Arkansas Pecking Order

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IN TOUTING HIS ECOnomic credentials, Bill Clinton boasts that more than 200,000 jobs were created in Arkansas since he first became Governor in 1978. The claim is rightful -- his state is currently No. 1 in job creation. Yet there is a downside to the Arkansas success story. As many as 20% of those new jobs were generated by just one industry: poultry. Big Chicken has become to Arkansas what microchips are to Silicon Valley and autos to Detroit. Arkansas produces 1 billion broilers a year, more than any other state. Poultry is by far the state's dominant employer, providing support for 1 of every 12 citizens.

But in nurturing this growing industry, Clinton has shown the trade-offs he would be willing to make -- and tolerate -- in the quest to create jobs and encourage business. Thousands of chicken growers and processing-plant workers suffer from low wages and harsh, even crippling working conditions. Their cheap labor and high productivity has enabled poultry's Pashas to enjoy explosive success in the past decade while keeping chicken prices low for consumers. In Arkansas, poultry workers are probably no worse off than their brethren in Mississippi or Georgia, but their numbers are greater, and they are increasingly angry that their share of the chicken boom is so meager. "I think the poultry industry has been a blessing and a curse for Arkansas," says Carol Tucker Foreman, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and the sister of Arkansas' Lieutenant Governor. "In some places, the workers are treated very badly."

Clinton has made job creation a higher priority than the immediate quality $ of those jobs. The result is that he has been reluctant to challenge the state's economic giants on behalf of those who sit at the bottom of the pecking order. Clinton has sought few improvements in the industry's working conditions, while at the same time showering the largest chicken producer, Tyson Foods, with millions of dollars in tax breaks for expanding its plants and work force. It is a cozy relationship in a state where the powerful often rub elbows. Tyson has provided free airplane rides for the Governor and his wife, for both personal and business trips, and the company's chairman, Don Tyson, is a major contributor to Clinton's presidential bid. Tyson's general counsel, James Blair, is married to one of Clinton's top campaign advisers, Diane Blair. The two couples often vacation together.

Clinton's defenders dismiss the allegations that he is cavalier about the working conditions. "Bill is not insensitive to the hard, tough nature of those jobs," argues his spokeswoman, Betsey Wright. "I recall at least one brutal public piece of warfare where Bill made a comment about these near- minimum-wage jobs, and the entire poultry industry came down on our heads very hard."

The industry has grown tremendously because Americans have been forsaking pork and beef over the years and consuming far more chicken: 66 lbs. per capita last year, up from 28 lbs. in 1960. Health is not the only reason -- consumers also know a bargain. At an average 88 cents per lb. for a whole broiler, chicken costs 50% less than it did three decades ago, after adjustment for inflation. One reason for the low prices is that fowl production is concentrated in poor rural areas of the South.