Capitalist greed kills 25 workers in N. Carolina

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For forums, classes and other activities, contact the Socialist Actio What's the life of a poultry worker worth? Less than a fried chicken nugget, according to the owners of the Imperial Food Products company in Hamlet, Some 200 workers were inside Imperial on Sept. 3 when a fire started at the 26-foot-long deep-fat fryer located in the center of the plant. Twenty-five workers died of smoke inhalation and 49 others were NikE Luckerich hospitalized.

The chicken plant had no sprinkler or fire-alarm system. The company had never been written up for safety violations in the 11 years the plant had been in operation. Fire drills? Not in anyone's memory. Safety exits?

"The doors were padlocked," Aquanetta Fairley told Robert Dees of The Militant, "The company claimed people were stealing boxes of chicken. If you had to take a bag of trash out, you had to get a supervisor with a key to open the door. Sometimes when I went up there, every door except the main door was locked, and sometimes it was too."

"The supervisors would be across the street," Fairley said, "which is where they were that morning." Fairley's fiance was one of those who died in the fire.

So, what do these "highly-paid" mostly Black women workers earn? Starting pay is $4.85 an hour. Top pay is $5.50 after about one year. "They ased to pay our insurance until last January," one worker said. "Then we had to pay our own. They took $12.45 out of my check every week. Just for me! To cover my son would have cost $58 a week."

The Imperial plant is non-union. The workers are dependent on the city, state, and federal health and safety inspectors for protection. Yet all three government agencies deny responsibility for their failure to inspect Imperial. Each blames the other for lack of financial resources or enough inspectors.

North Carolina has 12 to 16 safety inspectors and only six health inspectors. Federal guidelines would normally require that the state have a minimum of 64 safety inspectors and 50 health inspectors.

There are 180,000 workplaces in North Carolina. Federal minimum standards call for state inspectors to randomly check 2 percent of workplaces. Less than 1 percent of North Carolina factories were inspected in 1990. The state legislature has cut the safety budget by 40 percent in the past decade.

Government food inspectors who check Imperial daily also did not report any safety violations.

North Carolina is one of 23 states that operate their own federally approved programs for workplace safety and health inspection under an option DONT BLAME ME FOR THOSE ARE DEATHS AT THAT POULTRY PLANT.!. IVE NEVER EVEN BEEN THERE!...

OSHA safety Inspections?

Dert. given to states in 1970. Generally, the state programs are less strict in enforcement than the federal government's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). "Many states have these programs," says Joseph Kinney, executive director of the National Safe Workplace Institute, "because the business community wants to keep the feds out."

Pines of companies for safety violations by the state are significantly less than by OSHA. North Carolina fined Perdue Farms $39,000 for exposing workers to repetitive-motion injuries in two plants in 1989. OSHA fined Cargill $1 million for similar violations.

The AFL-CIO is demanding that OSHA take-back responsibility for enforcing occupational safety laws in North Carolina. But OSHA is understaffed as well. In 1980, OSHA had 1380 inspectors; today it has 1200.

What explains this deadly situation? Capitalist greed. Hamlet, N.C., is not atypical. It is a working-class town of 6100. People work at the poulBy Malik Miah try plant out of necessity, not choice. It is low-paying, but sometimes the only job available. Single mothers (18 of the 25 killed) in many cases have no choice but to work there.

Poultry is now the biggest farm enterprise in North Carolina. Some 24,000 workers are employed in the industry from growing, slaughtering, and processing chickens. The market value for the bosses is $1.5 billion per year.

Not surprisingly, nothing is being done against Imperial and other big food processors as they put the lives of their workers at risk. They run the state. Criminal charges? It wasn't Baltimore P.O. Box 16005 Baltimore, MD 21218 Boston P.O. Box 1046 GMF Boston, MA 02205 (617) 497-0230 Chicago P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657 (312) 327-5752 Cincinnati P.O. Box 20109 Cincinnati, OH 4522 (513) 751-1597 Cleveland P.O. Box 6151 Cleveland, OH 44101 (216) 429-2167 Detroit P.O. Box 1613 Detroit, MI 48231 Kansas City P.O. Box 32543 Westport Station, Kansas City, MO 641 For information about other areas, contact the national office of Socialist Action at (415) 821-0458. branch in your area!

their "fault!"

Workers are expendable. So 25 died. There are others without jobs to replace them. That's the cynical and true views of capitalists toward all workers. We are wage-slaves. We are animals. Chickens to be processed and used by the employers as we create society's wealth.

The bosses don't give a damn about our lives. Working people must organize and fight back. Unions. Safety inspection. Shutdown all factories that are unsafe. That's the program the AFL-CIO should take to workers in Hamlet and nationwide.

Los Angeles P.O. Box 862014 Los Angeles, CA 90086 (213) 660-2891 Minneapolis P.O. Box 14087 Dinkeytown Station Minneapolis, MN 55414 (612) 430-1476 New York P.O. Box 20209 Ca. Fin. 693 Columbus Ave.

New York, N.Y. 10025 San Francisco 3435 Army St., Suite 308 San Francisco, CA 94110 (415) 821-0458 no future because nationalism has no future. What is called American art only existed as a regionalist variation on capitalist art. Real American art is the art of the Indians in all the Americas.

Capitalist art was born with capitalism in Italy-the Renaissance. It had a national flavor because then capitalism was national. Now capitalism is well into imperialism; that is, it is ripe past rotten. Now its art is as international as imperialism and just as exploitative.

In agreement with the article, let all those of conscience look deep into the plight of the homeless, the unemployed, the underpaid and underemployed, the hungry, and the bombed-out victims of capitalist greed. But instead of making art, let them prepare the best leadership parties for the working class.

Zip Union/Organ.