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Packing Safe Meatpacking plants are still among the most dangerous workplaces. America's 150, 000 meatpacking workers do the most hazardous job in the country, as a lot of them performing knife cuts every few seconds (Fink, 2001, p. 25). Among main categories of illnesses represented in the sphere, the disorders connected with repeated motion, jigging, or pressure was considerably significant generally for manufacturing and particularly for meatpacking. In meatpacking sphere, repeated trauma usually shapes into carpal tunnel syndrome, it is when the nerve passing through the wrist to the hand is nipped and compressed as a result of fast, reiterative, forceful motion.
Cuts and strains, lacerations and sprains were, considerably, the main reason of injury and illness. They gave rise to approximately 3 / 5 of the cases in meatpacking and 1 / 2 of those in manufacturing in large. Moreover, about 1 / 8 of the meatpacking accidents were professional illnesses and injuries, mainly inflammation of sinews, muscles and joints (like tendonitis), or illnesses of the nerves or peripheral nerve knots (such as carpal tunnel syndrome) (Drabenstott & Mitchell, 1999, p. 70). The thoracic limbs, particularly hand, wrist and fingers are the main parts of the body injuries and illnesses. They were involved in nearly 1 / 2 of the meatpacking accidents and approximately 1 / 3 of those in manufacturing. Other main parts exposed to were the trunk, particularly the back, and the pelvic limbs.
They both, the trunk and pelvic limbs, were involved in nearly 4 / 10 of the meatpacking accidents and as a rough guide 1 / 2 of the manufacturing accidents. Less usually, the neck, head and eyes were involved in professional accidents (Drabenstott & Mitchell, 1999, p. 79). In 2003 the official rate of illnesses and injuries in meatpacking was 25 %. If taking into account the chronic under reporting of those in meatpacking, especially when it comes to cumulative stress disorders, the actual rate of illnesses and injuries is certainly much higher. "In Walla Walla, the union examined plant injury logs and found that 781 injuries had been recorded in 2002 and 2003, while in a recent union-sponsored survey of just under 500 workers, two-thirds said they had suffered a work-related health problem in the past twelve months" (Kandel & Parrado, 2005, p. 447).
The reasons for this are well-known. 4 huge competitors - Excel (owned by Cargill), IBP, Farmland National Beef and ConAgra - control the meatpacking industry, together regulating more than 85 % of the US market. Because profit level in the industry is less than in other manufacturing branches, the companies are particularly eager to keep labor costs as low as possible and at the same time volume as high as possible - which results in "hiring cheap labor, discouraging unions and maintaining intolerably high chain speeds, even if those things contribute to the industry's astronomical turnover rates" (Fink, 2001, p. 44). The fact is that many meatpacking workers today are non-English immigrants, some of them in the U. S.
illegally; thus, they are less likely to make complaints against unsafe conditions. At the same time, examinations made by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration decreased to unprecedented low. No one wants that trend to be reversed under President Bush, who, first of all proposed cuts in OSHA's budget two years ago and, in a gesture urged by the meatpacking industry in general, canceled workplace ergonomics standards that had been under foundation for 10 years (Cooper, 2000, p. 11). But what a strange fact a wish to take on a huge meat packer is not so easy to perform; in Amarillo, for example, approximately 500 workers who walked out were fired. (Though some of them have been hired back).
Of course, it's very unlikely that some revitalized union locals would be able to make the influential packers to reduce the perilous speed of production - the main cause of the frightfully high injury and illness rates in meatpacking. (Cooper, 2000, p. 19). "There are things that explain these explosions, " mentions David Levin, a TDU organizer. "One is just the incredible speedup and pressure in the workplace, and the safety hazards that come with that. Then there is the really abusive and disrespectful treatment of workers. You " re made to work faster than you can safely, and then treated disrespectfully in this often racist way by management. When people are facing these problems as individuals, they seem insurmountable, but in combination it can be an explosive concoction" (cited in Kandel & Parrado, 2005, p. 448) For example, Freeman (1997, p. 21).
explains: Both men and women from Central America and Mexico have for a long time been making the transition north to Washington's Columbia River valley, a great farming region where fields of asparagus and vineyards give seasonal work to immigrant workers. A work at IBP is some kind of "promotion", as it is one of the several local year-round works accessible to a non-English laborer. 90 % of the plant's laborers are immigrants: most are from Latin America, while a minority is refugees from Bosnia, Vietnam and Laos. Certainly it is necessary to make a thorough study of meatpacking plants in order to examine the fundamental causes of and attitudes to safety and health issues. Ideally, such a survey would relate employee hours to injury and illness case characteristics to find steadfast measures of the incidence and prevalence of workplace accidents and exposures at a national level. But, firstly, it's necessary to determine current situation in the sphere examined in order to resolve the problem under consideration. First, the meatpacking industry continues to be more labor-intensive than production as a whole and has an above-average proportion of production workers.
Second, the use of manual labor rather than machine operators is still the rule in meatpacking. And, the widespread use of an assembly-line approach to processing "boxed beef's ubstituted, to a large extent, lower skilled, less experienced workers for higher skilled meat cutters using traditional, non-assembly line production methods (Cooper, 2000, p. 12). Third, the increasing speed of the assembly line in meatpacking that contributes not only to the industry's productivity gains, but also to its safety and health problems. Fourth, labor turnover rates were higher in meatpacking than in all manufacturing. Above-average turnover may still be prevalent in the industry. It has been suggested that the recent relocations of plants to rural areas has attracted a more transient work force.
Such inexperienced, untrained workers tend to be more accident-prone, especially when doing work for which there are no recognized safety standards, such as handling heavy objects (Barboza, 2001, 17). For dealing with the situation, I think, it's better to use both legislative and practical means. As for the practical one, some experts consider it can be some engineering controls that will minimize safety and health hazards, for example mesh safety gloves and enforcement of glove usage as contributing to fewer knife cuts in recent years; the increased use of new flooring materials and cleaning compounds as well as better designed work boots to reduce slip and fall hazards; focusing on the study of equipment design to reduce fatigue and discomfort; using ergonomics manual on strains and sprains, mainly in response to the extensive exposure of industry workers to cumulative trauma disorders of the hand, wrist, shoulders, and back due to repetitive movements; a review of knives, knife handles, and alternatives to knives, such as lasers; meetings with equipment and tool manufacturers; and a reevaluation of assembly-line speeds and the use of "micro" breaks or exercise (Kandel & Parrado, 2005, p. 449). A good idea, for instance, is using Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR) systems which perform resulting separation of meat from bone not using prevalent vibrating, hand-held knives that often cause cumulative trauma disorders. Human Rights Watch, in its turn, provides some for protecting workers in the meat and poultry industry which ought to be totally followed. It is: new federal and state laws to reduce production line speeds; stronger state regulations to halt under reporting of injuries; stronger worker compensation laws and enforcement of anti-retaliation laws; U.
S. labor law compliance with international standards on workers' freedom of association; new laws ensuring workers's avery regardless of their immigration status (Freeman, 1997, p. 1). Thus, the question is if all these laws and regulations will help to decrease the danger and high rates of injuries. To my mind this regulations are sufficient enough as legislative base, of course, for changing the situation.
For example, reducing production line speeds with the help of new federal and state laws will contribute to modifying this industry into a less labor-intensive one. Simultaneously making state regulations to halt under reporting of injuries stronger will result in a possibility to conduct proper surveys and obtain accurate statistics to cover the problem more deeply as well as compliance of U. S. labor law with international standards on workers' freedom of association will help workers to protect their rights and to express their view on the problem freely. And at last new laws ensuring workers's avery regardless of their immigration status are really important because of the facts provided above.
In such a way I think if these laws and regulations are created and adopted they will really improve the current situation in industry. Still, workers and industry critics hope that more consumers will come to appreciate the link between food safety and a safer workplace. For example, Home Justice Watch, a Texas-based group that works on worker safety, human rights and animal rights violations in slaughterhouses, has launched the Eat Rights campaign to focus consumer attention on these issues. "The same things that contribute to the contamination of the meat are what make it more likely that people are going to get hurt, " says Eric Schlosser. "The only reason it's been allowed to continue is that people don't know. Even if you have no compassion for the poor and the illegal in this state, if you eat meat, or the people you love eat meat, you should care" (cited in Fink 2001, p. 35) References Barboza, D. (2001, 21 December). "Meatpackers' profits hinge on pool of immigrant labor, " New York Times. Cooper, M. (2000, February 3). The Heartland's Raw Deal: How Meatpacking Is Creating a New Immigrant Underclass.
The Nation, 264, 11. Drabenstott, M. , M. & K. Mitchell. (1999). "Where have all the packing plants gone? The new meat geography in rural America, " Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City (3 rd Quarter): 65 - 82.
Fink, D. (2001). Cutting into the Meatpacking Line: Workers and Change in the Rural Midwest (J. T. Kirby, Ed. ). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Freeman, R.
B. (ed. ) 1997. Working Under Different Rules. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Gonzalez, C. (2005, January 26) Group criticizes packers Meat industry officials dismiss Human Rights Watch report Recommendations. Iowa: Nebraska Edition. Retrieved May 29, 2006 from web Kandel, W. , & Parrado, E.
A. (2005). Restructuring of the US Meat Processing Industry and New Hispanic Migrant Destinations. Population and Development Review, 31 (3), 447.
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Research essay sample on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Human Rights Watch
