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]

Re: Slaughterhouse accidents in the US- and unions

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]

Re: Slaughterhouse accidents in the US- and unions

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 ****ter instead of the ****tee.