Perdue Farms To Replace Chicken Catchers With Half-Priced Subcontracted Employees

Delaware’s Perdue Farms will layoff around 100 chicken catchers in Georgetown. The layoffs will take effect by March 27.

The chicken catchers, who make between $40,000 and $45,000 a year, will be replaced by a subcontractor who will then hire chicken catchers. According to Jeffrey Harris, a shop steward who is a liaison between the catchers and Perdue Farms, the company is attempting to save money with the subcontractor.

“They don’t want this kind of work to be unionized because unions give employees higher wages and better benefits,” Harris said.

Harris also said that the chicken catchers working for the subcontractors will make half of what the unionized workers made, or about $20,000 a year.

Chicken catchers at Perdue’s Millford poultry plant have already been replaced by a subcontractor, the same fate will meet the company’s Accomack plant on March 7 and the Georgetown plant will begin on March 28.