Slaughterhouse accidents in the US- and unions

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

The US slaughterhouse industry is starting to attract a lot of concern from the trade unions movement in Britain. There's concern about the rising levels of industrial accidents and poor working conditions- both of which appear to be getting worse.

I've been doing some reading on the topic, and here's a typical piece-

Many of America's 150,000 slaughterhouse workers are immigrants, mostly Latinos. They labor long hours for between $6.00 and $9.25 per hour. SInce 1994, OSHA inspections at the slaughterhouses have decreased by 43%. The skeleton crew of 1,200 cannot possibly inspect all these plants and enforce the safety codes. The accident rate in these slaughterhouses is held to be about 36% nation-wide--many times the national industrial average. The cumulative injury rate is similarly high for things like carpal tunnel syndrome and artheritus for packing workers who cut and bone the slabs of meat on the conveyor line. Bush lowered the OSHA standards for safety conditions in the packinghouses and Tom Norton, a Republican Senator whose wife was an executive at ConAgra, successfully pushed through legislation limiting indemnities for dismemberment injuries and fines for safety and health violations in the meat plants. This has encouraged more abuses by the big packers and lower wages. Government indifferance has also greatly encouraged the hiring of illegals. Despite INS raids and arrests, the illegal proportion of the workforce in these remote rural slaughterhouses grows because they are beyond the "long arm" of union organizing drives, OSHA inspections, and the INS raids. Accident rates amoung illegals are higher than that of native born Americans who are more likely to press for their legal rights in the event of an injury. Illegals are often sent back to Mexico after some rudamentary medical treatment.

I'd be interested in hearing from any US readers as to whether this topic is attracting any attention in America, and whether these stories are considered to be reliable.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
The US slaughterhouse industry is starting to attract a lot of concern from the trade unions movement in Britain. There's concern about the rising levels of industrial accidents and poor working conditions- both of which appear to be getting worse.

The slaughter houses used to be a union industry but now the majority of the workers are illegal aliens and not union workers. Surprise, surprise. As pay went down so did safety and working conditions. Imagine that.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

That is really disturbing. Is there a growing trend towards laissez-faire in US industries?

[Dinner]

The trend goes up and down depending upon if Republicans are in office or not. FACT.

Essentially the unions are what maintained relatively high wages, safety, and working conditions so when the union breakers removed the union workers and replaced them with slightly above minimum wage worker safety and working conditions went to hell in short order. Lots of US media reports have shown that now 75% of meat packing workers in the US are illegal aliens while just 25 years ago 99% plus of the workers were citizens/legal residents and union members. The Republican Union breaking is what has brought us to this and the Republicans refusing to enact punishments for companies which hire illegal workers is what keeps it going.

Please compare this to the current Republican hysteria which calls for all dirty brown people to be deported, which attempts to make it a felony to work in the US illegally, but which does absolutely nothing to punish companies which deliberately hire illegal immigrants in order to depress wages and thus save money. Does that strike you as a tad bit one sided? Don't you think that if employers were meaningfully punished for hiring illegal workers (and thus not paying taxes) that they would be less likely to hire illegal workers?

According to the Republican politicians companies should never be punished, or at least only be given trivially small fines, while workers should be charged with felonies and placed in jail for years. That is insane and it is the Republican insanity which has brought us to this sorry state of affairs.

[Sandman]

There's a bit in Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter with Kansas? about this. He claims that by moving the slaughterhouses to isolated plains cities, the meat companies can escape from unionised labour and keep journalists, reformers and regulators at arm's length.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

What makes this worse is that slaughterhouse work is a skilled and demanding job, with lots of potential for accidents when unskilled labour is used.

There's aloso the potential for rather unpleasant results on the end products in supermarket freezers.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Don't you think that if employers were meaningfully punished for hiring illegal workers (and thus not paying taxes) that they would be less likely to hire illegal workers?

Of course, and under Bush these companies operate with impunity. Even being so brazen as to recruit in Mexico. But which party can Americans turn to? The Democrats are likely to be even more lax on illegal immigration than the Bush administration.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Caligastia


Of course, and under Bush these companies operate with impunity. Even being so brazen as to recruit in Mexico. But which party can Americans turn to?

Green party.

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Caligastia
The Democrats are likely to be even more lax on illegal immigration than the Bush administration.

At least they'd be less likely to put the interests of business over those of its workers. Although I doubt they'd make much progress back to how it was before... so basically slaughterhouse workers are screwed.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
I'd be interested in hearing from any US readers as to whether this topic is attracting any attention in America, and whether these stories are considered to be reliable.

Not really. There was someon information in Fast Food Nation but really since The Jungle we haven't really paid attention to our meat packers, in general. I have, because the meat packing industry is a scene of on going unionization attmepts, some nasty strikes, and commie organizing, but there isn't much in the mnainstream media about it.

[chequita guevara]

Given that Clinton presided over much of this, I can't agree the Democrats would be in any way better.

The problem, Cali, isn't that illegal immigrants took over the positions from union workers, but that the companies smashed their unions in the 1980s (with the help of the unions ), and now no one but illegals will do the work, because it is so dangerous. The companies actually have recuiters go to other countries to hire other people to come up and work, even from Africa.

[Alexander's Horse]

USA is two societies

[Zkribbler]

Yes, Mario Cuomo was correct in his 1984 keynote speech. American was not so much Reagan's "shining city on a hill" but rather was a "tale of two cities."

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
USA is two societies

And most of the people in the first don't acknowledge the existence of the 2nd.

[Dinner]

If you're smart you'll become educated and hopefully start your own business so you will be the shitter instead of the shittee.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Oerdin
If you're smart you'll become educated and hopefully start your own business so you will be the shitter instead of the shittee.

That's assuming your business makes money. I'll bet that most new businesses fail.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Sandman
That's assuming your business makes money. I'll bet that most new businesses fail.

And you'd be right on that.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Oerdin
If you're smart you'll become educated and hopefully start your own business so you will be the shitter instead of the shittee.

That embodies much of the problem that there is. It seems like an impossible battle to put things right, so people try to get out of 'that city' rather than fix it...I suppose it is how the current system perpetuates itself - by dangling that carrot.

[Cyclotron]

I go to school up in southeast Washington. There was a rally in Pasco, WA about a year or so ago in favor of meatpacking workers there, who were getting their benefits rolled back and were being constantly harassed by the company (I can't remember which one, off the top of my head) when they tried to start a union. The union issue was eventually put to a vote, which failed; I'm not sure if it was the corporate disinformation or what, but I just don't understand why workers would choose not to asociate in a union when it's clearly in their best interest. Likely a result of intimidation from yet another company that finds it astonishingly easy to intimidate people into staying out of organized labor.

I don't know about illegals, but the majority of people at the rally did appear to be latinos - Washington is seeing a lot of new immigrants, many quite poor, who I'm sure are willing to take whatever meager wages the plant hands out.

[DanS]

A couple of things. $6 - $9.25 isn't so bad for unskilled work in places like rural Kansas. It costs very little to live there. I imagine most of those workers send money back to their families in Mexico.

The problem with being in a dangerous line of work when you are illegal is that you may not have clear recourse to benefits if you get hurt. Also, it would seem difficult to organize a union for unskilled work.

A good start to cleaning this stuff up is to legalize the workers such that they have benefits. If they get benefits, then the premiums that the companies pay will reflect the dangerous work profile and will incentivize the companies to minimize injuries.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Oerdin
but which does absolutely nothing to punish companies

Title 7 of the house plan talks about a verification of employee's legality and penalties system for employers that knowingly hire illegals. basically it revives the SS letters, and mandates determining the legitimacy of an SS#. It also increases the penalties by an order of magnitude(still quite low).

The Democrats best plan for victory involves demanding blood,heads on pikes,carcasses,etc from outsourcers,offshorers,and companies hiring illegals. if the Republicans are split between the status quo and draconian enforcement measures the Democrats could pull this off.

Originally posted by Cyclotron
but I just don't understand why workers would choose not to asociate in a union when it's clearly in their best interest

why is it in their best interest? they have to know that they'll just get replaced if they do this.

[Alexander's Horse]

hey Dan, long time no see, if the workers don't have workplace insurance can they sue instead?

[DanS]

Hey, Horse. I guess they can, but they would seem to be at an immediate disadvantage because of their status. There are lawyers that take disability cases without immediate compensation, but I wonder whether they would take an illegal's case.

[Alexander's Horse]

the illegals wouldn't have been able to access union welfare before anyway

[DanS]

I'm not sure that's the case. I have a hunch that the construction and service unions find it easier to mask fraudulent documentation. The construction and office cleaning work crews that I see every day in DC are all Spanish-speaking and some are unionized, so you add 2 and 2...

But I agree that even if the slaughterhouses were all unionized, and the unions chose to mask fraudulent documentation, the illegals would still be in a precarious position (please let me know if that's not the thrust of what you are saying).

[Adam Smith]

Laz:

I don't know what data your sources are drawing on, but there are a couple of statements in the source you presented that appear to contradict government data I can readily lay my hands on.

They labor long hours for between $6.00 and $9.25 per hour.

Its not clear if this applies to all workers or just Latinos. In April, 2005 the average wage for all workers in Animal Slaughtering and Processing (NAICS Code 3116) was $11.41 per hour.

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.ceseeb14.txt

SInce 1994, OSHA inspections at the slaughterhouses have decreased by 43%.

OSHA inspections at Meat Products plants (Industry Group 201, includes meat packing, sausage, poultry) rose from 390 in 1994 to 410 in 2004, an increase of 5 percent. 2005 insepctions were slightly less than 1994, but may not yet include all inspection reports.

http://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/industry.html

The accident rate in these slaughterhouses is held to be about 36% nation-wide--many times the national industrial average.

In 2004, the latest year for which data are presently available, reportable injuries in animal slaughtering and processing (NAICS Code 3116) were 9.8 per 100 full time equivalent workers. While this is about twice the national average of all private industry (4.8), it is similar to the injury rate in many other industries such as construction, dairy farming, and saw mills.

http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/os/ostb1487.pdf

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
Laz:

I don't know what data your sources are drawing on, but there are a couple of statements in the source you presented that appear to contradict government data I can readily lay my hands on.

I wondered if that was the case, which is why I'm looking for more comments. The quote was drawn from a blog- a source I usually try very hard not to rely on.

[Drake Tungsten]

He claims that by moving the slaughterhouses to isolated plains cities, the meat companies can escape from unionised labour and keep journalists, reformers and regulators at arm's length.

That or they find it convenient to be near the isolated feed lots that produce the animals they're slaughtering. Add another one to the list of reasons not to care what Thomas Frank thinks is the matter with Kansas...

[Solly]

What's the problem? The free market will do its stuff in the end, and if the people aren't happy with the quality of the meat or the way it is prepared, they will go elsewhere.

If jobs are so bad in America, why have they got such high immigration?

[Proteus_MST]

Customers rarely care about the working conditions of the workers who produce the products they buy.
Most of the times it´s more important that the products are as cheap as possible (i.e. as long the quality isn´t too bad compared to more expensive products)

So, as long as quality doesn´t suffer from the poor the working conditions I doubt that people will buy other, probably more expensive meat, "just" because they care for the people working there