The Tyson Fresh Meats beef slaughter and processing facility in Pasco, Washington is an industrial tower of Babel. Fifteen hundred workers from Mexico, Bosnia, Vietnam, and other far-flung countries, labor elbow-to-elbow along the plant’s disassembly lines, cutting off heads, legs, and hooves, and skinning the enormous cattle carcasses. The bodies are then carried along by a chain to more workers, who use metal hooks and knives to slice the animals into ever smaller pieces, ultimately destined for a supermarket near you.
In 2003, the left arm of 24-year-old Luis Madrigal was a casualty of the line. “[He] cut off his arm with a hock-cutter,” says Pasco Tyson meat processor and union leader Maria Martinez, referring to a machine with twin curved steel blades designed to chop through the joint of a cow’s knee. “The company had taken off the arm guards from the hock-cutter and the machine wasn’t working right because of production, adds Martinez. "All they care about is production, not the safety of the workers.”
Meatpacking, by its very nature, is extremely dangerous. “Hogs, steer and cows are very heavy animals and [cutting is] done in large part by hand, which puts strains on workers' arms, shoulders and backs,” says Cornell University labor expert Lance Compa. “You put just these sheer physical demands on top of the conditions: the blood, the grease, the heat, and the stench, and then the danger that results from the workers coming in contact with the animal’s half-digested food.”
And yet in one of the most hazardous industries in the United States, the record of Tyson Fresh Meat’s Pasco plant stands out. According to the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the rate of injury and illness at the facility is more than two and a half times the national average for meatpacking plants and more than twice that of meatpacking facilities with a thousand or more workers.
The Pasco plant also stands out in a second way: the killing and cutting floors of the plant, as well as its disassembly and cafeteria lines, have been the battleground of a tumultuous effort to jettison the union, Teamsters Local 556, that has represented meatpacking workers there for more than 25 years. In February, workers at the plant voted to decertify the union under a cloud of allegations of dirty tricks, labor law violations, and union busting.
Many argue that these two elements -- the lack of safety and the robust efforts to dissolve the union -- are part and parcel of the same problem. In the months to come, other unions representing meatpacking workers will be looking to the struggle at Tyson’s Pasco plant as a bellwether for labor rights in one of America’s most treacherous occupations.
When Teamsters Local 556 Secretary-Treasurer Maria Martinez started work at the Pasco plant, it was under the ownership of Iowa Beef Processors (IBP) and had been a union shop for more than 20 years. Tyson Foods, Inc. bought IBP in 2001, making the company the largest beef producer in the world. Martinez says that when Tyson came in, the company cut the workforce, leading to higher rates of injury. “There’s very much a difference between IBP and Tyson. You can see with Tyson, trying to get rid of the union was the most important thing for them.”
Tyson Foods, Inc., the parent company of Tyson Fresh Meats, is a giant amongst giants. Tyson dominates the meatpacking industry as the world’s largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork. The Springdale, Arkansas-based company is twice as large as its next competitor, with 114,000 workers and sales last year of $26.4 billion. Founded in 1935, Tyson Foods produces one out of every four pounds of beef, chicken, and pork in the U.S, and sells meat under the brands Thomas E. Wilson, Doskocil, Jac Pac, Reuben, ITC, Wright Brand, Russer, Jordan’s, Continental Deli, and Iowa Ham. The family-owned company is run by Chairman and CEO John Tyson, a devout Christian, whose grandfather started the company. Under the stewardship of the younger generation, Tyson Foods “Core Values” include striving to be “faith-friendly company” and “to honor God.” In its drive towards a union-free shop, the company implies that these imposed religious beliefs will keep their workers safe.
In a recent Tyson Press Release, for example, Pasco manager Ray McGaugh used somewhat biblical language to make the link, saying, “Tyson’s core values and code of conduct will continue to guide the company and its relationship with Team Members as we operate without a union.”
[...] http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12122
Sasha Lilley Producer, Against the Grain Pacifica Radio's KPFA 510 848-6767 ext 209 www.againstthegrain.org
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