MOOREFIELD, W.Va. — The immigrant employees of Moorefield’s Pilgrim’s Pride chicken plant work in one of the most dangerous factories in West Virginia and often struggle to survive in the Potomac Highlands.
While state lawmakers who represent Hardy County say there’s no action they plan to take to address these issues, one did say the Legislature should continue to monitor the wellbeing of the plant’s workers.
After an eight-month investigation, Mountain State Spotlight published stories that examined the lives of workers who left their homelands to work at the state’s only industrial chicken plant. The investigation found that the factory is one of the most dangerous non-coal workplaces in West Virginia, according to federal severe injury data.
Injuries detailed in the investigation ranged from amputations by heavy machinery to exposure to dangerous chemicals. Newcomers also said supervisors didn’t properly teach them how to work in the plant and would leverage their immigration status if they pointed out issues.
Away from the plant, many immigrant workers and their families can’t find adequate transportation options, translation services, food assistance resources and housing units.
Del. Bryan Ward, R-Hardy, said he thought the problems specific to the immigrant communities, especially issues related to interpretation and translation, shouldn’t be further addressed by the state.
“I think it’s incumbent on folks to go out of their way to learn the language so they can be more than a basic taxpayer,” he said.
When told that the Hardy County Schools were struggling to afford the resources to teach English learner classes in its schools, Ward said no one from the schools had reached out to him.
“My compassion has a limit,” he said.
While lawmakers were in Charleston for meetings this week, Mountain State Spotlight asked Ward and the two state Senators who represent Moorefield about the issues highlighted in the story.
While all three men expressed that they want the best for people who live in their districts, none of them thought any of the issues the newsroom found should be addressed by immediate legislative action.
Senate Energy, Industry and Mining Committee chair Randy Smith, R-Tucker, said that Moorefield’s immigrants are in a vulnerable situation, one that could lead them to being exploited. While he didn’t propose any legislative action, he said it’s worth keeping an eye on the Moorefield chicken factory and the immigrants who work inside it.
“We need to make sure that they’re not being mistreated and that their safety is being taken care of,” he said. “And that they’re not taken advantage of with their financial situation.”
Smith, the safety director of Mettiki coal, said he knows that West Virginia industries haven’t always treated their foreign workers fairly. He’s a former miner, and he knows the history of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe working dangerous coal jobs in the early 20th century.
But he doesn’t think the immigrant employees inside the Pilgrim’s Pride slaughterhouse and prepared foods processing facility face the same dangers today that miners did back then.
“The companies had no oversight on them,” he said. “The processing facilities, they are heavily regulated.”
Ward agreed. He said that if his daughter chose to work in the poultry plant, he wouldn’t be concerned.
“I’m not sold on the idea that every other person that works there ends up in an ER,” he said.
He acknowledged that there are problems specific to immigrant workers and their families but said he didn’t think it would be fair to direct the state dollars he gets to these communities.
In the past, he said he’s used his discretionary dollars to help the Hardy County Rod and Gun Club, the Mathias Community Center and some local fire departments.
Sen. Jay Taylor, R-Taylor, expressed similar sentiments. He was surprised to learn that the Moorefield Pilgrim’s Pride factory is as dangerous as it is, and he said he thinks the federal injury data highlights a major workplace problem.
“Obviously, they need to look at what’s going on and hopefully take some corrective actions,” he said.
But the state senator said the federal government is responsible for that. He thought all he could do was encourage Pilgrim’s to create a “safety-first atmosphere.”
Taylor also noted that the Moorefield plant managers had recently taken him on a tour of the factory, and nothing dangerous stood out to him.
The only piece of legislation related to West Virginia’s immigrant population he said he supported was implementing a law requiring most of the state’s private employers to more closely vet the immigration status of their workers. With regard to newcomers working in a dangerous factory and living in an area with few resources for them, he said those were just parts of the immigrant experience.
“It’s the whole living the American dream,” he said.
Many of the immigrant workers Mountain State Spotlight spoke with left their homelands like El Salvador, Honduras and Myanmar to escape conditions of poverty or violence. They often said that when they came to West Virginia, they hoped their children wouldn’t be forced to live through the same harrowing conditions they had.
But some of them also feared that with the current setup for Pilgrim’s Pride’s Moorefield immigrant workers, nothing would change for their kids.
Over the past year, local and corporate Pilgrim’s Pride officials did not respond to over a dozen requests to talk about their West Virginia immigrant workforce. In a lawsuit that alleged the company staffed dangerous jobs with vulnerable workers, the chicken giant said the plaintiffs’ lawyers were selectively using unflattering excerpts from different sources.