Tag Archives: poultry

Chemical Exposure in Chicken Plants

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poultry-processing-plantSeveral members of Congress have written to Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell regarding the danger of the chemical PAA, which is used to sanitize chickens in poultry plants.

According to The Pump Handle blog written by occupational health expert Celeste Monforton, the increase in the use of PAA is linked to the Department of Agriculture’s “modernized inspection” system. Though meatpacking is well known for the prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries, chemical exposure is a less well-known, but similarly serious hazard, to meatpacking workers, which has been recognized by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The hazards of chemical exposure are not limited to meat-processing workers. Chemical exposure fatalities are too common in rural America. Recently, a worker on an industrial cleaning crew in Beatrice, Nebraska, was killed from inhaling industrial cleaning chemicals. In October, a resident of northeast Nebraska was killed after inhaling chemicals from a leak in anhydrous ammonia pipeline. That same month, 125 residents of Atchison, Kansas, sought treatment for inhalation of chlorine gas from an explosion at a distiller.

While chemical exposure can often result in sudden death, ongoing exposure to chemicals can also create injuries that may not be apparent for years after the exposure. Unfortunately, Nebraska limits the ability of workers to recover for such injuries.

The letter about the hazards of PAA was written to outgoing cabinet members. The new Trump administration is expected to have a less-aggressive approach toward regulating the workplace. Hopefully the new administration will take the threat posed by hazardous chemicals in the workplace seriously.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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Series Shows Reality for Workers at Meatpacking Plants

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Here are many recommended reading links for people who care about how workers are treated at places that process the meat that lands on their tables.

I have recently written about how packing plants are still brutal places to work, according to the Government Accountability office, and the articles below reinforce those perceptions.

Harvest Public Media and NET Nebraska recently collaborated on reports that show the reality of life for the majority of people who work in meatpacking plants. Because there is different information in the audio and the written reports, I think it’s best to read and listen to both. The series is appropriately called: Dangerous Jobs, Cheap Meat

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA for short, considers work in food plants to be high-hazard manufacturing industries, and recently completed a 90-day regional emphasis in Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri that focused on such businesses.

Getting hurt working in a meatpacking plant is so common. As a person can read at the links, injury incidents range from repetitive motion problems for workers on the line to a maintenance worker being killed by machinery without the right guards and also amputations for employees struggling to earn a wage and keep up with line speeds.

Even with new reporting requirements that OSHA has, some experts say that injuries are underreported in meatpacking plants. A recent report also showed that working conditions were bad, specifically in poultry plants.

“The rate of meatpacking workers who lose time or change jobs because they’re injured is 70 percent higher than the average for manufacturing workers overall, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” as quoted in the NET Nebraska article about safety efforts. However, the article says that “meat processing is drastically safer than it was 20 years ago.”

Knowing that a workplace is safer but is a place where “meat and poultry workers are still hurt more often than other manufacturing workers” is a small assurance to those who work there.

The article talks about how companies are trying to change their culture and safety records.

It’s hard to not be skeptical, as injured workers are rushed back to the line, denied treatment, or fired for being unable to perform their jobs. That’s one reason that we represent meatpacking plant employees and families who suffer a wrongful death.

Greta Horner said this in the article about her husband’s “preventable” death as a maintenance worker at a meatpacking plant, and I firmly believe it.

“They need to realize that everybody that works there is a human being with a life and it’s not just a statistic, it’s a person.

“Their employees aren’t cattle that go through the chutes. They’re people with families.”

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Workplace Injury, Workplace Safety and tagged , , , , .