DeLauro Praises Regional Program to Crack Down On Abusive Labor Practices in the Poultry Industry
Calls for National Program to help Workers Nationwide
New Haven, CT – Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) released the following statement today praising the United States Department of Labor’s announcement that it will be cracking down on abusive labor practices in the poultry industry by issuing a Regional Emphasis Program at all worksites in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas and certain worksites in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and New Mexico. The goal of this program is to reduce injuries, illnesses and fatalities related to workers’ exposures in poultry processing facilities:
“Today’s announcement is welcome news and a positive step forward for those poultry processing workers covered under this regional program. I commend the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for recognizing the need for heightened scrutiny in the poultry industry, but I continue to urge the agency to establish a national program so that all poultry processing workers will have the same protection.
“Our nation’s 250,000 poultry plant workers face a wide range of hazards repetitive motions, slippery floors, hazardous chemicals like chlorine and peracetic acid, dangerous equipment, poultry feces, high noise levels, and few rest breaks. All this is compounded by dangerously fast line speeds.”
The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that injuries are much more prevalent among poultry workers than any other industry. In 2013, poultry workers were injured at a rate 1.5 times higher than all workers and meatpacking workers at a rate twice as high. Musculoskeletal disorders are of particular concern among these workers as the incidence rate of occupational illness cases reported in the poultry industry in 2011 and 2012 has remained high, at more than five times the average for all United States industries.
According to a March 2015 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) evaluation at a poultry processing plant in Maryland, researchers found that 76 percent of the nearly 200 employees tested had abnormal results from a nerve conduction test. A staggering 34 percent had evidence of carpal tunnel syndrome, 6 times more than the general adult population. A separate evaluation conducted in April 2013 by NIOSH at a South Carolina poultry plant found that forty-two percent of participants had evidence of carpal tunnel syndrome. In that same report, forty-one percent of participants worked in jobs above the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists’ threshold limit value for hand activity and force.
Last month, the latest penalties against Case Farms Processing Inc. were for 16 violations at the chicken processor's facility in Ohio. The safety failures resulted in two serious injuries to workers while they cleaned machines, including a minor worker who had his left leg amputated from the knee down and a 24-year-old employee who lost two fingertips.
During the first week of October, DeLauro sponsored a briefing with Oxfam America highlighting some of the current abuses that persist in the industry. DeLauro is a former chairwoman of the subcommittee responsible for funding USDA, and currently serves as a senior member of that subcommittee.
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