It's GOP Incumbent Berry Vs. Former Labor Commissioner Brooks | Eastern North Carolina Now

   Publisher's note: The author of this interesting report is Matthew E. Milliken, who is a contributor to the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Familiar faces on the ballot in Council of State contest

    RALEIGH     Cherie Berry has been North Carolina's labor commissioner for nearly 12 years, and the Catawba County native knows just how to describe her responsibilities.

    "I'm probably the only elected official in the state whose success or failure is measured in human lives and human limbs, from the standpoint of keeping workers safe and preventing injury, and illnesses, and fatalities," said Berry, a Republican who once owned an automobile electrical component manufacturing company.

    Berry, 65, can make her re-election pitch in five words: "I'm running on my record." By that she means the state's workplace injury and illness rate, which is currently 3.1 per 100 full-time employees. That's a record low, and below the national rate of 3.5.

    Color Berry's opponent unimpressed. Democrat John Brooks held Berry's post from 1977 through 1992, when, he noted, the state had many more textile, tobacco and factory workers.

    "We're talking about a completely different mix of businesses," said Brooks, 75, who won a primary runoff for the right to challenge Berry. "This is generally ... more a service economy than it is a manufacturing economy at the present time."

    Department of Labor staffing has also grown since Brooks' tenure, he stated.

    Berry gently but firmly insists that her department has an effective approach to keeping Tar Heel workers safe.

    "I believe that stressing education and training for employers and employees, and getting the buy-in of the top people at a company to embrace safety and health and then let the workers participate in ... the program, and listen to their ideas and advice, creates an atmosphere like family, where they take care of each other," she said.

    The commissioner dismissed criticism she has received from Obama administration officials, who would like her to levy larger fines when violations are found. Berry said there is no evidence that increasing fines increases safety.

    Asked about charges by the North Carolina Farmworker Advocacy Network that her leadership has resulted in unsafe housing for migrant agricultural laborers, she asserted that her department is fulfilling its responsibilities.

    Berry added that the Farmworker Advocacy Network has not answered her agency's requests for the locations of unregistered labor camps.

    "If you're going to complain about something, then tell us where it is so we can do something about it," she said.

    Brooks, whose professorial manner contrasts with Berry's down-home speaking style, feels that his background and qualifications would make him a much more effective commissioner than Berry.

    He talks about improvements to technical training programs that the state university and community college system could make to spur job creation and how, as a lawyer -- which Berry is not -- he could play a vital role linking labor commissioners around the nation to legislators and lawyers who write and wield labor statutes.

    Brooks also says that he has gained invaluable knowledge over the past several years as a staff attorney reviewing proposed workplace injury settlement agreements for the Industrial Commission, a state Department of Commerce agency.

    "I'm the person in the state most familiar with where workplace injuries occur, how severe they are, the nature of them and so forth," Brooks said. By applying that information as labor commissioner, he believes, he could lower workplace injuries even more than Berry has done.

    In 1991, during Brooks' final term of office, the state's worst industrial disaster occurred. An Imperial Foods chicken processing plant in Hamlet caught fire, killing 25 and injuring 54. Workers were trapped behind fire doors that were locked on the outside by order of the plant's owners.

    The state fined Imperial Foods' owners more than $800,000 and one owner received nearly 20 years in prison after accepting a guilty plea on manslaughter charges. While a federal investigation blamed lax insurance regulations rather than inadequate labor protections for the injuries and fatalities, Brooks lost his 1992 re-election bid in the Democratic primary. He ran for labor commissioner in 2008 and lost the Democratic primary that year as well.

    Quarterly campaign finance reports released in early July showed that Berry had about $88,000 in cash on hand compared to roughly $1,800 for Brooks. The challenger wasn't intimidated by the discrepancy.

    "Both in fundraising and in endorsements, I'm satisfied that we can counter whatever she's planning to do" in terms of advertising, Brooks said.

    That's partly because he and other Democratic candidates for state office are pooling resources and efforts.

    "I'm running as a part of this ticket," Brooks said. "This is a coordinated campaign."

    Berry believes that national politics will have a big impact on her campaign. Four years ago, when a slender majority of North Carolinians favored a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in decades, "I stayed up all night trying to figure out if I was going to have enough votes to win," Berry recalled.

    "And fortunately, I did," she said. "So we're doing something right, and people of all parties recognize that."

    Berry could also point to a survey of likely voters taken Aug. 2-5 by Public Policy Polling to bolster that contention. It found her leading Brooks 44-34 percent, with liberals mostly supporting Brooks and conservatives backing Berry.

    Berry led in every age group. She also led among women 40 percent-36 percent and 49 percent-32 percent among men. She also held a 50 percent-29 percent among white voters. Brooks was winning African American voters by a margin of 57 percent to 20 percent.