Summary
This 2019 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report relies on 49 interviews with past and present workers describing their experiences in 15 different processing plants across six states. The majority of them reported serious injuries, illnesses, and mental health issues stemming from their work. Interviews were also conducted with 53 professionals with areas of expertise in worker safety, workers’ rights, and animal agriculture industries, among others.
The current report compares the information revealed from interviews to a 2005 HRW report detailing the government policies and industry business practices that led to such hazardous and abusive working conditions for employees in animal processing plants, and shows that not much has changed in this regard. Employees report being pressured to work as fast as possible with little to no restroom breaks, increased line speeds that contribute to unsafe working conditions, being understaffed, low pay (which is reportedly significantly below the national average for other manufacturing jobs), chronic exposure to hazardous chemicals, and inaccurate reporting of workplace injuries by both employees and managers. The demographics of employees working in these plants has not changed either, with a majority of them still identifying as people of color, women, and immigrants coming from marginalized communities. The report also details how corporate consolidation and the increasing political influence of these large multinational corporations has led to the loosening of government regulations meant to protect workers in the pursuit of greater profits.
The report closes with recommendations for the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to regulate, enforce, and update some of their standards related to workplace safety, especially those relating to exposure to harmful chemicals, work speeds, and ergonomic hazards, and for processing plants to be more transparent in their workplace injury reporting. Additionally, the report lists a number of international human rights laws that are likely being violated by the working conditions described in the report.