Packing plant safety still lagging, study says
Posted: Thursday, November 16, 2006
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) ---- Several years after policies were enacted to protect them, thousands of workers in Nebraska meatpacking plants continue to face a high risk of injury, a new report says.
The study by the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest also found that the workers have little knowledge of their rights and don't ask about them for fear of losing their jobs.
The study, released Wednesday, focused on whether the Nebraska Meatpacking Industry Workers Bill of Rights has helped protect workers. While a good first step toward making plants healthier and safer, "unfortunately, we found the (bill of rights) has done little on the ground to guarantee these rights for Nebraska's meatpacking work force," researchers said in the report.
"From the perspective of Nebraska's meatpacking workers, the (bill of rights) has largely failed to provide a tool to create a more meaningful relationship with employers and improving working conditions," the report says.
The measure was crafted by then-Gov. Mike Johanns after 1999 media accounts of dangerous work conditions.
Based on interviews with more than 50 meatpackers, senior company executives, worker advocates and others, the study found that companies have made a "good-faith effort" toward increasing safety.
But data do not indicate significant reductions in risks of the work, according to the report. State and federal oversight of plants has eroded, it says, and the bill of rights has not improved injured workers' access to worker's compensation benefits. In fact, the report says, many workers don't even know worker's compensation exists.
A spokesman for the state Department of Labor challenged assertions that the plants have not become safer and that the state provides less oversight.
Injury rates at Nebraska plants actually decreased overall from 2000 to 2005, said spokesman Chris Triebsch, who cited statistics from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And Triebsch said the state has not decreased inspections of plants.
Despite the study's findings, the bill of rights should not be perceived as a failure, said Darcy Tromanhauser, director of immigration integration and the civic participation program at Appleseed. It was well received by workers when it was first released more than five years ago and could improve safety if publicized more, she said.
Only one of the workers interviewed for the study, she said, knew of the document.
Anecdotal evidence gathered during the study suggests a decrease in acute injuries in plants, but an increase in injuries caused by repetitive work motions. A common complaint among workers was the speed with which they have to prepare meat that is moved along automated production lines.
"No question about it, the industry has done some changes on its own that appear to have led to some reduction in injury rates, but there are still some major violators out there," said Lourdes Gouveia, director of the Office for Latino/Latin American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She has studied the meatpacking industry in Nebraska for years, as many of the workers are Hispanic immigrants.
The meatpackers bill of rights outlines 11 fundamental rights for workers, such as the right to a safe workplace. It created no new rights for workers or legal tools to assert existing rights. The president of an Omaha-based union that represents some meatpacking workers said she would ask Gov. Dave Heineman to publicly back the bill of rights and take steps to form a committee to evaluate safety in plants. Donna McDonald, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 271 called the study's findings "very accurate."
Roughly 20,000 people work in Nebraska's meatpacking plants and about 60 percent belong to unions, she said.
Officials with Tyson Fresh Meats, ConAgra, Hormel and Swift accepted requests for interviews during the Appleseed study. Nebraska Beef and Greater Omaha Packing declined interviews. Excel did not respond.
Representatives of all the companies who participated in the study said the bill of rights did not change their attitudes, but rather reinforced ones they already had, according to the report. Managers did report a different approach to employee turnover.
"In our interviews, upper-level managers consistently remarked that especially in the last five years, their business model has changed from one that welcomes ... a high-turnover, low-skilled work force to one focused on employee retention," the report says.
The study by the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest also found that the workers have little knowledge of their rights and don't ask about them for fear of losing their jobs.
The study, released Wednesday, focused on whether the Nebraska Meatpacking Industry Workers Bill of Rights has helped protect workers. While a good first step toward making plants healthier and safer, "unfortunately, we found the (bill of rights) has done little on the ground to guarantee these rights for Nebraska's meatpacking work force," researchers said in the report.
"From the perspective of Nebraska's meatpacking workers, the (bill of rights) has largely failed to provide a tool to create a more meaningful relationship with employers and improving working conditions," the report says.
The measure was crafted by then-Gov. Mike Johanns after 1999 media accounts of dangerous work conditions.
Based on interviews with more than 50 meatpackers, senior company executives, worker advocates and others, the study found that companies have made a "good-faith effort" toward increasing safety.
But data do not indicate significant reductions in risks of the work, according to the report. State and federal oversight of plants has eroded, it says, and the bill of rights has not improved injured workers' access to worker's compensation benefits. In fact, the report says, many workers don't even know worker's compensation exists.
A spokesman for the state Department of Labor challenged assertions that the plants have not become safer and that the state provides less oversight.
Injury rates at Nebraska plants actually decreased overall from 2000 to 2005, said spokesman Chris Triebsch, who cited statistics from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And Triebsch said the state has not decreased inspections of plants.
Despite the study's findings, the bill of rights should not be perceived as a failure, said Darcy Tromanhauser, director of immigration integration and the civic participation program at Appleseed. It was well received by workers when it was first released more than five years ago and could improve safety if publicized more, she said.
Only one of the workers interviewed for the study, she said, knew of the document.
Anecdotal evidence gathered during the study suggests a decrease in acute injuries in plants, but an increase in injuries caused by repetitive work motions. A common complaint among workers was the speed with which they have to prepare meat that is moved along automated production lines.
"No question about it, the industry has done some changes on its own that appear to have led to some reduction in injury rates, but there are still some major violators out there," said Lourdes Gouveia, director of the Office for Latino/Latin American Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She has studied the meatpacking industry in Nebraska for years, as many of the workers are Hispanic immigrants.
The meatpackers bill of rights outlines 11 fundamental rights for workers, such as the right to a safe workplace. It created no new rights for workers or legal tools to assert existing rights. The president of an Omaha-based union that represents some meatpacking workers said she would ask Gov. Dave Heineman to publicly back the bill of rights and take steps to form a committee to evaluate safety in plants. Donna McDonald, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 271 called the study's findings "very accurate."
Roughly 20,000 people work in Nebraska's meatpacking plants and about 60 percent belong to unions, she said.
Officials with Tyson Fresh Meats, ConAgra, Hormel and Swift accepted requests for interviews during the Appleseed study. Nebraska Beef and Greater Omaha Packing declined interviews. Excel did not respond.
Representatives of all the companies who participated in the study said the bill of rights did not change their attitudes, but rather reinforced ones they already had, according to the report. Managers did report a different approach to employee turnover.
"In our interviews, upper-level managers consistently remarked that especially in the last five years, their business model has changed from one that welcomes ... a high-turnover, low-skilled work force to one focused on employee retention," the report says.
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