Blood and Sweat in the Meat Industry
Rumbo, News Report, Rodrigo París, Translated by Elena Shore, Posted: Dec 19, 2006
Traducción al español
A meatpacking plant, with temperatures of 32° F, very little light, high humidity, and frantic production lines, seems to be the closest thing to slavery of any factory in 21st Century America.
The organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) conducted a study on the meat industry in 2005 titled Blood, Sweat and Fear. The report found that employees in U.S. slaughter houses and meatpacking plants work dangerous jobs in difficult conditions.
The treatment and conditions of these workers constiture human rights violations, the report argues.
Forty-two percent of the plant workers are Latino. Their average annual salary is $21,320, nearly $10,000 less than that of workers in other industries, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Four factories – Tyson, Cargill, Smithfield and Swift – control 80 percent of the nation’s meat production. According to an OSHA report, the concentration of meat production in a small number of factories allows for their substandard practices and working conditions.
According to the Human Rights Watch study, 95 percent of Latino workers in these plants do not receive workers’ compensation for accidents and injuries (such as knife wounds) at a job that demands speed and precision at the same time. This is due to the fact that the majority of the workers do not speak English or are afraid the company will discover that they are working illegally.
Some 14.7 percent of the workers in this industry suffer work-related injuries and accidents according to OSHA’s statistics, although the situation has improved. (In 1990, the rate was 30 percent.)
Fifty percent of the accidents were caused by human errors while cutting the meat, according to the HRW report. “I lost a hand when I leaned over a table of meat,” one worker told the organization.
Undocumented immigrants who work in these factories rarely ask for work loans, compensation or improvements in working conditions, afraid that the company could turn them in to immigration authorities, according to HRW.
Many workers in the meat industry are afraid of the consequences of the massive Dec. 12 raids in processing plants across the country.
According to Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, there are concerns that the raids could have repercussions for consumers and the entire meat industry, since they could experience a shortage of workers, a rise in production costs and, therefore, an increase in the price of meat.
Some observers say that perhaps it’s time for these companies to do what the meat industry in Canada has already done: raise their salaries and pay in proportion to the risks of the job.
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User Comments
Jacquie W on Dec 21, 2006 at 10:43:25 said:
I've grown up in Greeley, Colorado, (but am currently attending college in Texas where there is a Tyson plant) where one of the largest Swift plants is located. Our school district is over 50% Latino, many children having parents who work in some way at the meat packing plant. I've heard stories of their parents being hurt, and I know a lot of kids who may be citizens, but their parent's aren't, and, like the article said, many of them do everything they can to work hard, make a living and not be a bother to those around them. I'm home for break, and the day the raids happened many children went home to no parents, had to go stay with relatives or neighbors. The town was eriee, it was scary, helicopters, massive vans and buses carting people away as fast as possible. Families have been torn apart, and most people don't understand what that does not only to the individuals, but the community, and Swift is getting away with all with only a slap on the wrist for "Hiring people who stole identities..."
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