IWS Documented News DAILY POSTINGS

IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies                 Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations          Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor                  Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016                      Director, IWS News Bureau
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Human Rights Watch

Lance Compa, a consultant to Human Rights Watch, is the principal researcher and author of
this report. [He is also Senior Lecturer at the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, Cornell University].

Blood, Sweat, and Fear:
Workers’ Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants [25 January 2005]
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/usa0105/
or
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/usa0105/usa0105.pdf
[full-text, 185 pages]

Workers in the U.S. meat and poultry industry endure unnecessarily hazardous work conditions, and the companies employing them often use illegal tactics to crush union organizing efforts. In meat and poultry plants across the United States, Human Rights Watch found that many workers face a real danger of losing a limb, or even their lives, in unsafe work conditions.

[excerpt]
Any single meatpacking or poultry processing company which by itself sought to respect the
rights of its workers—and hence incurred additional costs—would face undercutting price
competition from other businesses that did not. What is required are large scale changes to
health and safety and workers’ compensation regulations and practices and greater
protection of workers’ right to organize, in particular that of immigrant workers, throughout
the meat and poultry industry.

To date, the industry as such has shown little inclination to work collectively to increase
respect for workers’ rights, either through trade association standards or through joint
support for legislative safeguards. But an equal or greater responsibility for halting workers’
rights violations in the meat and poultry industry lies with government at both federal and
state levels. Only governmental power can set a uniform floor of strengthened industry-wide
rules for workplace health and safety and for workers’ compensation benefits. Only
government agencies can effectively enforce workers’ organizing rights and ensure effective
and timely recourse and remedies for workers whose rights are violated. Only government
agencies can provide the strong legal enforcement required to deter employers from
violating workers’ rights. Finally, only government policy can change the vulnerable status of
the hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers in the meat and poultry industry.

Unfortunately, as this report shows, the United States is failing on all these counts. Health
and safety laws and regulations fail to address critical hazards in the meat and poultry
industry. Laws and agencies that are supposed to protect workers’ freedom of association are
instead manipulated by employers to frustrate worker organizing. Federal laws and policies
on immigrant workers are a mass of contradictions and incentives to violate their rights. In
sum, the United States is failing to meet its obligations under international human rights
standards to protect the human rights of meat and poultry industry workers.
.

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This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.

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Stuart Basefsky                 *
Director, IWS News Bureau               *
Institute for Workplace Studies *
Cornell/ILR School                      *
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor            *
New York, NY 10016                      *
                                        *
Telephone: (607) 255-2703               *
Fax: (607) 255-9641                     *
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu                *
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