Hard labor at a tender age

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/258/story/314001.html

Raid at poultry plant reveals problem beyond illegal immigration. Workers as young as 15 were found on the line.
By Franco Ordoñez and Ames Alexander
Staff Writers
Posted: Sunday, Nov. 09, 2008

GREENVILLE, S.C. Four months after turning 15, Lucero Gayton began work on the night shift at a House of Raeford Farms chicken plant.

Starting at 11 each night, when most girls her age were asleep, the shy teenager with brown eyes was working 10-hour shifts, wielding a sharp knife, cutting muscles from thousands of freshly killed chickens.

“I was scared that I'd cut my finger off,” she told the Observer. “I did cut myself a few times.”

http://media.charlotteobserver.com/smedia/2008/11/08/23/287-B8248152Z.1_20081108235024_000+G4J5VOS7.5.embedded.prod_affiliate.138.jpg
Lucero Gayton, 16, says she was hired at age 15 at the House of Raeford Farms chicken processing plant in Greenville, S.C. It's not legal for workers under 18 to work in dangerous jobs like the one Lucero held. (John D. Simmons - [e-mail])


Lucero lost her job last month in the largest immigration raid ever conducted in the Carolinas. She was one of six underage workers, ages 15 and 16, found among the 331 arrested workers at the Greenville plant.

Underage workers are a familiar sight on House of Raeford production lines, and not only in Greenville.

More than 20 former and current workers at three House of Raeford plants – in Greenville, West Columbia, S.C., and Raeford, N.C. – told the Observer that the poultry company frequently hired underage workers.

Six of them, all supervisors, said that top managers allowed the hiring to secure cheap, compliant labor.

FULL story at link.