Case Farms
cmonforton | August 30, 2017Drivers honked and waved. They gave thumbs up to the 30 people on the sidewalk. The group was holding signs outside a North Carolina poultry plant. “El baño” – the bathroom – was the word catching the drivers’ attention.
The scene on August 14 was a demonstration in front of the Case Farms poultry plant in Morganton, NC. The company supplies chicken to KFC, Popeyes, and Taco Bell.
Alisa Olvera outside of Case Farms poultry plant in Morganton, NC.
The reason for the peaceful protest?
The Case Farms plant has a sanitation problem. Workers don’t have access to the bathroom when they need to…
kkrisberg | May 2, 2017At ProPublica, Michael Grabell investigates how U.S. companies take advantage of immigrant workers, focusing on Case Farms poultry plants, which former OSHA chief David Michaels once described as “an outrageously dangerous place to work.” He reports that Case Farms built its business by recruiting some of the world’s most vulnerable immigrants, who often end up working in the kind of dangerous and abusive conditions that few Americans would put up with.
Grabell chronicles the history of Case Farms and how it first began recruiting refugees from Guatemala who were fleeing a brutal civil war in…
cmonforton | August 28, 2015I’ve heard a lot of myths over the years about OSHA. Some people think, for example, that OSHA is motivated to assess penalties because it needs the money to operate. (Truth: OSHA penalties go to the US Treasury and OSHA doesn’t get any share of them.) There have been times when misinformation or truth-stretching is perpetuated by law firms, probably trying to drum up business from anxious employers.
Here’s an example from the law firm Fisher & Phillips LLP. It’s a blog post on the site JDSUPRA Business Advisor. The lead sentences set the tone with phrases such as “a multiple front…