Salzman: Work conditions given short shrift

Media inadequately explore interplay between labor and slaughterhouse perils

Published December 23, 2006 at midnight

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After seeing those photos of illegal immigrants in handcuffs last week, you might be wondering how illegals are treated when they're actually working inside a meatpacking plant. And how does their presence affect labor relations there?

These are reasonable questions following the Dec. 12 raid of the Swift & Co. slaughterhouse in Greeley last week.

But they got shallow treatment, at best, in the dailies' coverage of the event.

Three days after immigration officials stormed the slaughterhouse, the Rocky Mountain News got around to describing what happens in a "meatpacking plant" and some of the dangers faced by legal and illegal workers.

That's more than I can say for The Denver Post, which has yet to run such an article.

In its illuminating, though incomplete, piece that deserved more prominent placement than Page 35A, the News (Dec. 15) quoted Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, which states that in one slaughterhouse in the high plains "carcasses swing so fast along the rail" that they frequently slam workers onto the "bloody concrete floor."

The News called meatpacking jobs "dangerous" and "risky," but Schlosser went further, saying that meatpacking is "the most dangerous job in the United States" with an injury rate "three times higher than a typical American factory."

Schlosser also describes workers who've been severely cut, crushed, beheaded, and torn apart by machinery.

But the vast majority of injuries are less severe, involving stuff like "torn muscles, slipped disks, and pinched nerves," Schlosser writes.

The danger of sustaining these types of injuries is increased by the fact that the cow slaughtering industry puts major pressure on employees to work quickly and not report injuries, according to Schlosser's book.

Illegal workers, fearful of losing their jobs or ignorant of their rights, are even less likely to tell the boss they got hurt.

"They don't want to make waves," says Jackie Nowell, health and safety director for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. "They don't want to risk being fired. They don't want to be seen. They just want to come here and do work."

So, the meatpacking companies, as Schlosser writes, are not held fully accountable for workplace injuries.

The dailies didn't address how illegal immigration affects efforts to improve working conditions at meatpacking plants, possibly through unionization.

Illegal immigration has made it harder for workers to organize unions at meatpacking plants, according to Jill Cashen, spokesperson for the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union.

"Employers have always been able to use workers' vulnerability and their fear or the language barrier to keep them from standing up," says Cashen. "They've threatened to call Immigration if a worker votes for a union. They've said it all."

Swift's Greeley plant is unionized, but the influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal, has resulted in the breakup of unions at other meatpacking plants and in "deep concessions" by unions that have survived, according to David Moberg, a labor writer and a senor editor at the liberal newspaper In These Times.

"Despite the studies showing that overall there's a small-percentage depression of wages because of illegal immigration, there are probably industries, like meatpacking, where the effect is much more pronounced," says Moberg.

"The meatpacking industry systematically reduced wages," says Cashen. "And they did that by busting unions, consolidating and relying more and more on undocumented workers."

The dailies should have addressed whether immigration reform could help improve worker conditions in dangerous industries, like meatpacking.

"What we're faced with now is an immigration system that allows employers to exploit a vulnerable work force," says Cashen.

Labor issues at meatpacking plants obviously shouldn't have been reporters' top priority after the raid of the Swift plant, but the dailies should have dedicated more space to these issues. Fortunately, it's not too late.

Light and hope. The New Year is a good time for the dailies to cleanse themselves of signs that they remain stuck deeply in the 20th century.

They can start by dumping their silly old slogans:

At the News it's the insipid: "Give light and the people will find their way."

Above the Post's editorials is the sexist line: "There is no hope for the satisfied man."

Of course, the Denver dailies are in good company. The New York Times still runs its ridiculous "All the news that's fit to print" on its front page.

If the dailies refuse to eliminate these slogans, they should at least replace them with something relevant like, "Don't forget to check our Web site for restaurant reviews," "You don't have to read to subscribe," or "Much, much more than just a newspaper."

The puzzling Denver Newspaper Agency advertising phrase "Power Tools" with the tiny newspaper icons doesn't cut it, either.

Send me your slogan suggestions, and I'll include some in an upcoming column.

Jason Salzman, president of Cause Communications and board chairman of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, is the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Reach him at salzmanj@RockyMountainNews.com.

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