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Increased demand at slaughterhouses has caused a rise in work-related injuries, according to a report by a Nebraska-based non-profit.The Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest interviewed 455 employees who worked in one of nine Nebraska slaughterhouses during 2007 and 2008.
A total of 62 percent of those interviewed said they had been injured on the job in the past year, a rate seven times higher than the government's official statistics for slaughterhouse workers.
The high percentage of injuries is blamed on increased line speeds. Seventy-three percent of workers said their line speeds had increased in the past year. The faster the slaughtering line moves, the more animals can be killed and dismembered, thereby increasing the company's profits.
These findings are not surprising to people who've read Gail Eisnitz's "Slaughterhouse." In commemoration of Labor Day last year I wrote about what workers go through in slaughterhouses.
[Slaughterhouse workers] talk of a production system that moves too fast to render animals unconscious. Despite numerous complaints to management -- as well as countless injuries -- the companies refuse to make changes because slowing the process would mean not making as much money. When animals are not properly stunned (rendered unconscious), they fight for their lives, kicking workers, falling on top of them, running over them.The American Meat Institute responded to the Appleseed report by challenging "claims that fast production lines put workers at greater risk."
It also cited government statistics for worker injuries.
Citing U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, Janet Riley, the American Meat Institute's senior vice president of public affairs, told the paper the incident of reported injuries and illnesses for 2007 fell nearly 8 percent from the previous year.She failed to note that supervisors at slaughterhouses don't respond kindly to claims of injuries.
After Agriprocessors, the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the U.S., was raided in May 2008, employees talked about their working conditions.
Elmer L. said that he was clearing cow innards from the slaughter floor last Aug. 26 when a supervisor he described as a rabbi began yelling at him, then kicked him from behind. The blow caused a freshly-sharpened knife to fly up and cut his elbow.Virgil Butler, now deceased, recounted in 2006 his time at a Tyson chicken slaughterhouse.
He was sent to a hospital where doctors closed the laceration with eight stitches. But he said that when he returned, his elbow still stinging, to ask for some time off, his supervisor ordered him back to work.
The next day, as he was lifting a cow’s tongue, the stitches ruptured, Elmer L. said, and the wound bled again. He said he was given a bandage at the plant and sent back to work.
All but one of the most serious accidents I saw the whole time I worked for Tyson occurred in the kill room. Some of those accidents happened to me. I have scars all over my hands and arms where I cut myself. I had several nasty infections from it. When I would go to my supervisor to complain, he would tell me to prove that I got infected there and not somewhere else. I even sewed up my own hand once at break time. It took five stitches.Another reason injuries go unreported is that many workers are in the United States illegally. The Agriprocessors raid in Iowa uncovered almost 400 illegal immigrants. People here illegally wouldn't want to risk deportation by reporting injuries caused from dangerous working conditions.
(Photo courtesy of the Animal Welfare Institute.)
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5 comments:
Just another example of how exploitation and oppression of people and other animals are intertwined. In this particular case, the fight for workers rights, 'illegal' immigrants legalization and rights, animal rights, and against the babarity of capitalist profit pursuit are all present.
How absurd for animal experimenters to say they are not afraid. They tend to keep quiet not out of fear but because they'd rather not invite public scrutiny; if they fear anything its transparency.
Animal experimenters are the aggressors, of course they are not afraid.
Good post and comments. I just mentioned it on my blog. I call it: The Jungle Revisited.
http://generationv.blogspot.com/2009/10/jungle-revisited.html
Good post.
Tim, you summed it up well. Slaughterhouses facilitate the intersection of multiple oppressions (all which stem from one egregious root cause...capitalism and the pursuit of more wealth into the pockets of the already wealthy). David Nibert writes of this in his book Animal Rights/Human Rights, and Eric Schlosser also devotes time to the atrocities that occur in slaughterhouses in Fast Food Nation (a book I have only finally gotten around to reading recently). Nikki, both of these books briefly mention Upton Sinclair's The Jungle as well. Your blog has reminded me that I really owe it to myself to read that book.
Last week, I finally got around to watching the movie "Fast Food Nation." Its story of the plight and exploitation of slaughterhouse workers drives home the reality of what really goes on behind the scenes. The movie also covers the sexual harassment that is rampant in the "animal industry." I'm not really sure why, but violation rights of food industry workers is not given adequate discussion and consideration in the animal rights community, as if the workers do not matter (perhaps some feel that a slaughterhouse worker's "choice" to kill animals renders them not worthy of compassion). The truth is that most of these workers are caught up in a cycle of oppression themselves - with complicated past lives that led them to this point. Sometimes it's difficult to remember that it's far too easy to condemn someone without bothering to look more closely at their circumstances, but not so easy to put oneself in another's shoes and try to understand the desperation and despair (and the limited "choices" therein) of those who are not as privileged as oneself. There are caring and good people who are driven (much against their own needs and desires) to make compromises in life due to circumstances they have little or no control over. One cannot speak of the wealthy executives (who own the slaughterhouses and promote/facilitate oppression for profit) and the dirt poor slaughterhouse workers trying to make enough money to keep themselves and their families alive.
(Tracy, I just read your other post while writing this. I see you mention Fast Food Nation, too. I wish I had read it sooner. The author obviously did massive amounts of research and has sources to back up all of the facts he offers - excellent book and a real eye-opener.)
-Jeannie
Whoops...meant to say: *In the same breath*, one cannot speak of the wealthy executives (who own the slaughterhouses and promote/facilitate oppression for profit) and the dirt poor slaughterhouse workers trying to make enough money to keep themselves and their families alive.
-Jeannie
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