Working Conditions in Meatpacking Industry

Working Conditions in Meatpacking Industry Working Conditions in the Meat Packing Industry report by the Human Rights Watch called "Blood, Sweat and Fears" claims that "...workers in the U.S.

meat and poultry industry endure unnecessarily hazardous work conditions, and the companies employing them often use illegal tactics to crush union organizing efforts." The report, which was published in January, 2005, asserts that the meat packing workforce, which consists of "predominately immigrant" workers, has to "contend with treatment and conditions which violate their human rights." This report was the subject of articles in many newspapers, including The New York Times, the Omaha World-Herald, the Dallas Morning News, Feedstuffs, the Lincoln Journal Star, and Industrial Safety & Hygiene News, to name a few.

The article in the Omaha World-Herald (Gonzalez, 2005) is a very believable piece of journalism, and is easy to understand, fair, and important.

I do believe the article and feel that there needs to be more investigations into the rights of immigrants, especially those who work in dangerous job sites like slaughterhouses; when English is your second language, and you do not have all your legal paperwork done as far as citizenship in the U.S., you understandably could be a bit timid in pushing to make sure your rights are not violated. Gonzalez begins her article by quoting the Human Rights Watch report as claiming the U.S.

"...is failing to protect that [meatpacking] labor force." And in her second paragraph, Gonzalez is quick to balance her story by quoting "a meat industry official" - J. Patrick Boyle of the American Meat Institute - who claimed the report was "way off mark" and that it would need as many pages as it originally presented (175) to correct "the falsehoods and baseless claims" in the report.

That statement by Boyle certainly sounds like an exaggeration, and coming from a bureaucrat whose job it is to lobby Congress and to spin the story in favor of the meat industry, it is not surprising. But when one realizes how horrifyingly dangerous it is to work around very sharp knives and be expected to work very fast, it makes Boyle's statement seem ridiculous.

Meatpacking is a big part of Nebraska's economy, and the Executive Summary of the Human Rights Watch report states that "meatpacking work has extraordinarily and unnecessarily high rates of injury, musculoskeletal disorders (repetitive stress injuries), and even death." Nearly every worker that was interviewed by Human Rights Watch for this report "began with the story of a serious injury he or she suffered in a meat or poultry plant, injuries reflected in their scars, swellings, rashes, amputations, blindness or other afflictions," the report states.

The Human Rights Report "Summary" claims that tens of thousands of head of cattle are processed "per day" and "many workers suffer severe, life-threatening and sometimes life-ending injuries that are predictable and preventable." Moreover, many immigrant workers "cannot get the compensation for workplace injuries to which they are entitled" because they are undocumented, and they fear they will draw attention to themselves by reporting abuses or filing for compensation for injuries. In South Omaha, Nebraska, Nebraska Beef Ltd.

slaughters up to 3,000 head of cattle a day, and pays around 1,100 workers to handle the job of preparing, slaughtering, butchering and packing meat. The 175-page report, according to Gonzalez' article, asserts that the "fast-paced, high volume meat and poultry industries" are guilty of "systematic human rights violations" that are not merely occasional lapses, but "embedded" in the institutional culture of the meat slaughtering and packing workplace.

Although much of the material contained in the report has been made public in the recent past, advocates for immigrant fairness and safety say the "weight" behind the name, the solid reputation of the Human Rights Watch, provides "new ammunition" for the drive to make this workplace safer.

It ups the ante," Lourdes Gouveia is quoted as saying; Gouveia, a sociologist in Omaha who contributed research on immigration to the report, added that the report "focuses on human rights obligations in international treaties." Those international treaties mentioned in the report are as follows: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); the International covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

Also, the report quotes headlines from publications by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): "Worker killed when hog-splitting saw is activated"; "Worker dies when he is pulled into a conveyer and crushed"; "Worker loses leg when a worker activates the grinder in which he is standing"; and "Worker loses hand when he reaches under a boning table to hose meat from chain." What did the American Meat Institute dispute regarding Human Rights Watch's claims? Gonzalez writes that Boyle, the institute's president, asserted that "the meat industry has seen a consistent decline in injury rates and illnesses." The injury rate today is "lower than ever," and as to claims that management at meat plants in Nebraska aggressively block union organizers from talking to employees - which Human Rights Watch goes into great detail to protest - Boyle explains that "meatpacking plants are four times above the national average in union membership." The report's Summary claims that "many workers who try to form trade unions and bargain collectively are spied on, harassed, pressured, threatened, suspended, fired, deported or otherwise victimized for their exercise of the right to freedom of association." Moreover, federal laws and policies on immigrant workers "are a mass of contradictions and incentives to violate their rights," the report asserts.

The Human Rights Watch report was endorsed by "15 Nebraska labor unions and minority advocacy agencies," according to Gonzalez' article.

The spokesman for Tyson Foods, Gary Mickelson, said his company was "disappointed by the report's misleading conclusions but not surprised, given the author's extensive ties to organized labor." Mickelson went so far as to claim that Tyson - which mass-produces butchered chicken for fast-food chains and retail food stores around the nation - has a brand new "Team Members' Bill of Rights," which is patterned after the state laws of Nebraska, and will soon be instituted in Tyson's plants around the country.

Mickelson also said in the Gonzalez article that Tyson provides "training, interpreters and on-site English classes" for immigrant workers on their payroll. The chicken company also claims that it "invests millions of dollars in workplace safety and ergonomics and is developing robotic equipment for certain jobs," Gonzalez continued.

The state of Nebraska is also getting into the act of worker protection and education, the article points out; indeed, Mexican Consul Jose Cuevas, located in Omaha, is teaming up with OSHA on a proposal "to educate immigrants on workplace safety." And OSHA has already begun to try to correct the injustices that are being done to immigrants, Gonzalez writes; OSHA will apparently provide training "and oversight to meatpacking cleaning companies," and that offer on the government's part was due in part, Gonzalez continues, to a Omaha World-Herald investigation (apparently written by Gonzalez) that focused in on the meatpacking industry's "history of severe injuries and OSHA violations." The report recommends "New federal and state laws to reduce production line speeds," Gonzalez writes.

The report also calls for regulations that assure injuries are reported (they are not now fully reported, nor are they reported in a timely way), that keep immigrant workers safe from retaliation when they meet with union organizers.