SFagan NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94 The Human Toll Of Our Meat Habit Americans love meat – we have one of the highest rates of consumption in the world. While U.S. shoppers enjoy relatively low prices and an array of choices, there is a high human price tag. The more than 500,000 men and women who work in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants have some of the most dangerous factory jobs in America. The meatpacking industry has made a lot of progress on worker safety since publication of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” in 1906, but some things remain the same: the work is mostly done by immigrants and refugees; they suffer high rates of injuries and even, sometimes death; and the government lags in oversight. Harvest Public Media has been investigating worker safety in the meatpacking industry for over a year. We found: Some workers pay a high price for their job, some with their life and others with long-term injuries. “Employees aren’t cattle that go through the chutes,” said the widow of one worker. “They’re people NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94 Dangerous Jobs, Cheap Meat Thu, 16 Sep 2021 07:59:55 +0000 https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Staff Friday, April 17, 2020 Workers at a processing plant in Fremont, Nebraska, have fallen ill with symptoms of COVID-19. The company confirmed its first case of the disease earlier this week. LPP confirmed in a statement the employees are isolating at home with sick pay. “Once we learned these team members were demonstrating symptoms, we advocated for testing and also removed additional employees known to be in close contact with these individuals,” said Jessica Kolterman, Director of Corporate and External Affairs. The company has implemented a mitigation plan over the past month: the plant began limiting visitors to the plant before its first case was confirmed and screens the temperature of anybody who enters the building. Social distancing is practiced throughout the plant where possible—like break rooms—and masks have been provided to employees. Lincoln Premium Poultry also gave workers a two dollar-per-hour raise starting in March. The plant is considering further mitigation tactics https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/live-blog-covid-19-disrupts-meatpacking-plants 849 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Fri, 17 Apr 2020 16:11:56 +0000 Live Blog: COVID-19 Disrupts Meatpacking Plants Amy Mayer When I walked onto the floor of the JBS Marshalltown Pork Plant in central Iowa, I expected the sensory assault to hit my nose first. But turns out it was my ears that first felt the most severe impact. The processing line is noisy. It’s also chilly, to protect the meat. That also prevents the sort of noxious smell I had anticipated. Instead of an animal stench, my nose mostly registered cleaning products and a raw meat smell as if I just opened a package of pork chops in my own kitchen. Myriad conveyor belts continuously move dangling, blood-drained, headless carcasses; sides of ribs; and rough-edged bellies throughout the cavernous operation, contributing to the noise. Power tools, particularly circular saws in various sizes, whirred and buzzed as employees used them to convert animal parts into cuts of meat. My media tour was arranged by the National Pork Producers Council and Iowa Pork Producers Association , each of whom sent a representative, in coordination with World Pork Expo https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/what-slaughterhouse-looks-inside 253 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Fri, 24 Jun 2016 04:00:00 +0000 What A Slaughterhouse Looks Like From The Inside Grant Gerlock The meatpacking plants that enable American consumers to find cheap hamburger and chicken wings in the grocery store are among the most dangerous places to work in the country. Federal regulators and meat companies agree more must be done to make slaughterhouses safer, and while there are signs the industry is stepping up its efforts, danger remains. The rate of meatpacking workers who lose time or change jobs because they’re injured is 70 percent higher than the average for manufacturing workers overall, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A Harvest Public Media public records request found that from January 2015 through February 2016, 145 serious accidents were reported in the factories run by the country’s four top meat companies – Tyson Foods, JBS USA, Cargill and Smithfield Foods and their affiliated companies. The reports reveal a gruesome scene. They describe, for instance: A Tyson worker in Omaha, Nebraska, amputating three fingers trying to free a pork belly jammed in https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/new-safety-efforts-underway-injuries-still-part-job-meat-workers 128 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Fri, 17 Jun 2016 13:02:00 +0000 New Safety Efforts Underway, But Injuries Still Part Of The Job For Meat Workers Jeremy Bernfeld Hundreds of thousands of people go to work each day preparing the beef, pork and poultry that ends up on our dinner tables. Their workplace is among the most dangerous in the United States. Fatalities are high and life-long injuries are common. Between 2004-2013, 151 meat and poultry workers were killed on the job, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report . The furious pace of production may also contribute to elevated levels of repetitive motion injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome, and workers face a lifetime of pain. Slaughterhouses – while safer than they were decades ago – exact a steep price from workers, sometimes even their lives. Watch the video below to learn more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqwnZ4KbiQM https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/watch-dangerous-jobs-bring-us-cheap-meat 270 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Wed, 15 Jun 2016 19:30:27 +0000 Watch: The Dangerous Jobs That Bring Us Cheap Meat Peggy Lowe The nights were often worse for Gabriel, even after long days working on the production line at a pork slaughterhouse in Nebraska. He had nightmares that the line – what the workers call “the chain” – was moving so fast, that instead of gutted hogs flying by, there were people. “You’ve been working there for three hours, four hours, and you’re working so fast and you see the pigs going faster, faster,” he says. “There are some supervisors, you stop the chain because there’s a problem, they come out yelling, ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’ They swear at you, ‘C’mon, you son of a…’” The chain is the heartbeat of any meat processing plant, the mechanized driver of eviscerated hogs, cattle and chickens, hung up on hooks and quickly moving down a line at these massive meat factories. Workers disassemble the animals into the cuts consumers prefer – tenderloins and chicken tenders, beef chuck and pork chops. The workers, most often immigrants and resettled refugees, slaughter and process hundreds of https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/working-chain-slaughterhouse-workers-face-life-long-injuries 129 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Wed, 15 Jun 2016 15:22:00 +0000 Working ‘The Chain,’ Slaughterhouse Workers Face Life-long Injuries Luke Runyon On the worst day of Greta Horner’s life, she was dressed in a burlap robe, waiting by the window for her husband to come home from work. The couple was down to one car. The other one was in the shop. She donned the costume for a play, set in Old Jerusalem, later that morning, part of Vacation Bible School at the church. She just needed the car to get there. Ralph Horner, or Ed as his family calls him, should’ve been pulling in the driveway any minute that morning in June 2014, home from his overnight shift as a maintenance employee at the beef plant in Greeley, Colorado. It’s owned by JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, with its North American headquarters a short drive from the Horners’ rural Larimer County home. Instead, three cars – one from the coroner’s office, one from the sheriff’s office, one from JBS – turned down the long, dirt driveway. “They seemed to be going so slowly, and I thought this isn’t good,” she says. She met the cars at the gate, still dressed in her costume, https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/fines-meatpackers-safety-problems-are-embarrassingly-low 133 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Tue, 14 Jun 2016 21:11:00 +0000 Fines For Meatpackers’ Safety Problems Are ‘Embarrassingly Low’ Peggy Lowe Meatpacking workers call it “the chain.” Sometimes “the line,” or “la linea.” It sets the pace for all work done at meat processing plants, production rates that force workers to make in the tens of thousands of cuts, slices and other movements for hours at a time. Those repetitions affect workers’ muscles, tendons, ligaments and nerves, causing what is called musculoskeletal disorders, or MSDs, and resulting in sprains, strains, pains, or inflammation. Although the government hasn’t linked line speeds to high rates of injuries, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s 2014 data shows that repetitive motion cases caused by “microtasks” among beef and pork processing workers were nearly seven times that of other private industries. Watch the video below to learn more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KctDrk6yVsY https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/watch-meatpacking-workers-often-face-life-pain 271 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Tue, 14 Jun 2016 19:37:32 +0000 Watch: Meatpacking Workers Often Face Life With Pain Grant Gerlock A slaughterhouse is a safer place to work than it used to be, but data gathered by federal regulators doesn’t capture all the risks faced by meat and poultry workers, according to a new government report . In an update to a 2005 report criticizing safety conditions for workers in the meat industry, the Government Accountability Office says injuries and illnesses are still common. From 2004 to 2013, 151 meat and poultry workers died from injuries sustained at work. The injury rate for meat workers remains higher than the rest of the manufacturing industry. But injuries in the meat industry are also likely to be underreported. The GAO found several situations that may keep reported numbers from packing plants lower than reality. Here are some examples: Sanitary workers who clean machinery in meat plants have suffered amputated limbs and severed fingers. Some have died on the job. But their cases are not always counted with meat and poultry industry data because many work for third-party https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/report-slaughterhouse-injuries-are-being-hidden-regulators 142 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Wed, 25 May 2016 22:17:00 +0000 Report: Slaughterhouse Injuries Are Being Hidden From Regulators