THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9504010249
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SALISBURY, MD. LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Workers for Perdue Farms can take their children to be immunized against childhood diseases - and the company picks up the tab.
It's part of a new focus on wellness spreading throughout the poultry company and its industry. And it's paying off for Perdue.
For $5, employees at Perdue's largest processing plant in Lewiston, N.C., can visit a doctor for anything from muscle strain to prenatal care - without leaving the work site.
For the employee, it beats having to take time off from work and pay $45 to visit a doctor.
From Perdue's perspective, paying for an office visit is preferable to having employees take their cold and flu symptoms to a hospital emergency room at $350 a trip.
Soon there will be wellness programs at all Perdue plants, including Salisbury - where the company will contract for office visits with local physicians beginning in April - and Georgetown, Del., where an on-site clinic is scheduled to open in the fall.
Jim Perdue, Frank Perdue's son and chairman of the board, ``is buying into health care in the interests of happier, healthier, more productive associates,'' said Dr. Roger C. Merrill, a former Peninsula Regional Hospital physician who became Perdue's full-time medical director last year.
Most major poultry processors have adopted ergonomics, health and safety initiatives in response to hazards associated with repetitive jobs.
They also have added programs that offer the equivalent of a high school diploma, and English-language classes to help a growing number of Hispanic immigrants assimilate.
Perdue introduced its pilot wellness programs at plants in Lewiston and Robersonville, N.C., where the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration filed charges against the company for employee health and safety violations in 1989.
The company already was attempting to improve work conditions when the agency stepped in, safety director Jim McCauley said.
Perdue brought in experts in repetitive-motion disorders and sought employee advice on raising and lowering work stations, decreasing reach and weight stresses, introducing devices such as back braces and specially designed knives and scissors to relieve hand strain.
Ergonomics committees were established in each plant. Efforts were made to automate jobs that put workers at greatest health risk.
Perdue made a commitment to turn plant workers into industrial athletes, Merrill said - with seven minutes of exercise twice a day, a gradual acceleration of tasks over five weeks and job rotation every 45 minutes to two hours.
Early detection and intervention are central to the company's wellness effort, which includes complete payment for all screening tests recommended by the American Cancer Society.
The company is seeing results, such as a 35 percent reduction in health care costs per employee. Just two Perdue employees out of 100 are off work on any given day, compared with an industry average of 11. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
BETH BERGMAN/Staff
Perdue workers benefit from the company's wellness program - an idea
that is spreading throughout the poultry industry.
by CNB