|
• Cover
• News | blog
• Music | blog
• Lazy I
• Film | blog
• Theater | blog
• Art | blog
• Sports
• Lifestyle | blog
• Dish | blog
• Books | blog
• Culture
• 8 Days
• Heartland Healing
• Hoodoo Blues
• MoJoPo
• News of the Weird
• Television
• Letters
|
|
|
Home - News
|
Kill Speed
|
Report highlights abuse against Nebraska meat- packers while inspectors make less visits
by Bryan Cohen
It’s been 10 years since then-Gov. Mike Johann’s signed the Nebraska Meatpacking Industry Workers Bill of Rights, but according to a new study, many workers say conditions are getting worse.
The study, conducted by the civil rights group Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, was based on an anonymous survey of 455 meatpacking workers in five communities statewide. Most of those surveyed were foreign born Latinos, with 45.8 percent from Mexico and 24.8 percent from Guatemala. Appleseed also kept anonymous the communities, sites and companies surveyed.
Physical and emotional abuse by supervisors was widely reported by workers. One respondent said “I know of three people who urinated and pooped their pants and afterwards they just laugh at you.” Respondents overwhelmingly cited line speed as their biggest concern on the job — 73 percent surveyed said line speed had increased in the past year while 94 percent said the number of workers had decreased or stayed the same.
Line speed was also cited as a factor in the high rate of workplace injuries — 62 percent of workers said they had been injured in the past year. More than half said workplace conditions had become less safe in the past year. According to surveys, workers are afraid to leave the line for fear of being fired or otherwise disciplined. Nearly all of those interviewed said they knew they had rights as workers, but less than 30 percent thought the mere existence of those rights made a difference.
When asked if their rights made a difference, one worker said “The supervisors take advantage of the fact that you need the work – they yell at you, you don’t have the right to go to the bathroom.” Another said rights didn’t matter because “I am Latino.” When asked about line speed, one worker said “Sometimes people don’t report (injuries) because afterwards they marginalize them and give us too much work.” Still another said “They should improve their treatment towards the workers; they treat us worse than animals.”
Darcy Tromanhauser, Appleseed’s director for the immigrant integration and civic participation program, said outcry over line speed shows the state needs to dedicate more time and money to bolster enforcement of worker safety laws.
Jose Santos should be the go-to-guy for Nebraska meatpacking workers whose rights under state or federal law have been violated. However, according to Appleseed’s study, fewer than 10 percent of packing workers have heard of him.
Santos is Nebraska’s Meatpackers Workers Rights Coordinator. The position was created by Johanns to monitor compliance with the bill of rights, which include: the right to a safe work place, the right to organize, the right to adequate equipment and the right to complete information on workers protections. Around 90 plants statewide must comply with the law.
Part of Santos’ job is to make announced visits to plants and meet with workers, management and union officials.
“Usually everyone is smiling and happy,” he said. “They don’t come out and tell me what’s wrong.”
Santos said he used to visit every plant at least once a year, but now due to budget restraints and higher travel costs, he can only make visits on a case by case basis.
If plants are found to be in violation of the meatpackers bill of rights, they can be cited with a misdemeanor charge and required to pay a fine. Santos said he has not issued one misdemeanor citation since the bill was passed. When asked how that record could be squared with Appleseed’s interviews, that seem to describe clear violations, Santos said “I have never experienced that personally, so I don’t know what to tell you.”
Industry representatives allege Appleseed’s study is misleading. The American Meat Institute is a trade association that represents packers and producers, including local packing houses Greater-Omaha Packing and ConAgra.
“They’re trying to paint this industry as chaotic,” said AMI spokeswoman Janet Riley. “You can’t reconcile those statements with the (injury) data.”
Riley said injury rates in packing houses are comparable to other manufacturing jobs and that there are federal regulations governing line speed, and that federal regulators are on site.
However those line speed rules and on-site regulators are for food safety, governed by the FDA, not for worker safety. U.S. Rep. Lee Terry, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee that considers food safety regulations, refused comment for this story.
Appleseed presented its study at an Oct. 7 press conference in front of the Livestock Exchange Building in South Omaha. With the symbol of Omaha’s meatpacking history behind her, former meatpacking plant worker Frankie Miller described modern working conditions that sounded more like stories from the Exchange’s heyday.
Miller said supervisors threaten to fire injured employees if they take time off work, and they refuse to slow line speeds if someone uses the bathroom, putting additional stress on workers.
Miller said on-site medical attention in the plants is minimal, usually performed by “somebody they call a nurse, but they just give you pills and band aids.”
Workers compensation attorney Rod Rehm, who contributed to the report, said many companies deflate workers compensation costs and injury rates by telling workers they must see company nurses instead of their own doctors.
“When you go to cut your roast beef, there are probably thousands of people in the state of Nebraska that can’t even hold a knife because their hand is injured (from meatpacking),” he said.
Appleseed included dozens of recommendations to address the study’s findings. The report recommended increasing fines for violations to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act and that the federal Department of Labor conduct random, unannounced worker safety checks.
“Read the comments of these workers and tell me if you feel comfortable with the food from these plants,” said Tromanhauser. “There’s a difference between tough work and unsafe work.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
