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A newly released state government study has found that a poultry company whose hiring practices are under federal investigation appears to be following South Carolina's workers' compensation law.
But a close look at the audit of House of Raeford Farms shows that S.C. investigators failed to take steps that might have provided a more complete picture.
Among the findings of the S.C. Workers' Compensation Commission:
House of Raeford generally complied with the S.C. workers' compensation law. But investigators were unable to determine whether the company properly recorded all work-related injuries.
Many Latino workers were afraid of being fired for reporting accidents, but investigators did not find proof that the company dismissed workers for that reason.
None of the 58 employees interviewed at the company's S.C. plants in Greenville and West Columbia said they had been denied proper medical treatment.
The company violated a regulation that requires companies to post notices instructing workers to immediately alert their employer about workplace injuries.
The commission found House of Raeford did not violate state law when it brought injured employees back to work soon after surgery.
Investigators proposed no penalties, but recommended that the commission annually audit the company's workers' comp filings.
In a statement on its Web page, N.C.-based House of Raeford said it believes that “the findings of this independent review clearly refute unfounded media allegations concerning the Company's injury reporting practices in these plants. We remain committed to the safety and well-being of our employees and to complying with all government reporting regulations.”
Columbia Farms, a House of Raeford subsidiary, has been charged with knowingly employing undocumented immigrants. Federal authorities also allege two managers at the company's Greenville plant hired illegal workers from about 2000 until October 2008, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested more than 300 workers in a raid.
The company says it complies with the law.
The S.C. study was prompted by a 2008 Charlotte Observer investigation that found House of Raeford masked the extent of injuries inside plants. Among other things, the newspaper's 22-month investigation found that at four of the company's largest plants, first-aid attendants and nurses dismissed some workers' requests to see a doctor – even when they complained of debilitating pain.
Reporters also found that the company's Greenville plant boasted of a five-year safety streak with no lost-time injuries – but kept that streak alive by bringing hurt workers back to work hours after surgery. The Observer reported that one worker in 2003 was required to return to work a day after a conveyor belt snapped her arm and ripped off the tip of her index finger.
The commission, which reviewed records from 2006 to early 2008, found that the company brought injured employees back to work when doctors indicated “light duty” was appropriate. The practice allowed Hispanic employees to be monitored “instead of being taken home where no one is available to attend to their needs,” the report stated.
Observer reporters interviewed more than 120 current and former House of Raeford employees.
The Observer analyzed injuries recorded on the company's OSHA logs, records that workplace safety officials use to gauge plant safety. The S.C. auditors studied a different set of data: the company's workers' comp claims.
In four cases, the report noted, workers' comp claims for musculoskeletal disorders did not show up on the company's OSHA logs. Investigators said it was unclear why.
Unlike reporters, the S.C. investigators told company managers who they planned to interview. That's significant, experts say, because many undocumented workers don't speak out against employers for fear that they'll be fired or deported.
Also, the S.C. investigators did not take steps that experts say might have shed more light on the picture.
As S.C. officials prepared to launch their study early last year, an attorney for the commission said in an internal email that the company appeared to have filed “an incredibly small number (of workers comp claims) for such a large employer.”
Even though most of the company's workers were Latino, few of the claimants had Hispanic sounding names, the attorney noted.
Later, the commission's then-director proposed hiring an actuary to compare House of Raeford's claims history with that of comparable sized poultry companies.
The former director also talked about subpoenaing health care records from area providers to determine whether they jibed with the company's workers comp claims.
The former director later determined those steps would be ineffective or cost too much, the audit team wrote in a July 2009 memo to the current director.
Bob Whitmore, who formerly directed the injury and illness record-keeping program for the U.S. Labor Department, said investigators would be hard-pressed to get at the truth without subpoenas.
“Without a subpoena to get to source documents of treatment, you're just wasting your time,” he said.
Whitmore is currently fighting an effort by the Labor Department to fire him. The department contends he intimidated co-workers – an allegation Whitmore denies.
The S.C. auditors also failed to interview potentially helpful sources: former line workers who could speak without fear of losing their jobs.
“Any immigrant who's got a job has only one goal – do whatever they can to hold on to the job,” said Tom O'Connor, Executive Director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, a group that advocates for worker safety. “If they're looking for the truth, it would be better to go into the community to talk to former workers.” Staff writer Franco Ordoñez contributed.
