Meat Production: Animals Aren’t the Only Ones Being Harmed

Yesterday, my husband and I spent the last hours of Christmas doing parallel play (where the two of you spend time together, but are doing different things). He played video games, while I re-introduced myself to the world of twitter (that’s right!) and began reading a new book entitled “The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of our Food”, just in the prologue I read some things that are frightening, and I have to admit – something that I’ve never thought about before. When considering meat production and then the breakdown of farm animals, I’ve never thought of the employees and these factories that produce packaged meat. It’s embarrassing, but that’s never been a focus of mine, until now.

The prologue of the book tells the reader a story about Maria Lopez and her employment on a production line at Hormel Foods in Nebraska. This particular line is one of a few that’s not regulated by the USDA – meaning that the speed of which they produce or the number of pigs that the process/hour is not monitored. In 2004, the line went from processing 1,000 to 1,100 pigs/hour* and Maria had a hard time keeping up. One day, as she was working at her station, she didn’t more her hand fast enough and her finger got too close to a saw blade. Doctors were able to save her finger with two surgeries. Maria reports that after her accident, her coworkers were instructed to wash the station of her blood, but to not stop the line. Apparently this was a pretty common occurrence. When interviewing Maria, her husband told Ted Genoways that he knew a guy who also got too close to a saw and lost a couple of fingers. In this discussion, Maria’s husband, as a side comment, also mentions that he lost a tip of a finger.

In 2013, the speed of the line became such a large concern that the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interested contacted the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the USDA about reducing the speed of the line to minimize risks of meatpacking employees (like stress injuries, cuts, and amputations). During this conversation, they referenced a study that was conducted in 2009 where 52 percent of workers reported that they felt working conditions had become less safe in last twelve months. Despite that report, all the factories that were listed in that study had seen an increase of speed in the years following.

This reminds me of the article that I mentioned about the mega produce farms in Mexico that the LA times wrote. Have we, as Americans, become so focused on the bottom line that we no longer value the health and safety of other people? Yes, the decision to have such a fast production line comes from the executives of these factories, but what about the USDA and their lack of regulation? Why is that? What could possibly be the justification?

The prologue tells us that the Hormell Foods factory in Nebraska, where Maria worked, is able to run as fast as it wants because of a “special program piloted by the USDA more than a decade ago to test the effects of reduced inspection on food safety,” I can imagine that this was done because the USDA didn’t have the man power to inspect every factory as frequently as they wanted, but how does that issue justify what was done? Further, if that is in fact the case, wouldn’t it be better to visit all factories a little less often to offset availability of staff than to give autonomy to five pork processing facilities? There are employees constantly being injured and a regulation that could easily be put into place – so why isn’t it happening?

Ted Genoways ends the prologue with a sad, but accurate statement about American industry:

It is a portrait of American industry pushed to its breaking point by the drive for increased output but also a cracked mirror in which to see our own complicity, every time we choose low-cost convenience over quality.

Is this really what we’ve come to? Industry is so preoccupied with their bottom line that they ignore the welfare of their staff in order to produce as much as possible. At what point will the acknowledge the wall of their staff? Will it ever happen? And when it does, will production slow, or will employees be replaced with machines? Also, it appears that most consumers (I include myself in this) so preoccupied with meat consumption and saving a dollar that we don’t consider how that meat was processed or the quality of life of the individuals who have provided it for us?

* In 2006, the line increased from 1,100 to 1,200 pigs/hour. The prologue doesn’t mention where it is now, but if it continued to go up by 100 pigs every two years we’re now looking at 1,600 pigs/hour.