81% of Meatpacking Workers at High Injury Risk, USDA Warns

Eighty-one percent of evaluated poultry workers were found to be at high risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders, a new study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. This risk is primarily driven by high piece rates, which is the number of animals or pieces of meat handled by each slaughterhouse worker. Nearly half of pork processing workers evaluated were also at high risk for injury. 

On January 10, the department released the results of two studies, one on poultry workers and one on processed pork workers, that looked at the impact of line speed and workloads on worker health. The studies showed that piece rate was an important metric in determining workplace safety. While line speed is important, the number of people working on each line combined with line speed provides a more comprehensive risk analysis. Among surveyed poultry workers, 40 percent reported moderate to severe pain in the last year. Most did not report that pain to supervisors.

“These USDA studies reaffirm what we have long known – that poultry and swine slaughter poses serious risk to workers, regardless of line speed. We must take stronger action to protect these workers and ensure the safety of our food supply chain,” United Food and Commercial Workers International Union president Marc Perrone wrote in a press release. 

According to United Nations FAO estimates, each day 206 million chickens and 4 million pigs are killed for food. The vast majority are raised on factory farms and killed and processed in meatpacking plants, where risks to workers such as amputation and severe falls are common.

The studies’ authors recommend lowering piece rates by increasing staffing, adapting workstations for better ergonomic practices and improving medical management within workplaces. According to data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, poultry and meat companies remain among the most dangerous to work for, in large-part due to injuries from keeping up with fast line speeds.

“Since the first term of Trump’s administration the problem of increasing the line speed and the decrease of the workforce have become some of the most important issues workers have been struggling with every day,” Magaly Licolli, executive director of Venceremos, an Arkansas-based poultry-worker advocacy group, wrote to Sentient.

“The findings of the reports are alarming, but not surprising to us because we’ve seen how for the past years, the industry has been putting workers’ health and safety at risk for the sake of their own profits,” wrote Licolli, who also called on the USDA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to pass standards to prevent increasing line speed. 

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration used federal legislation to declare meatpacking facilities essential, forcing workers to spend hours inside of buildings that would become hotspots for the virus. The Trump administration also granted poultry plants the ability to increase line speed, which some groups, like the Food Integrity Campaign, have been working to reverse through litigation. The studies released last week were a result of these lawsuits and pushback. During the height of the pandemic, as many as 269 meatpacking employees died and 59,000 workers tested positive for the virus.

“Industrial animal agriculture operates on a model of systemic exploitation to increase their profit margins at the expense of the well-being of animals, workers and rural communities. Today’s USDA studies on swine and poultry processing workers clearly show the human cost: life-altering injuries, painful work conditions and high risks tied to relentless production speeds and piece-rate pay structures,” Jessica Culpepper, executive director of FarmSTAND, a legal advocacy group, wrote to Sentient. “The incoming administration’s history of deregulating Big Ag and advancing policies that strip protections from vulnerable workers will only deepen these injustices.”