Tag: Mountaire

By Greg Barnes and Victoria Bouloubasis  This story is being co-published with Enlace Latino NC. Read it here in Spanish. Maricela Martinez still remembers getting her first paycheck from a chicken processing plant in Siler City — $280 for a week’s worth of work back in 1999. “It made me cry,” Martinez said. “This was

By Victoria Bouloubasis and Greg Barnes This story is being co-published with Enlace Latino NC. Read it here in Spanish. On a rapidly moving production line at Mountaire Farms in Siler City, Ana uses a sharp knife to slice the wings off a chicken in less than two seconds, making sure they land into a

By Greg Barnes Maggie Hooks waited in a long line of vehicles that snaked from behind the Salemburg Fire Department to Main Street and far beyond. Hooks and hundreds of others — perhaps more people than this small Sampson County town has residents — were there to get chicken that the House of Raeford was

By Greg Barnes Additional contributions by Enlace Latino NC staff It didn’t take long for the coronavirus to sweep through a Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. On March 26, the plant announced its first case of COVID-19. By April 13, more than 300 workers had tested positive. Today the plant is considered