Vol. 72/No. 29      July 21, 2008

Yet, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, the annual injury and illness rate in meatpacking plants declined by 64 percent over the most recent 10 years of available statistics—from 30.3 per 100 workers in 1996 to 11.3 in 2006.

Throughout the 1980s the injury rate figures for meatpackers climbed. This was the time of an industry-wide assault by employers on the wages and working conditions of meatpackers, and on the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union.

Between 1981 and 1991 occupational illness, primarily carpal tunnel syndrome, grew 442 percent.

Union protests against widespread disabling injuries in the industry resulted in a congressional investigation into safety practices at IBP in the late 1980s. The results showed how brazen the bosses had become. The company kept two separate sets of records. Those given to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration contained less than 10 percent of the injuries reported by the company’s own medical staff in another set of records. Under public pressure, OSHA fined IBP a few million dollars.

The injury rate peaked a few years later in 1991. Over the next 10 years the rate of reported injuries was cut in half.

Since 1991 line speed and work hours have continued to increase. The unions have also continued to weaken, making it easier for the bosses to underreport injuries. The bosses and government agencies, who have a vested interest in keeping these figures as low as possible, have done just that.

Since government statistics rely on company reports, many injuries go unreported. A 2004 study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine estimated as many as 69 percent of workplace injuries across industrial sectors never make it into government reports.

Reported injuries and lost work time for injured workers cost bosses money in higher insurance premiums and lost production. Many major meatpacking companies, such as IBP, Excel, and ConAgra, are self-insured, giving them added incentive to hide and dispute injuries. Some companies enforce underreporting as policy by tying bonuses of supervisors and foremen to injury rates.

In 1981 nearly half of all injuries and job-related illnesses resulted in days away from work. By 2001 this figure was less than 10 percent.

Companies became more tenacious and effective in challenging injury claims. UFCW researchers in 2003 and 2004 interviewed 63 workers injured on the job at the massive Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina. Only 24 percent of these workers received workers’ compensation for their treatment and just over half showed up on government report logs. Hurt workers at many plants are often fired or pressured to quit.

The most dramatic drop in the injury rate in meatpacking occurred between 2000 and 2002, when the injury and illness rate dropped nearly 40 percent.

In 2002, OSHA enacted new rules for calculating injury statistics, which caused an immediate drop in the figures. The new recording procedures also opened up more ways for companies to underreport injuries.

The new procedures created, in the words of OSHA, “maximum flexibility” in the reporting of injuries “so employers can keep all the information on computers.” The term “light duty” was redefined to apply to employees who only work partial days or are unable to perform “routine job functions.”

The following injuries were no longer counted: Re-injury of a preexisting injury, unless it is determined that a “significant degree of aggravation” has occurred; injuries requiring only “first aid”; and injuries not resulting in any days off work beyond the day of the incident.  
 
 
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