Unsafe at These Speeds

Every day in Alabama, thousands of people report to work at vast poultry processing plants.

Inside these frigid plants, workers stand almost shoulder-to-shoulder as chicken carcasses zip by on high-speed processing lines. Together, small teams of workers may hang, gut or slice more than 100 birds in a single minute. It’s a process they’ll repeat for eight hours or more in order to prepare birds for dinner tables and restaurants across America.

This grueling work serves as the foundation of a lucrative industry that supplies the country’s most popular meat, a protein source that Americans devour at a rate of more than 50 pounds per person every year.

Alabama produces more than 1 billion broilers per year – ranking it third among states behind Georgia and Arkansas. It’s an industry with an $8.5 billion impact on the state – generating about 75,000 jobs and 10 percent of Alabama’s economy – and one that plays a vital economic role in numerous small towns.

But it all comes at a steep price for the low-paid, hourly workers who face the relentless pressure of the mechanized processing line.

Nearly three-quarters of the poultry workers interviewed for this report described suffering some type of significant work-related injury or illness. In spite of many factors that lead to undercounting of injuries in poultry plants, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reported an injury rate of 5.9 percent for poultry processing workers in 2010, a rate that is more than 50 percent higher than the 3.8 percent injury rate for all U.S. workers.

Poultry workers often endure debilitating pain in their hands, gnarled fingers, chemical burns, and respiratory problems – tell-tale signs of repetitive motion injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, and other ailments that flourish in these plants.

The processing line that whisks birds through the plant moves at a punishing speed. Over three-quarters of workers said that the speed makes their work more dangerous. It is a predominant factor in the most common type of injuries, called musculoskeletal disorders. But if the line seems to move at a pace designed for machines rather than people, it should come as no surprise. Plant workers, many whom are immigrants, are often treated as disposable resources by their employers. Threats of deportation and firing are frequently used to keep them silent.

But workers speaking freely outside of work describe what one called a climate of fear within these plants. It’s a world where employees are fired for work-related injuries or even for seeking medical treatment from someone other than the company nurse or doctor. In this report, they describe being discouraged from reporting work-related injuries, enduring constant pain and even choosing to urinate on themselves rather than invite the wrath of a supervisor by leaving the processing line for a restroom break.

Juan (not his real name) was told to get back to work after falling while lifting an 80-pound box of chicken. X-rays later showed two fractured vertebrae. He was fired, and the employer has not paid any of his medical bills.

The stories in this report were collected by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Alabama Appleseed from interviews with 302 workers currently or previously employed in Alabama’s poultry industry. These workers are among the most vulnerable in America.

OSHA, which regulates the health and safety of workers in this country, has no set of mandatory guidelines tailored to protect poultry processing workers. Workers cannot bring a lawsuit to prevent hazardous working conditions or even to respond to an employer’s retaliation if they complain of safety hazards or other abusive working conditions. Many live in rural areas and have no other way to make a living, which means they must accept the abuse or face economic ruin.

Making matters worse, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is poised to enact a new regulation that will actually allow poultry companies to increase the speed of the processing line – from a maximum of 140 birds per minute to 175. The rule is part of the agency’s overhaul of its food safety inspection program, changes that have been harshly criticized by food safety advocates. There is no state or federal line speed regulation designed specifically to protect the safety of workers who produce the food.

This is the face of the modern poultry industry in Alabama – an industry unfettered by serious regulation and blessed with a vulnerable workforce that has lacked a voice in the halls of government and has little power to effect change. This report presents survey findings and examines how flawed policy, lack of oversight and weak enforcement have allowed this exploitation to thrive. It also offers recommendations to end it.

Oscar developed serious wrist and hand pain while working in a poultry plant. He was diagnosed with tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome common injuries among poultry workers. He was fired.

When Diane* was diagnosed with severe carpal tunnel syndrome, her doctor was clear about what caused the condition – her work at the poultry processing plant.

It was news her employer didn’t want her to hear. In fact, Diane knew she could be fired if her employer learned she had sought treatment from her own doctor instead of the company doctor or nurse.

Her boss had made it clear how she should deal with her pain.

“My supervisor let me know that if my hands hurt and I go see the nurse, I should tell her that the pain comes from something that happened at home,” the 38-year-old African-American woman said. “I shouldn’t say it’s work-related. If I say my pain comes from something I did at work, then I will be laid off without pay and three days later get fired. So, when I go to the nurse I tell her that I hurt my hands at home.”

But Diane knew the treatment recommended by the nurse – taking a Tylenol and soaking her hands in water – wouldn’t be enough to address a serious injury.

So, she secretly saw a doctor and was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome.

Diane’s story is not unique. Company policies requiring workers to see plant nurses first, even threatening discipline if workers initially seek outside treatment, are prevalent throughout the industry.

Company doctors and nurses often deter workers from seeking their own treatment or workers’ compensation.

Yet, if these workers see the company nurse too often, they’re fired. Workers in this survey told of at least two plants with unwritten but rigid practices that result in the termination of any worker believed to have sought medical attention from the plant nurse too often.

Given these working conditions, it’s not surprising that 66 percent of survey respondents believe their co-workers were scared or reluctant to report injuries. Seventy-eight percent of those respondents attributed it to fear of being fired.

Plant employees are often worked until they can bear no more and then tossed aside. Because workers know they are essentially disposable, it is difficult – if not impossible – for them to take a stand to improve their safety.

Roberta,* a young Latina in South Alabama, went to her plant nurse’s office three times to seek relief from the aches in her hands and wrists. After the third visit, she was told that she had gone to the nurse too many times. She was fired.

Kendrick, a young African-American man, developed carpal tunnel syndrome as he worked the deboning line at a plant. When he asked the nurse for a lighter work assignment, she let him know there were consequences for such a request.

“Do you want your job?” she asked him.

Samantha,* a 24-year-old African-American woman, was fired because she supposedly visited the plant nurse one too many times about the pain and swelling in her wrists.

Juan (not his real name), pictured here with two of his children, has received no compensation or help with medical bills after injuring himself at work.

“They shouldn’t have a nurse’s office at all if they don’t want you to go to it,” she said.

Three years after being fired, Samantha’s hands still swell and become so numb that she cannot move them.

In total, this survey found that about 40 percent of injuries went unreported to the company. About one-fourth (24 percent) of all injuries discussed in the interviews went unreported because of the worker’s fear of being fired or disciplined for reporting the injury, missing work to heal, or seeking medical treatment.

This fear is well-founded. Almost one-tenth (9 percent) of workers who reported an injury were fired or otherwise disciplined for being injured, missing work or seeing a doctor.

Many workers who did report their injuries noted serious problems with access to medical care and recovery time. Of the workers who reported any injury to the company:

• 33 percent described the medical treatment received from company nurses as inadequate (only 22 percent of reported injuries were met with adequate in-plant medical treatment);

• 45 percent were sent right back to their same job without access to treatment or time to recover when they tried to get medical care from the company;

• 14 percent were given time off from work to heal;

• 82 percent noted they were never sent to a doctor; and

• 50 percent of the time workers saw a doctor, they said that the decision of when they returned to work was made by the poultry corporation rather than the treating doctor or injured worker.

When workers manage to visit the plant nurse, they often described the nurse providing temporary remedies such as a Band-Aid, a warm-water hand wash, or instructions to buy pain medication from a vending machine in the employee break room. Workers are then, routinely, sent back to their assignment without rest or relief. The nurses, enforcing company policies, discourage workers from seeking their own treatment.

One survey participant recalled a nurse who quit working at a poultry plant because of the company’s disregard for worker health. According to the worker, she said, “These people are going to make me lose my license because of the way they make me treat people.”

Juan,* a Latino father of three living in Alabama since 1999, worked for six years in a poultry plant. He worked primarily in stacking jobs that required him to lift, carry and stack two 80-pound boxes of chicken a minute. While lifting a box of chicken, he became dizzy, slipped, and fell to the floor. He was told to go right back to working despite being in great pain.

Juan’s back pain worsened and the swelling became constant. He was unable to sleep. When he was finally able to get X-rays, they revealed that he had two lumbar vertebrae fractures from the fall. He was eventually fired. Juan has yet to recover. His employer never paid for any medical treatments. Another worker, Fernanda,* described losing her breath from the pace of the line where she deboned chicken carcasses. She told her supervisors that she felt that she was going to faint. They would not allow her to take a break or slow the line. She fainted. Co-workers caught Fernanda before she hit the floor. She was unconscious for several minutes. After she was revived, Fernanda was given less than 30 minutes to rest before being ordered back to the line.

Even if a company doesn’t create obstacles for workers seeking outside treatment, a lack of insurance can prevent them from receiving medical care. More than one-third (38 percent) of workers participating in the survey didn’t have health insurance. Only 16 percent had health insurance fully paid by their employer.

Wilfrido, who has worked in the poultry industry for a dozen years, said that in the plants where he has worked, if a worker has a doctor’s excuse assigning light duty, the company just sends the worker home without pay or even fires the worker.

Many doctors practicing near the plant appear to be aware of this situation. Some actually tell workers that they would like to give them a note recommending light duty, but that they think they should not do so because it could lead to the worker’s firing.

Most poultry workers eventually give up on reporting injuries and seeking treatment from company nurses. They give up after witnessing workers lose their jobs. And they give up after receiving treatments from company nurses that leave them wondering why they should even bother. These workers often realize they only have one option – working through the pain.

Points system costs workers their health, jobs

Even without these obstacles, a worker seeking outside medical treatment must take time off from work to do so. This can be another hurdle, partly because of a points system that penalizes them for such absences.

Virtually all Alabama poultry plants rely on this system to enforce attendance policies. The system varies slightly among companies, but the general premise is that for each absence – even late arrivals or early departures – the employee receives a point or a half point. The reason for the absence or tardiness usually doesn’t matter.

When an employee reaches a certain number of points, that person is fired. Depending on the company’s policy, it can take as few as six points for an employee to be fired. At some plants, it can take a year for the employee to work off a single point.

Even workers who have a doctor’s appointment or a chronic illness can get a point for taking time off to seek treatment. In an industry notorious for its high rate of long-lasting injuries, this type of policy can force employees to choose between their health and their employment. It also means injured or ill workers will almost certainly be fired – enabling the company to quickly dispose of workers who have endured harsh working conditions as they’ve helped the company turn a profit.

This points system cost LaTonya, a young African-American woman, her job at a poultry plant in North Alabama where she cut chicken legs and thighs. She has asthma, which occasionally flared up and forced her to leave work. Sometimes her supervisors or the plant nurse ordered her to leave work to recuperate, an uncommon occurrence in an industry where injured and ill workers are often coerced into working even when ill or injured.

Fernanda

But even on the days LaTonya was told to leave the plant, she received a point under the points system. Her employer even denied her request to work in areas that did not aggravate her condition. Instead, she was forced to work in rooms that both she and her supervisors knew made it difficult for her to remain at work.

Wilfrido

LaTonya received her final point when she needed emergency medical care.

On that day, her supervisors attempted to force her to stay at work. When she insisted that she needed medical treatment a plant nurse couldn’t provide, her supervisor told her that if she left, she would “point out.”

In other words, she would be fired.

LaTonya feared for her health. She made the difficult decision to go to the hospital, even though it meant losing her job.

EEOC case offers hope

A recent lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) highlights a legal problem with points systems. In EEOC v. Verizon Wireless, the EEOC alleged that no-fault attendance policies – such as the points system frequently used by poultry plants – violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The EEOC argued that Verizon Wireless was required to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled employees that would allow them to continue working. Such reasonable accommodations include not receiving points for absences caused by their disability and its symptoms.

The EEOC’s argument in this case, which was settled out of court, recognizes that points systems discriminate against workers with disabilities. These workers could continue working if the company permitted them to take the time to seek medical treatment and recover as needed. Refusing to do so while forcing employees to engage in such demanding and dangerous jobs is unjust and illegal.

Until the poultry industry ends these policies, its workers will continue to discover what workers before them have learned about the industry.

“It’s a house of pain in there,” Kendrick said.

A remarkable transformation took place at one Alabama poultry plant whenever the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) conducted an inspection.

“When the big shots visit the plant, we’re told to clean, work and follow policies,” a poultry worker said during this survey. “I’m told to work differently when OSHA comes to inspect. Supervisors are nice, and we pretend like everything is fine and we like our job. OSHA has never talked to [me or my co-workers] about our work conditions.”

Many poultry workers develop tendonitis or carpal tunnel syndrome. They often try home remedies or braces to avoid surgery, which is sometimes the only real remedy.

As this worker’s story shows, though OSHA inspections are “normally” implemented without advance notice to employers, it is not always the case. And too often it means that companies are successful in hiding dangerous conditions.

Despite OSHA’s responsibility to ensure worker safety, it has no mandate to regulate processing line speeds to protect workers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the only agency that currently regulates line speeds. But the USDA’s regulations are designed to guard against contamination of the product, not to protect workers from hazardous conditions.

OSHA, in fact, has no standards tailored specifically for the poultry industry. This means that only the “General Industry OSHA Standards” are used to regulate the industry. OSHA is the only source of health and safety regulations for Alabama companies.

OSHA is also severely understaffed. It employs enough inspectors to inspect each U.S. workplace, on average, once every 129 years.

Official worker complaints rare

In this survey, poultry workers were asked whether they were aware of a complaint to any worker protection agency, such as OSHA or another branch of the U.S. Department of Labor, that was made by themselves or a co-worker. Even though the overwhelming majority of the 302 workers surveyed told us of dangerous conditions at their workplace, only 17 (of 247 workers who answered the question) reported knowledge of a complaint filed with an agency such as OSHA.

Among these 17 workers, 11 indicated that nothing at all happened in response to the complaint, and only three reported any positive changes.

These data help show that many workers are unable to file a complaint because of the fear of retaliation and the complex complaint process. They also show that even when a worker files a complaint with OSHA or a similar agency, inspections and positive results are rare.

A handful of workers reported that working conditions became more dangerous after an OSHA inspection. That’s because the company had slowed the processing line while OSHA officers were in the plant. Once inspectors left, the line speed was increased beyond its usual rapid pace to make up for the lost production.

OSHA conducts some planned inspections at worksites it strategically selects based on data or a random sampling, rather than in response to complaints filed by individual workers. However, over the past five years, it has conducted only two planned inspections in Alabama poultry processing plants. OSHA also inspects sites that have received worker complaints. Though OSHA investigates employee complaints, several factors prevent the agency from effectively addressing many of the abusive conditions workers described in this survey.

A key flaw in OSHA enforcement is that it primarily investigates complaints from current employees. Complaints from former employees – the workers with least to fear – are rarely investigated. But the agency offers little protection from retaliation for current workers who bring attention to safety problems, and few in the poultry industry are willing to risk their jobs, particularly when they have little evidence that filing a complaint will improve conditions.

Even workers courageous enough to file a complaint may find they have waited too long to take action. Employees have only 30 days to file a complaint. David Michaels, assistant secretary for OSHA, has argued that it often takes more than 30 days for an employee to understand a hazard in the workplace, much less to formally file a complaint. The strict 30-day rule prevents many valid complaints from being reviewed.

Even complaints that are investigated face uncertain outcomes and weak enforcement. OSHA at times has sought to increase the number of inspections and the number of serious sanctions handed down each year, but very few health and safety cases are ever handed over to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for formal prosecution. According to William M. Murphy, a former top OSHA official, an objective to prosecute cases is “never communicated” to the OSHA staff.

This was apparent in 2003, when The New York Times reported that in 20 years, OSHA made referrals to the DOJ in only 7 percent of cases involving deaths caused by willful employer violations.

In addition, civil and criminal penalties are often so low that they fail to provide any deterrent. According to Michaels, OSHA’s most serious limitation is “the very low level of civil penalties allowed under our law, as well as our weak criminal sanctions.”

The low level of civil penalties is visible in the data on OSHA’s enforcement efforts in Alabama’s poultry processing plants, which have seen 20 inspections in the past five years, resulting in 78 citations and slightly more than $184,000 in fines actually paid. Twenty-two of these citations were deleted or excluded from the formal record. These 22 citations include three citations assessed at the most serious level.

Most fines are low, often $5,000 or less. These fines are often waived or greatly reduced during settlement. Alabama poultry plant employers paid the full fine issued for only 17 of the 78 citations issued for workplace safety violations during the past five years.

Quite simply, it is often cheaper to run an unsafe plant and pay minuscule fines than to protect workers from injury and illness. Without the threat of strong penalties for willful OSHA violations, the agency is unlikely to promote any real change. Without proper enforcement mechanisms, OSHA efforts cannot lead to safer workplaces.

Workers can’t file lawsuits

Health and safety problems are mostly exempt from a significant protection enjoyed by workers trying to enforce other types of rights – the ability to file a lawsuit. A private right of action by an employee against an employer is not available under OSHA statutes. In a speech to a U.S. Senate committee, Michaels, the assistant secretary for OSHA, has argued that employees should have the right to file civil suits in federal court against employers for violating orders issued to provide relief to workers.

A private right of action would permit workers to protect their own health and safety instead of relying on an understaffed agency that has been, for several decades, increasingly unable to enforce health and safety standards in most American workplaces. Without a private right of action, these workers remain vulnerable.

This inability to bring a lawsuit extends even to the Occupational Safety and Health Act’s Section 11(c) – a section of the statute created specifically to protect whistleblowers filing OSHA complaints against employers. Without a private right of action, workers reporting health and safety violations largely do so at the risk of employer retaliation.

Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, HB 56, gave employers a tool to intimidate undocumented employees into working under even more hazardous conditions, workers say.

Americans eat more than 50 pounds of chicken each year, on average, making it the country’s most popular meat.

But while Americans enjoy the luxury of this relatively inexpensive and always available food, tens of thousands of low-paid workers who produce this bounty are paying a steep price.

They spend long hours keeping pace with relentless poultry processing lines and endure grueling conditions that leave many with painful and, often, permanent injuries from the stress of countless, repetitive motions required to turn chicken carcasses into consumer products. They are treated by their employers as a resource that can be tossed aside once they are used up or broken beyond repair.

Yet, they’re the reason Americans can count on finding boneless, skinless chicken breasts at their local supermarket. They’re the reason a fast-food joint can churn out an endless stream of chicken nuggets or a platter of Buffalo wings.

While the poultry industry has been built on the backs of these workers, they enjoy few legal protections, and federal regulations do little to protect their health and safety. In fact, a new rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will make their jobs even more dangerous by increasing the speed of poultry processing lines up to 175 birds per minute.

But reforms can help protect poultry workers and improve their working conditions.

The U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) should stop the epidemic of repetitive motion injuries in poultry processing plants by limiting line speeds and the number of repetitions required of workers; by enforcing rights to bathroom and other rest breaks; and by requiring other ergonomically sound practices. The USDA should withdraw its proposed rule that would allow companies to increase line speeds.

State lawmakers can also take action. In 2003, Nebraska enacted a Meatpacking Workers Bill of Rights. Among other rights, this state law included the right of workers to have proper tools, the right to be free from discrimination, and the right to a safe workplace. Currently, all Nebraska employers within the meatpacking industry must follow the bill of rights. Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas, the three leading poultry-producing states, are not among the 27 states that have job safety and health standards approved by OSHA as being at least as effective as federal standards.

It is the responsibility of policymakers to protect the hard-working people who produce our nation’s food. The current system may provide greater profits to the nation’s large poultry companies, but it relies on systematic exploitation of workers. It must be reformed. Detailed recommendations are proposed on the following pages.

There are five major ways lawmakers can stop this health and safety crisis in the poultry industry:

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture should stop its proposed increase of maximum line speeds.

• OSHA should affirmatively regulate line speeds and the number of birds per minute each worker may be required to process.

• OSHA should issue comprehensive ergonomics regulations to reduce musculoskeletal disorders arising from repetitive motion in the poultry industry.

• Alabama should enact a Poultry Workers Bill of Rights to protect this large sector of its workforce. This should include reform of the workers’ compensation system to ensure universal access for injured workers and recognition of workers’ rights to be free from hazardous conditions.

• Federal and state lawmakers should enact stronger anti-retaliation protections and prohibit practices that obstruct workers’ access to medical treatment. Workers should be empowered to sue their employers to change hazardous health and safety conditions.

The following are detailed policy recommendations for Alabama and the federal government:

Federal Recommendations

• Mandate a decrease in poultry processing line speeds.

• The USDA should withdraw a proposed rule that would increase the maximum permitted line speed to 175 birds per minute.

• OSHA and the USDA should create a standard, enforceable, maximum line speed that adequately protects worker safety.

• Reinstate a federal ergonomic standard.

• OSHA should adopt a clear ergonomic standard requiring poultry processing plants and other meatpackers to provide enhanced training, job rotation, ergonomically sound tools, a slower work pace and other measures needed to prevent musculoskeletal disorders. Currently, OSHA only recommendsthat employers meet an ergonomic standard.

• A federal ergonomic standard should be comprehensive enough to eliminate the possibility that a state could use weaker worker safety standards as a competitive advantage against other states seeking to attract poultry processing plants.

• Strengthen federal standards and enforcement to protect workers from injuries and from retaliation when they report safety hazards.

• OSHA should increase the number of random, unannounced workplace inspections and the number of inspectors.

• OSHA should implement mandatory – not recommended – follow-up inspections for noncomplying companies. It should require a more intensive examination of a noncomplying company’s history to find systemic problems that could trigger additional mandatory inspections. OSHA should conduct inspections throughout a corporation once it has identified a life-threatening hazard at one of its establishments.

• Congress should amend OSHA’s statutory authority to conduct inspections and investigations, 29 U.S.C. § 657, to require investigations in cases of deaths or serious injuries.

• Congress should amend OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements, at 29 U.S.C. § 657(c)(2), to require reporting of all injuries and illnesses, especially of certain categories of common injuries currently exempt as a practical matter from recordkeeping, such as musculoskeletal injuries and severe lacerations. Musculoskeletal injuries and lacerations are common injuries among poultry processing workers, but under current law, a company does not have to report injuries unless they involve deaths, loss of consciousness, transfer to another job, or restrictions of work or motion.

• In poultry plants, whether to transfer an injured worker to another job or set restrictions on her motion or work is often a decision made by the employer, which means that many injuries, including even some very serious ones, fall through the reporting cracks and go unrecorded. Requiring employers to record all injuries and illnesses would permit easier identification of hazards and analysis of trends, would empower workers to insist on treatment where necessary, and would reduce incentives for employers to resist work restrictions and job transfers where they may be needed.

• Strengthen enforcement of anti-retaliation laws, and prohibit threats of deportation. These measures are needed to protect a worker’s employment and prevent a worker from feeling threatened or intimidated when reporting an accident or injury. Employers should provide greater training to managers and supervisors to ensure understanding of anti-retaliation laws.

• Vigorously enforce and enhance the rights of workers to organize a union and bargain collectively for health and safety guarantees, including line speed and the number of workers on the line. The government should ensure that information about how to organize a union is made readily available to workers.

• Comply with international labor and employment standards.

• Protect the rights of all workers to access workers’ compensation, judicial remedies for violations of their rights, and healthy and safe workplaces.

Alabama Recommendations

• Follow Nebraska’s lead and enact a Meatpacking Workers Bill of Rights.

• The bill of rights should ensure clear communications between employer and employees regarding employee rights to workers’ compensation, employer retaliation limits, access to information in employees’ own language, and ergonomic safety initiatives.

• Alabama should require that this information be distributed in multiple languages and in a manner that reaches all employees.

• Alabama should appoint a coordinator to oversee the implementation of the bill of rights.

• Strengthen state health and safety laws to improve working conditions.

• Launch initiatives that include broader access – including electronic access – to information such as plain language standards and explanations of how to enforce them, and to government and employer information for measuring and ensuring workplace safety.

• Create a private right of action for employees so they may sue to stop dangerous health and safety conditions, especially retaliation against workers who complain of health and safety problem.

• Reform the workers’ compensation system.

• Repeal the 1992 statutory amendment that made it nearly impossible for workers suffering from musculoskeletal and repetitive motion injuries to obtain workers’ compensation coverage of their medical care and the time they must be away from work.

• Ensure that employees are aware of the workers’ compensation system, how it works and their rights within it. Employers should be required to hold information sessions for employees in a language they understand – both as a part of their initial orientation and at least annually. This information should include the right of workers to select their own physician.

• Workers should be protected from retaliation for filing a claim.

• Provide workers with enhanced workers’ compensation
  benefits when their employers have willfully violated OSHA safety standards.

• Increase the time workers have to report injuries for workers’ compensation coverage, especially repetitive motion and musculoskeletal disorders. Currently, workers have only five days to report injuries in many cases.

• Increase penalties for employers who fail to comply with workers’ compensation policies, especially those with repeated violations.

• Increase workers’ compensation benefit caps so workers are able to maintain a suitable standard of living, especially when benefits provide the sole source of income until the worker recovers.

• Increase workers’ compensation outreach and education efforts by community organizations, unions, and state agencies and departments. This information should be provided through materials workers can understand.

Alabama’s poultry workers face deplorable and dangerous work conditions. Yet no one has previously investigated Alabama’s poultry processing plants. This investigation is modeled on the Nebraska Appleseed Center report examining worker safety in meatpacking plants, The Speed Kills You.

Through research and interviews, this report, Unsafe at These Speeds: Alabama’s Poultry Industry and its Disposable Workers, exposes the dangerous working conditions in Alabama’s poultry processing plants. The paramount concern for the Southern Poverty Law Center and Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice is worker safety. In the poultry industry, many minority and immigrant workers lack knowledge of workplace safety standards and rarely pursue available remedies.

Improving the conditions in Alabama’s poultry plants will not only protect the health and safety of these vulnerable workers but provide a model for other states and encourage federal reform of the industry.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice would like to thank the many individuals and organizations who gave their time, space and expertise to the project, particularly the courageous women and men who agreed to share their stories. This report would not have been possible without their participation.

Church leaders, union members, small business owners and other community leaders provided invaluable assistance by identifying areas for outreach and providing secure spaces to hold community discussions and interviews. We hope that our work builds on the longstanding efforts of the many workers, medical researchers and members of the labor movement who have dedicated their lives and careers to protecting the health and safety of workers everywhere. We owe a great debt for their insight, analysis and inspiration.

Special thanks are due to the dedicated interview team for their long hours spent listening carefully, and also to Micah Gell-Redman, José Aguilar, Charlotte Sanders Alexander, Leah Lotto, Jeremy Blasi, Scott Nova, and the supporters of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice.

Author - Tom Fritzsche

Editors - Jamie Kizzire, Booth Gunter

Project Coordinators - Seredith Cabell, Shay Farley, Tom Fritzsche

Interviewers • Tom Fritzsche, Leigh Ann Webster, Janet Sosa, Meredith Cabell, Nancy Cole, Verónica Bustabad, Shay Farley, Kristi Graunke, Jan Lanier, Amara Nickerson, Zayne Smith, Naomi Tsu, Elise McCaffrey, David Morales, Carly Stadum, and Nicole Sykes

Statistical Analysis • Professor Ed Pappanastos, Chair, Division of Information Systems and Quantitative Methods, Troy University, Sorrell College of Business

Additional Writing and Editing • Christina Iturralde, Shay Farley

Additional Research • Kristin Donovan, Leigh Ann Webster

Transcription • Verónica Bustabad, Jennifer Hand, Michael Krombach, Zach Mollengarden, Matthew Myrick, and Caty O’Quinn

Translation • Gloria Lima

Designer • Crystal Jeffers

Design Director • Russell Estes