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| Delmarva
Community Alliance |
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Big Chicken dominates Carole Morison's part of the world - and that's no joke. Carole and her husband are poultry farmers on Delmarva, the Eastern Shore peninsula shared by Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. The term describes the handful of companies that control the U.S. poultry industry, directing all aspects of production, from embryo to the grocery shelf, according to Carole. Five times a year, the Morisons collect a flock of 54,400 chicks from one of the largest companies and seven weeks later return with 5-pound broiler chicks. Their non-negotiable contract requires the Morisons to buy food, medicine and fuel from the same supplier. In between flocks, they try to get rid of the considerable manure and make the repairs and improvements mandated by their pact with the supplier. For their efforts, they are paid about 3½ cents a pound. Like most other poultry farmers, Carole and her husband both work at second jobs away from the farm. "The farmers can't afford to eat what they raise," says Carole. "We're paid the same amount that we were getting ten years ago, but we have to cover significantly more of the costs. And it's not like we have a choice. If we don't do what the companies demand, they won't provide us the chicks."
In 1997, Carole joined with other farmers and poultry workers to form the Delmarva Community Alliance, a CCHD-funded group that holds poultry companies accountable for industry-wide conditions affecting the workers, the farmers, the chickens and the environment. The Alliance's members are African-American, White and Latino, and many are recent immigrants.
Even small changes have tremendous impact for Raymond White. Raymond and the other five men in his crew chase and catch 60,000 chickens each day. At the end of a 10- to 12-hour shift, each man earns $2.34 for every thousand chickens that arrive safely at the plant. On the surface, the $11 to $14 per hour rate seems attractive, but it does not increase
from year to year, include any benefits, or cover the time spent getting to the farms, some as far as two (unpaid) hours from their base.
 "As catchers, we're being paid five cents more per thousand chickens than we were when I started 15 years ago, but the team has shrunk from eight men to six - so we have to catch more chickens to make the same money. I have to catch 2,000 chickens to afford to buy one broiler at the supermarket!" With help from the Alliance, Raymond participated in a lawsuit challenging the poultry company's claims that chicken catchers were independent contractors, not employees entitled to overtime pay. A federal judge ruled in the workers' favor, generating scrutiny and publicity that may improve the pay scale for the industry. "I'd like to see medical and retirement benefits and maybe a raise to $6 per thousand, but what I really want is to be recognized as a worker," he says. •
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