Nash's Proposed Chicken Plant Highlights the 2 North Carolinas

[WorseBeforeBetter]

A chance to lure 1,100 jobs, or 'an industry of the past'?
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/12/19/870249/a-chance-to-lure-1100-jobs-or.html

"We desperately need jobs," Nash County Commissioner Robbie B. Davis said. According to the most recent estimates, the county's unemployment rate was 11 percent - nearly 2 percentage points higher than the statewide rate.

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The site, a 45-minute drive east of downtown Raleigh, is the newest epicenter in North Carolina's often fractured relationship with big agribusiness. The animal processing plants provide jobs, but the animals create waste. The state has long wrestled with the best way to regulate the manure generated by large animal confinements. The N.C. Department of Commerce helps recruit the plants, but the facilities, usually built in rural areas, often have high employee turnover rates. Wages for Sanderson Farms line workers begin at $8.50 an hour.

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Bert Daniel, a member of the Nash County Board of Health, worries that low-paid workers will decline Sanderson's offer of health insurance, and that if injured, the workers will come to depend on the county's social service programs. "When the sun sets, this company is going to take more out of the community than it puts into the community," Daniel said.

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Billingsley said that Sanderson pays good wages, with the lowest starting wage $8.50 an hour. Workers move to $9.75 after 60 days on the job. That rate eventually climbs to $11.80 after five years.