Farmworkers in south Texas continue to struggle 50 years after historic worker strike; Illinois governor signs Domestic Workers Bill of Rights; Samsung Electronics accused of withholding deadly chemical exposure information from workers; and OSHA fines a Tyson chicken plant after a worker loses a finger.
OSHA added five new topics to its regulatory agenda despite being tardy completing its current rulemaking activities. Reading the agenda brings several questions to mind.
Environmental Health
Poultry company priorities: Vegetarian meals for the chickens, but their workers still can’t use the bathroom
Delaware-based Allen Harim Foods provides another upsetting example of the poultry industry caring more about its chickens than its employees.
Food Safety & Nutrition
“Sharing happiness” is company motto, workers treated with “distrust rather than respect”
Poultry processing firm Allen Harim Foods’ slogan is “Improving the Quality of Life and Sharing Happiness.” It’s difficult for me to see how either is achieved with its mismanagement of work-related injuries and the hazards that cause them.
Republican proposal to ban unions at the IRS could mean trouble for other federal employees; ExxonMobil refinery in California cited for violations in February explosion; OSHA fines poultry company for “outrageously dangerous” conditions; and a strip club dancer calls for the same protections and respect afforded to other workers.
I’ve got to believe that someone who wants to know that the chicken they’re about to eat was humanely treated would want to know the same thing about the workers who slaughtered and packaged that poultry.
Food Safety & Nutrition
LPNs supervised by an EMT: Poultry company’s answer to an employee health clinic
OSHA found what I’d call medical malpractice going on at a nursing station at a Wayne Farms poultry processing plant. The agency called them on it in a letter to firm’s operations manager.
Poultry and meatpacking workers submitted a petition to OSHA in September 2013 asking the agency to issue a regulation to address line speed and other hazards that lead to musculoskeletal injuries. Sixteen months later, they’re still waiting for a response.
After more than a decade, OSHA used its “general duty clause” to issue citations to a poultry processing firm for ergonomic hazards.
The Labor Department convinced USDA to insert some worker safety measures into its new poultry slaughter inspection regulation. Poultry workers hope the measures are more than just words in the Federal Register notice.