By: Daniel Nardini
It almost sounds like a page from the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, written in 1906. In a report entitled “Unsafe at These Speeds: Alabama’s Poultry Industry and Its Disposable Workers,” put out by the Southern Poverty Law Center, workers at meat and poultry factories in the state are forced to labor at break-neck speeds as they make as much as 20,000 cuts of meat and chicken a day. While not as horrific as the conditions described in Sinclair’s book, the problems meat and poultry workers in Alabama must face are still considerable.
The speeds alone they must do can not only mean they make mistakes, but that they can suffer from such things as carpal tunnel syndrome, actual cuts from the knives they use (which can lead to infections), respiratory illnesses, and worse life-threatening physical injuries because of the break-neck speed. None of this is any good for not only the workers but also the consumers who might get a less than safe product for the dinner table. Meeting demand is one thing, but going at speeds that can harm and cause serious injury to workers is equally unacceptable.
Why is this happening? Many of the workers are Latinos, and many of the workers come from low income homes. So naturally many meat and poultry plants hire those who desperately need jobs, and a number of factory owners feel they can treat the workers any way they want. The Law Center, as well as the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights—which conducted the interviews with those workers in these factories, have appealed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack about these conditions. So far, the Department of Agriculture has not commented. The Southern Poverty Law Center has also appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—the autonomous organ of the Organization of American States. What this will do remains to be seen as it has no legal jurisdiction over any country in the Americas. But one important thing is that at least this report has come out, and like Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle, it may have an impact on the Alabama and American public.
The New Jungle
By: Daniel Nardini
It almost sounds like a page from the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, written in 1906. In a report entitled “Unsafe at These Speeds: Alabama’s Poultry Industry and Its Disposable Workers,” put out by the Southern Poverty Law Center, workers at meat and poultry factories in the state are forced to labor at break-neck speeds as they make as much as 20,000 cuts of meat and chicken a day. While not as horrific as the conditions described in Sinclair’s book, the problems meat and poultry workers in Alabama must face are still considerable.
The speeds alone they must do can not only mean they make mistakes, but that they can suffer from such things as carpal tunnel syndrome, actual cuts from the knives they use (which can lead to infections), respiratory illnesses, and worse life-threatening physical injuries because of the break-neck speed. None of this is any good for not only the workers but also the consumers who might get a less than safe product for the dinner table. Meeting demand is one thing, but going at speeds that can harm and cause serious injury to workers is equally unacceptable.
Why is this happening? Many of the workers are Latinos, and many of the workers come from low income homes. So naturally many meat and poultry plants hire those who desperately need jobs, and a number of factory owners feel they can treat the workers any way they want. The Law Center, as well as the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights—which conducted the interviews with those workers in these factories, have appealed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack about these conditions. So far, the Department of Agriculture has not commented. The Southern Poverty Law Center has also appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—the autonomous organ of the Organization of American States. What this will do remains to be seen as it has no legal jurisdiction over any country in the Americas. But one important thing is that at least this report has come out, and like Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle, it may have an impact on the Alabama and American public.