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Chicken plant will shut doors
By Tim Bousquet
The Daily Citizen
Friday, April 30, 2004 12:43 AM CST
Citing a shortage of low-wage laborers in Searcy, chicken processor Twin Rivers Food announced Wednesday that it will close its Lincoln Avenue. plant. About 130 local jobs will be lost.
The work performed in Searcy will be transferred to an abandoned pickle factory in Atkins, Ark., said Matt Duffy, the company's president and chief executive officer. Over the next two or three years the workforce at the Atkins facility will expand to 450 employees.
"We just can't hire the people we need in Searcy," said Duffy. "We've got 120 openings right now."
Duffy characterized his company as a "bottom feeder."
"We hire the lowest skill level, and those workers aren't in Searcy," he said. "We're not meeting our orders, we're working Saturdays. We doubled the size of the processing room last year, but that didn't increase our output at all, because we couldn't get enough workers."
Twin Rivers buys chicken parts from chicken wholesalers such as Con Agra and Pilgrim's Pride, and bones and skins the chicken for whole food companies.
"We're a part of the food chain nobody ever hears about," said Duffy.
The work in the factory consists of standing around stainless steel tables and processing the chicken with knives. Employees are paid about $7 an hour, said Duffy, but he acknowledged that some workers are paid piece meal, although he declined to reveal at what rate.
Workers met at lunch hour outside the plant, however, said they were paid between 9 and 10 cents a pound for their output.
The company employs a largely Hispanic workforce, said Duffy.
"I'd love to pay $14 an hour, but this is a competitive industry, and $7 is the prevailing wage," he said. "It's a good thing for Searcy that the jobs there are better paying."
Duffy said he notified both Buck Layne, president of the Searcy Industrial Development Corporation, and Mayor Belinda LaForce "three or four months ago" that the Searcy plant would soon close.
"They didn't seem too upset," he said.
Neither Layne nor LaForce could be reached for comment Thursday.
But Atkins Mayor Jerry Don Barrett celebrated Twin Foods' move to Atkins, calling it "the best news our city has had for many years."
Gov. Mike Huckabee agreed.
"This is great news for Atkins," he said. "The whole area suffered a blow when the pickle plant closed two years ago. We can now celebrate the fact that 450 people in the Arkansas River Valley will soon have new jobs."
Asked why officials celebrated the opening of a plant in Atkins but seemed indifferent to the closure of the plant in Searcy, Duffy laughed.
"Well, that's their job," he said.
Twin Foods opened the 48,000 square-foot Searcy facility in 2001. Duffy expected the plant to close by July.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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