a dependable company! As we have learned in the past few years, there is no dependable companies anymore.

BeachGirl said...

I had an opporunity to listen to one of those catchers this morning on talk radio. He is also the union steward. Two families were profiled on the news last night. They are both facing the layoff too. If they were to try to get hired by the subcontractor, they would lose at least 50% of their gross annual income. The catchers are making good money right now. If anyone has ever seen what they do face to face you would understand it. It's grueling, risky, hard work that puts the workers at risk for horrendous respiratory and systemic illnesses.
They can either earn half of what they make now, if lucky enough to get hired, which is very unlikely or they collect, I suppose. Does their union membership affect unemployment processes?

Daddio said...

Wait a minute here!! I seem to remember a big stink about those catchers a few years back. Something that they were reclassified as employees, and not independent contractors?

Have the laws changed since then, that they can become independent contractors again?

Anonymous said...

the poultry industry and its mouth piece the DPA and local health care officials have managed to keep the growers and the public at large in the dark about the local incidence of Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis from this type of work and an ailment very similar to Legionnaire's Disease that began to appear after tunnel ventilation became standard
its surprising no one has made these associations and there has been no lawyers thinking CLASS ACTION

milkrunner said...

ktnichols

That may sound good to you and may be a option to them as well. But how once the contractor takes over then the pay will be much less then before.

Same as all the drawbridges including the Ocean city one. Used to be a state job then they started contracting them out. Now one guy makes a whole lot of money, while the people who operate the draw bridges make about 6.00 dollars a hour. Sounds like a nice alternative to me
Not

Anonymous said...

Nice replies in return of this issue with genuine arguments
and explaining the whole thing on the topic of that.