Inspections to increase following poultry industry report

A new report detailing poor working conditions in the nation’s poultry industry has prompted OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to step up inspections.

Oxfam America produced the report, Lives on the Line, in conjunction with several groups including the Greater Minnesota Worker Center, based in St. Cloud. The report found that poultry workers in the United States suffer high rates of injury, earn poverty level wages and work in a climate of fear.

As these findings were making headlines, OSHA announced a one-year program of “education, outreach and targeted enforcement” in the eight southern states with the most poultry processing plants.

“The Regional Emphasis Program is designed to reduce employee exposure to crippling injuries, such as musculoskeletal disorders, and to ensure the industry records all occupational injuries and illnesses accurately,” said Kurt Petermeyer, OSHA’s regional administrator in Atlanta.

The focus will be on the tens of thousands of workers in poultry plants in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas.

After three months of warnings and education, which began Oct. 26, the agency said it will step up on-site inspections. It also will keep an eye out for company retaliation against whistleblowers.

Concurrently, the union that represents U.S. poultry inspectors, the American Federation of Government Employees, is fighting Agriculture Department rules – pushed by the poultry processing plant owners – to speed up the lines and to let plant managers, not poultry inspectors, examine chicken and turkey carcasses.

A year ago, the union filed suit to block implementation of new rules that “put the fox in charge of the henhouse.” AFGE predicts laxer enforcement of inspections will result in diseased or tainted poultry being sold to consumers.