Precarious employment is a construct that encompasses employment insecurity, unequal bargaining power, low wages and economic deprivation, limited social protection, and powerlessness to exercise workplace rights.[1]
It is increasingly recognized as a threat to the health and well-being of workers, their families, and communities, and it is associated with increased risks of traumatic occupational injury, chronic occupational disease, and stress.[2,3]
Meat and poultry slaughter and processing workers fit squarely within this construct.[4]
Benach, J. et al., (2014) Precarious Employment: Understanding an Emerging Social Determinant of Health. Annual Review of Public Health 35(1):229-253, p. 230.
Kreshpaj, B. et al., (2020) What is precarious employment? A systematic review of definitions and operationalizations from quantitative and qualitative studies. Scand J Work Environ Health 2020;46(3):235-247.
Hajat, A., et al., (2024) Ramifications of Precarious Employment for Health and Health Inequity: Emerging Trends from the Americas, Annu. Rev. Public Health, 45:235-41.
Gerr, Fred. (2021). Meatpacking plant workers: A case study of a precarious workforce. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 18(4-5), 154–158.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, foreign-born workers make up ~34% and non-citizens ~20% of the workforce in animal slaughtering and processing.[1] And while there are no comprehensive government figures on undocumented workers, according to an analysis by Center for American Progress looking at census data from 2016 to 2019, they make up a significant portion of the industry’s workforce.[2]
Naturally, undocumented workers, as well as those whose native language is not English, are less able to advocate for employment security, safer working conditions, and the right to organize.[3] They may fear job loss, deportation, or other punishment from their employers. And because of these fears, “OSHA faces challenges identifying and addressing meat and poultry worker safety and health concerns because workers may be reluctant to speak with inspectors.”[4]
The comparatively high rates of illness and injury among meatpacking and poultry plant workers are also key characteristics of precarious employment.[5] This is partially due to weak or inconsistently enforced regulatory protections.[6]
U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 American Community Survey 1-year Public Use Microdata Samples. Variables: NAICS 3116 MFG-Animal Slaughtering and Processing and Citizenship status. [Figures are widely acknowledged to be underestimated. See, Slaughter & Processing Worker Demographic Segments]
Svajlenka, N. (2021) Undocumented Immigrants in the Food Supply Chain, Center for American Progress, table 1. https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/02/EW-FoodSupply-factsheet.pdf [Report estimates that ~83,000 undocumented workers were in the animal slaughtering and processing industry during this earlier period, equal to about 15% of the figure of ~557,000 total employees in 2023.]
USDA FSIS (January 9, 2025) Swine Processing Line Speed Evaluation Study, Harris-Adamson, C. et al., (Researchers, Univ. of California, San Francisco), p. 108, Appendix 5. [This study of 6 large pig slaughter plants found that for survey participants at 5 of the plants, more than 90% of employees had a language other than English as their primary language.]
U.S. Government Accountability Office (2017) Better Outreach, Collaboration, and Information Needed to Help Protect Workers at Meat and Poultry Plants. GAO-18-12, p. 33.
Bhattacharya, A., & Ray, T. (2021). Precarious work, job stress, and health‐related quality of life. American journal of industrial medicine, 64(4), 310-319. [CDC researchers report that ”Workers engaging in precarious work often work under temporary contracts, earn lower wages, and are subject to more dangerous working conditions than other workers. Women, minorities, migrants, and young workers are more likely to engage in such work… Our findings underline the negative health consequences of precarious work.”]
Gerr, Fred. (2021). Meatpacking plant workers: A case study of a precarious workforce. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 18(4-5), 154–158, p. 156. [“The persistence of high rates of illness and injury among meatpacking plant workers underscores a key characteristic of precarious employment, i.e., weak or inconsistently enforced regulatory protections…”]
Yes. The large number of undocumented workers as well as those who face economic insecurity may fear loss of pay, job loss, deportation, or other punishment from their employers if they report injuries.[1-5]
Reports based on worker interviews reveal remarkably high rates of those who continue to work even if ill or injured.[6,7] In a recent study commissioned by the USDA on the impacts of increased line speeds on workers at selected poultry processing operations, “Forty percent of workers across all establishments reported experiencing moderate to severe work-related upper extremity pain during the prior 12 months. Among those workers who experienced moderate to severe work-related pain in the past year, 43% did not report their pain to their employer.”[8]
U.S. Government Accountability Office (2016) Additional Data Needed to Address Continued Hazards in the Meat and Poultry Industry, GAO-16-337, p. 31. [“Workers and employers may underreport injuries and illnesses in the meat and poultry industry because of worker concerns over potential loss of employment, and employer concerns over potential costs associated with injuries and illnesses, according to federal officials, worker advocacy groups, and studies.”]
Fagan, K. M. & Hodgson, M. J. (2017). Under-recording of work-related injuries and illnesses: An OSHA priority. Journal of Safety Research, 60, 79–83, p. 80. [“In addition to poor employer recordkeeping practices and lack of understanding of the regulation, other causes include workers’ reticence to report injuries for fear of losing their jobs, employers’ incentive and disincentive programs that discourage workers from reporting injuries, and obstacles in both the OSHA recordkeeping regulation and SOII that affect the collection of complete data.”]
USDA FSIS (January 9, 2025) Swine Processing Line Speed Evaluation Study, Harris-Adamson, C. et al., (Researchers, Univ. of California, San Francisco), p. 72. [Across six pig slaughter plants operating with waivers at higher line speeds, ~42% of workers experienced work-related pain in the prior 12 months. Of the third of workers who did not report the pain, ~19% felt that “I can take care of myself,” ~17% didn’t think the company would help them, ~5% said they were afraid of being punished or losing their jobs, and some declined to answer.]
The Northwest Arkansas Workers’ Justice Center (2016) Wages and Working Conditions in Arkansas Poultry Plants, p. 3. http://www.uusc.org/sites/default/files/wages_and_working_conditions_in_arkansas_poultry_plants.pdf [“91% of surveyed workers handling our nation’s poultry in Arkansas reported having no earned sick leave, and almost two thirds (62%) reported working while sick. Of those who worked while sick, workers reported that they did so not out of choice, but because they either could not afford to take a day off when sick (77%), were directly threatened with disciplinary action for taking a day off when sick (54%), or were afraid of such disciplinary action (44%).”]
For further info on underreporting see, Injury Undercounts of Animal Ag Workers
Southern Poverty Law Center (2013) Unsafe at These Speeds: Alabama’s Poultry Industry and its Disposable Workers, p. 13. [“This survey found that 66% of participants believed workers were scared or reluctant to report injuries, and that 78% of respondents attributed this reluctance to fear of being fired…Many workers interviewed in this survey said they were required to work even when seriously hurt – a tactic that can help an employer keep the number of reportable lost-time injuries low.”]
Human Rights Watch (2019) When We’re Dead and Buried, Our Bones Will Keep Hurting: Workers’ Rights Under Threat in US Meat and Poultry Plants, p. 46. [“Workers who spoke with Human Rights Watch also described how their plant’s in-house medical units encouraged workers to return to their workstations or kept their medical treatment at the level of first aid, even in cases where workers believed they needed substantive care. Some workers also told us that they no longer go to in-house health units given their concerns about the adequacy of care provided.”]
USDA FSIS (January 9, 2025) Poultry Processing Line Speed Evaluation Study, Harris-Adamson, C. et al., (Researchers, Univ. of California, San Francisco), p. 46.
Slaughter and processing plant supervisors also fail to report because of concerns over potential costs associated with injuries and illnesses and/or to keep workers compensation and health insurance premiums low.[1] Plants underreport to avoid “triggering OSHA inspections, and promote an image as a safe workplace in order to avoid paying the higher wages workers might demand for hazardous work.”[2]
Poor recordkeeping by employers is also a factor, as OSHA documented in a study of industries with high-injury rates, including nursing homes and meat and poultry processors. The agency found “Almost half (47.14%) of the establishments inspected had unrecorded and/or under-recorded cases,” and that “meat and poultry had more than twice as many DART-related [Days Away/Restricted or Transfer Rate] recordkeeping errors per inspection compared to other sectors, due at least in part to the very poor recordkeeping practices of some establishments.”[3]
Government Accountability Office (2016) Workplace Safety and Health: Additional Data Needed to Address Continued Hazards in the Meat and Poultry Industry, GAO 15-337, pp. 31-34.
Southern Poverty Law Center (2013) Unsafe at These Speeds: Alabama’s Poultry Industry and its Disposable Workers, p. 13.
Fagan, K. & Hodgson, M. J. (2017). Under-recording of work-related injuries and illnesses: An OSHA priority. Journal of Safety Research, 60, 79–83, p. 80.
Yes, although it is illegal. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, those under the age of 18 are prohibited from “most jobs” in meat and poultry slaughtering and processing, including operating or cleaning meat processing equipment.[1]
Nevertheless, in 2023, the Dept. of Labor fined one of the largest food sanitation companies in the U.S. (Packers Sanitation Services) for employing at least 102 children – from 13 to 17 years of age – performing hazardous tasks at more than a dozen meat processing facilities in eight states. The jobs performed by children included cleaning dangerous equipment during overnight shifts to fulfill sanitation contracts at JBS plants in Nebraska and Minnesota.[2]
At the end of 2023, the Dept. of Labor stated that it “continue[s] to find serous illegal employment practices in the meat and poultry processing industries” in an investigation of a California poultry processor that hired children as young as 14 years old to debone poultry using sharp knives and to operate power-driven lifts to move pallets.[3] In the same year, a 16-year-old boy died at a Mississippi poultry plant as a result of an accident while cleaning processing equipment.[4]
“Perdue Farms and JBS, two of the country’s biggest meatpackers, will pay a combined $8 million after the Department of Labor found the companies relied for years on migrant children to work in their slaughterhouses.”[5]
U.S. Dept. of Labor, Fact Sheet #43: Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSO) for Nonagricultural Occupations, Hazardous Occupation Order #10. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/43-child-labor-non-agriculture
U.S. Dept. of Labor (February 17, 2023) News Release: More Than 100 Children Illegally Employed in Hazardous Job, Federal Investigation Finds; Food Sanitation Contractor Pays $1.5M in Penalties.
U.S. Dept. of Labor (December 4, 2023) News Release: Dept. of Labor Finds Poultry Processor Illegally Endangered Children in Dangerous Jobs, Robbed Workers of Wages, Retaliated by Firing Workers.
Laura Strickler & Didi Martinez (July 18, 2023) 16-year-old boy dies in accident at a Mississippi poultry plant: It’s the second time in two years that a worker has died from injuries sustained in an accident at the Mar-Jac poultry facility, NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/16-year-old-boy-dies-accident-mississippi-poultry-plant-rcna94963
Hannah Dreier (January 16, 2025) Meatpacking Companies to Pay $8 Million for U.S. Child Labor Violations, New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/us/perdue-jbs-slaughterhouses-child-labor.html
Yes. Almost all U.S. prisons have work programs that employ incarcerated workers. A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that dozens of poultry plants employed more than 600 prisoners in at least seven states in 2016.[1] A report by the ACLU in conjunction with the Univ. of Chicago Law School also found instances of incarcerated workers required to work in slaughter and processing plants.[2] And in several states, “along with raising chickens, cows, and hogs, corrections departments have their own processing plants, dairies, and canneries.”[3]
Incarcerated workers are paid a tiny fraction of the wages paid to other workers. In Alabama, for instance, the State Dept. of Correction takes 40% off the top of a minimum wage payment, then even more for any court debt, restitution or child support.[4] In some states, prisoners are not paid at all.[5]
Judges also send offenders to work in processing facilities as “rehab” instead of jail. One such program in Oklahoma, the Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery (CAAIR), was started by chicken company executives struggling to find workers. “By forming a Christian rehab, they could supply plants with a cheap and captive labor force while helping men overcome their addictions.”[6]
“Prisoners are arguably even more vulnerable workers than undocumented immigrants. They won’t get arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but they can be sent back to prison, and they can’t move away. They also can’t find a higher-paying job elsewhere. They are a captive workforce and a prime target for poultry companies.”[7]
Will Tucker (July 26, 2018) The Kill Line: Should prisons be in business with one of the most dangerous industries in America? Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/news/2018/07/26/kill-line
ACLU, Univ. of Chicago Law School Global Human Rights Clinic (2022) Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers, p. 8. https://www.aclu.org/report/captive-labor-exploitation-incarcerated-workers
Robin McDowell & Margie Mason (January 29, 2024) Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands, AP U.S. News. https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e
Will Tucker, SPLC (2018) The Kill Line.
ACLU (2022) Captive Labor, p. 6.
Amy Harris & Shoshana Walter (January 2018) They Thought They Were Going to Rehab. They Ended up in Chicken Plants, Prison Legal News. https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2018/jan/8/they-thought-they-were-going-rehab-they-ended-chicken-plants/
Will Tucker, SPLC (2018) The Kill Line.