Meatpacking Factory Workers

With fast food quickly integrating itself into American diets, more and more meatpacking factories emerge to satisfy the supply. The regular jobs in these factories are already very dangerous, involving sharp tools, heavy animals, and unsanitary working conditions. The factory workers are at risk of lacerations, amputations, skin diseases, muscle and nerve damage, and death (Compa). Annually, more than a fourth of slaughterhouse workers, around forty thousand people, suffer from work-related injuries or diseases that require treatment beyond first aid. These statistics are most likely an understatement, because many injuries go unreported (Schlossner).
But even worse than the normal meatpacking factory jobs, the sanitation crew jobs involve

even higher risks at two-thirds of the income. The majority are illegal immigrants who cannot communicate and are desperate for work. Their work starts at midnight, and have to clean the aftermath of thousands of slaughtered cattle before the sun rises. Their primary tool is a hose that sprays a mixture of hot water and chlorine, which causes the room to fog and visibility to decrease. The chemical fumes make workers feel sick, but running machineries present the greatest hazard (Schlossner).
The accidents that occurred while cleaning the factories are outrageously horrific. Carlos Vincente, a twenty-eight year old man who had just arrived in the United States from Guatemala, was ripped apart by the cogs of a conveyer belt in Colorado. Salvador Hernandez-Gonzalez’s head was crushed in a pork-loin processing machine in Nebraska. Homer Stull was cleaning a thirty-foot high blood-collection tank in Kansas and the fumes made him ill. Two coworkers attempted to save him. All three men perished in the tank; the factory was fined only $480 for each death (Schlossner).