AUSTIN, Minnesota—About two dozen disabled workers and their supporters protest in front of the adjoining Quality Pork Processors (QPP) and Hormel plants November 30 for the rights of workers afflicted with progressive inflammatory neuropathy, a work-related disease that has sickened at least 18 workers here. The workers are demanding reinstatement of fired workers, ensuring workers’ compensation claims, and adhering to physician-ordered work restrictions. The illness, which causes numbness, headaches, severe pain, discomfort, tiredness, and difficulty walking, was discovered last year among workers on the kill floor who used high pressured air to extract brain tissue. The protest was called by Centro Campesino.

—ROLLANDE GIRARD