Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
•“Cleaner loses hand when he reaches under
a boning table to hose meat from chain.”
•“Hand crushed in rollers when worker tries
to catch a scrubbing pad that he dropped.”
In all, the report concluded, nearly one
hundred night shift cleaning workers in
the state meatpacking industry suffered
amputations and crushings of body parts
in the period (1999-2003) reviewed by the
investigative team. These severe injuries
are just the tip of an iceberg of thousands
of lacerations, contusions, burns, fractures,
punctures, and other forms of what the
medical profession calls traumatic injuries,
distinct from the endemic phenomenon
in the industry of repetitive stress or
musculoskeletal injury.
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Meatpackers try to maximize the volume
of animals that go through the plant by
increasing the speed at which animals are
processed. The speed of the processing line
is thus directly related to profits. However,
the fact that line speed is also directly related
to injuries has not prompted federal or state
regulators to set line speed standards based
on health and safety considerations.
The sheer volume and speed of slaughtering
operations in the meat and poultry industry
create enormous danger. Workers labor amid
