MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: EXPLOITATION OF LIVESTOCK WORKERS SUPPORTS THE MEAT INDUSTRY
William R. Kenan Professor of food studies, Middlebury College
Livestock production in the United States relies on a legion of low-paid workers, most coming from Mexico in search of jobs, and about half without documentation. The arduous pilgrimage from their homes to farms and ranches in the United States is part of the story of meat, and the meat industry would not be able to sell meat at current prices without exploiting these workers. This essay explores the connections among the meat industry, workers’ well-being, and meat consumption.
The most recent figures on farm labor from the National Agricultural Statistic Service’s Farm Labor Survey indicate that 872,000 farmworkers were employed on U.S. crop and livestock farms in mid-July of 2015. The Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey showed that 71 percent of crop workers surveyed between 2007 and 2009 were foreign born (with 67 percent from Mexico) and 48 percent were not legally authorized to work in the United States. Comparable figures for livestock workers are not available.
Increasing numbers of migrants came to the United States from Mexico since the North American Free Trade Area of the Americas (NAFTA) agreement was signed into law on January 1, 1994, opening a floodgate of cheap corn and other commodities from the United States to Mexico. Mexican farmers could no longer sell their crops on the market because the cost of subsidized crops from the United States was below the cost of production in Mexico. Thousands of former farmers migrated north in search of jobs that could provide a decent income for their families. Migrants have poured into rural Southeastern and Southwestern states in particular, and many of them end up in meat processing, dairy production, and chicken or pork confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). These industries went through a major restructuring between the 1980s and early 2000s, moving from the Midwest to Southern states and becoming concentrated under just a few brands.
In search of jobs and trying to escape deportation to their home countries, workers land all over the United States. They have almost no control over working conditions and wages, which are often deplorable. Farm wages vary significantly by task, industry, region, and legal status, but on average, farmworkers have among the lowest annual earnings of all U.S. workers, both because their hourly wages are relatively low and because many farmworkers are unable to find year-round employment in agriculture. The latest data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service indicates that livestock workers were paid on average $12.02/hour during mid-October. Between 1990 and 2012, the average real hourly wage of hired farmworkers who were not in supervisory positions (including both documented and undocumented workers) increased by 19 percent, reaching $10.80 per hour in 2012. This increase was not large enough to narrow the average gap between farm and nonfarm wages. Farm wages have typically been about half the average wage of nonfarm workers and about one dollar per hour less than wages in the “leisure and hospitality” sector, another low-wage industry that depends heavily on foreign-born workers.
Surveys of working conditions in different parts of the United States over the past decade have repeatedly found human rights abuses, substandard wages, and abysmal housing and working conditions in the meat-production and -processing industries. Human Rights Watch published Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers’ Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants in 2004. This was followed in 2009 by Nebraska Appleseed’s report, The Speed Kills You: The Voice of Nebraska’s Meatpacking Workers. Both reports documented serious abuse, including inhumane line-speeds in meat-packing plants, where workers were expected to process up to 400 head of livestock per hour with electric knives while standing in the cold on slippery floors. Sexual and ethnic harassment, verbal and emotional abuse, lack of information about workers’ compensation, and restrictions on the freedom to organize were commonly reported. In 2014, Migrant Justice found through a survey of 172 dairy workers in Vermont that 40 percent earned less than Vermont’s minimum wage of $9/hour, 40 percent had no time off, 29 percent work seven or more hours without a break to eat, 20 percent had their first paycheck illegally withheld, and 30 percent had experienced a workplace injury or illness. In a survey conducted between 2013 and 2015, Oxfam America found low wages, scant benefits, workers fired for speaking up or complaining, and high rates of injury and illness in poultry-processing plants in Southeastern states.
In addition to poor working conditions and wages, workers in the meat industry face unique health risks. Many diseases are transmitted between humans and livestock, including strains of influenza and tuberculosis. The dust in CAFOs can set off asthma attacks, and gases from manure, such as ammonia, are harmful to respiratory health. One of the most serious health impacts of work in livestock operations has only recently been brought to light: growing incidence of antibiotic resistance (ABR) due to the practice of adding low doses of common antibiotics to the feed (subtherapeutic doses). Bacteria mutate into resistant strains and become prevalent in the soil and feeding area. Therefore, simple infections that previously could be treated with common antibiotics such as penicillin, streptomycin, or erythromycin are resistant even to combinations of antibiotics. While ABR can affect anyone, workers in industrialized meat production facilities are exposed to the highest concentrations and newest mutations.
The most promising improvements in conditions for workers in meat production and processing have come about through farmworker organizing. Despite having little power vis-à-vis managers and the corporations that control the meat industry, workers have initiated several successful campaigns. Two notable campaigns are Milk with Dignity in Vermont, modeled after the very successful strategies of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and a new effort to benefit workers in chicken-processing factories supported by Oxfam America. Milk with Dignity was organized by Migrant Justice, and targets Ben & Jerry’s. Their goals include dignified work and quality housing, freedom of movement and access to transportation, freedom from discrimination, and access to healthcare. Among their accomplishments are passage of legislation in Vermont to prohibit state police from using public resources for deportation, extending the right to get a driver’s license to all residents of the state regardless of immigration status, including undocumented workers in universal healthcare coverage, and expanding state power to collect unpaid wages.
Could reducing meat consumption also help workers in the meat industry? In the short term, this is not likely. With less demand for the products from meat-producing farms, their workers would be forced to find other employment, possibly at lower wages. But if the only farms selling meat were ones that guaranteed fair wages and good working conditions for employees, and if reduced consumption were linked to worker exploitation (for example, through a boycott), and if stockholders demanded that publicly owned companies buy only from farms certified to have good conditions, then farms that currently treat workers badly would be encouraged to improve working conditions and wages.
Many farmers insist that they want to treat workers well but cannot afford to make improvements in housing or to pay more. Charging more for meat, to compensate for paying workers better, may make meat inaccessible to many consumers. This would result in lower consumption de facto, although through a policy that affects low-income consumers disproportionately. For real solutions to the labor problems in the meat industry, workers need far more than voluntary measures by benevolent farmers. At a minimum, fixing the broken migration system into the United States is necessary so that workers can freely travel to and from jobs and seek employment at the farms that provide the best wages and working conditions.