Human Rights Watch Condemns U.S. Meatpackers

This week brought a new first:  Human Rights Watch - an international human rights watchdog agency - accused a specific U.S. industry of violating basic human rights.

In a summary from the New York Times:

For the first time, Human Rights Watch has issued a report that harshly criticizes a single industry in the United States, concluding that working conditions among the nation's meatpackers and slaughterhouses are so bad that they violate basic human rights.
...

"Meatpacking is the most dangerous factory job in America," said the report's author, Lance Compa, who teaches industrial and labor relations at Cornell and is a former union organizer and negotiator. "Dangerous conditions are cheaper for companies, and the government does next to nothing."

Responding to that criticism, Richard Fairfax, director of enforcement for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said the agency vigorously oversaw the industry for excessive line speed and other problems.

 "We have a strong enforcement program" in meatpacking, Mr. Fairfax said, "and a strong compliance assistance program."

....

 "Nearly every worker interviewed for this report bore physical signs of a serious injury suffered from working in a meat or poultry plant," the report says. "Meat and poultry industry employers set up the workplaces and practices that create these dangers, but they treat the resulting mayhem as a normal, natural part of the production process, not as what it is - repeated violations of international human rights standards."

The report also says that to save themselves money, companies frequently pressure injured employees not to file workers' compensation claims.

Something to keep in mind - "repeated violations of international human rights standards" is describing the process used to bring the majority of meat products to your dinner plate.  Meat packing has also been a traditional Iowa industry - and many towns can tell you of their experiences with meatpacking companies bent on paying the lowest wage and ensuring the worst conditions possible just to boost profit margins.