The Speed Kills You: The Voice of Nebraska’s Meat Packing Workers

Nebraska Appleseed recenlty  released a major study of meatpacking worker health and safety. The report surveyed 455 workers in five communities across Nebraska -one of the country’s largest meat producers – to assess work conditions from the perspective of the workers who live it every day.

Almost ten years after Nebraska leadership created the Meatpacking Industry Workers Bill of Rights, workers describe crippling work speed, supervisor abuse, and still not being allowed to go to the bathroom. The report highlights the need for change and makes key recommendations that would improve safety conditions for the workers who bring food to our tables and who underpin  one of the state’s most important industries. Nebraska produces one of every four steaks and hamburgers in the country.

“Not only the data, but workers’ hundreds of written comments are overwhelming,” said Darcy Tromanhauser, Director of the Immigrant Integration and Civic Participation Program.

Speed of work – including line speed and an adequate number of staff on the line – was the biggest concern among workers surveyed. 73% of workers surveyed stated that the speed of the line had increased in the past year. At the same time, 94% said that the number of staff had decreased or stayed the same. 62% of workers said they had been injured in the past year. As predicted by a 2006 U.S. Government Accountability Office study, this is far higher than the officially reported rate.

The crippling effect of repetitive motion injuries may not yet be well understood by the public, but making thousands of cuts per day can cause swollen hands, limbs curled beyond use. The gradual nature of the injury is insidious. Many disregard the initial pain, not recognizing its seriousness until muscles, tendons, and bones are damaged beyond repair, leaving individuals unable to perform even minimal daily tasks.

“For the sake of community and economic sustainability as well as a sense of basic decency, the public wants to know that meat is produced under safe conditions for the human beings doing the work,” said Becky Gould, Executive Director of Nebraska Appleseed. “The question is – what are the next steps we will take?”

“We hope the findings and recommendations in this report will help companies, community groups, workers, unions, consumers, and government work to establish creative policies and practices to create working conditions of which we can all be proud,” said Gould.

Another key worker concern was a lack of medical provider neutrality (by company-employed medical staff and doctors to whom companies referred workers), and the psychological impact of the work was clearly extreme. While a few comments referenced positive supervisors, many described supervisors screaming, employers’ apparent indifference to safety concerns, and a failure to treat workers as human beings, such as “They scream at you, they humiliate you,” “They scream at you a lot,” “They treat you the same, by screaming at you,” and “I know of three people who urinated and pooped in their pants and afterwards they laugh at you.”

Meatpacking continues to be one of the most dangerous jobs in America. Injury rates are startlingly high – more than double that of U.S. manufacturing as a whole.