Rural Laws: October, 2002 - Number #2

Poultry firms require workers to be dressed in protective gear when the production line starts running, but in the past they did not pay workers for time spent putting on protective gear or cleaning up at the end of the day. DOL has been trying to get poultry firms to pay workers for preparation and cleanup time, arguing that they are under the control of the employer, and thus should be paid under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Perdue workers filed a class-action lawsuit in 1999, and Perdue settled in August 2002, agreeing to pay $20 million to workers for the average of eight minutes a day that they spent putting on and taking off the protective gear.

Many of the meatpacking workers in the Midwest are Latino immigrants, and many of the plants are in relatively isolated areas. Some of the meatpackers have begun to offer education courses on site. For example, the Swift & Company (formerly ConAgra Beef Co) meatpacking plant in Grand Island, which has 2,500 employees, opened a Multicultural Education Center in its plant, and the Grand Island School District is providing teachers so that meatpacking workers can earn a high school diploma. Swift is headquartered in Greeley, Colorado.

Population. The Great Plains, from the Dakotas south to Texas include some of the poorest counties in the US, including Loup county, Nebraska, with a per capita income of $6,600 in 2000 (New York County, or Manhattan, is the nation's richest county, where per capita income is $90,900). The population of Loup county peaked at over 2,100 in 1910, and fell to 600 in 2000. Loup county and much of the Great Plains once again satisfy the definition of a frontier, having six or fewer people per square mile.

The US had 166,383 dentists in 2000, up from 150,762 in 1991, but there are too few in many rural and agricultural areas, where fees tend to be lower.

Migrants. The Baltimore Sun reported that some 2,000 residents of the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia have been brought to the US. The two countries became US trust territories after World War II, and despite gaining independence in 1986, remain affiliated with the United States through a Compact of Free Association. Island residents may travel and work in the US without visas.

Many islanders sign contracts to be nursing assistants or to work in amusement parks, and the "body brokers" who link islanders and US employers collect fees from the employers as well as take deductions from the workers. Since 1986, some 14,000 islanders - nearly a tenth of the population - have moved to Hawaii and the US territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana. Some of the body brokers have been unusually aggressive, collecting fees from workers and employees as well as receiving grants from the US Department of Labor for training disadvantaged workers. One recruiter dismissed the complaints of workers, saying Micronesians have "an American Indian-type drinking problem" that causes them to act disruptively and show up late for work or not at all.

Some of the migrants from the Pacific islands come to the US without body brokers. An estimated 4,000 Marshallese live in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, processing poultry at Tyson Foods and other plants, and most borrowed money from relatives instead of relying on body brokers. One survey found that the per capita income of Marshallese in Arkansas is $6,691, in part because the average household size is eight. This is four times the island figure of $1,670, though well below the US average of $24,352. The unemployment rate was 31 percent in the Marshall Islands.

The Springdale, Arkansas school district had 22 percent Latino students in 2002 and five percent Marshallese.