from the Associated Press

Gov. Mike Easley said Thursday that he's disappointed in the state Labor Department's response to reports of mistreatment of immigrants who work in the poultry industry.

"I think the Department of Labor has to be more aggressive," said Easley, a Democrat. " I didn't see the level of concern that needs to be there."

In a 40-minute interview with The Charlotte Observer, Easley discussed the newspaper's series in February that said a North Carolina poultry company disguised the number of injuries that its workers suffered on the job. He said he didn't speak out right away in order to give state agencies time to fashion their own response to workplace safety issues.

Commissioner Cherie Berry, an elected Republican, defended her department, saying rates of deaths and reported injuries in workplaces have declined. Her department gets better results when it works with employers than when it imposes stiff fines, she said.

"We're doing a very good job now," she said.

Although he said he wasn't ready to propose specifics, Easley said he would have agencies that oversee workplace safety and workers' compensation work to fix problems and that he would fight for new legislation and more resources if they're needed to protect workers.

"Legal or not these workers are still human beings," he said. "They're still God's children. And we have a moral obligation - that supersedes state or federal law - to treat them with dignity."

The Labor Department has told Easley's staff it needs money to fill 12 positions frozen this year following a reduction in federal funding. Berry said she won't seek any more money other than what's needed to fill the frozen positions.

"I'm not about expanding government," she said. "I'm about taking the resources we have and using them as efficiently as possible."

In a six-part series, the Observer reported that employees said workers feared being fired if they were hurt on the job. The poultry company has seven processing plants in North Carolina and South Carolina.

When the first installment of the series was published, House of Raeford issued a statement saying: "This article does not provide an accurate portrayal of the programs, policies and practices of our company or the poultry industry."

Too many employers work immigrants until they are seriously hurt, Easley said.

"Then they just throw them on the curb and move on," he said. "There need to be in place some laws to protect these workers. The people of the state don't want to tolerate this."