Worker’s Rights & Safety
The health and safety of migrants and other vulnerable populations, including children, is the human cost of making sure supply meets demand.
Workers in factory farming and agriculture face grueling, high-pressure conditions and routine violations of their rights for low pay. An average day on the job can include high risk of injury, exposure to toxic chemicals and infectious diseases, stress, and trauma and result in lifelong physical and mental health issues.
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Most young farmworkers are children of immigrants. These families are reluctant to complain about conditions for fear of being deported.
By Robert J. Lopez, LA Times
This year, the Department of Labor imposed a $1.5 million fine against Packers Sanitation Services, which provides cleaning crews to slaughterhouses. Investigators found that the company was employing more than 100 children, including 13-year-olds, to clean back saws and head splitters overnight.
By Hannah Dreier, The New York Times
And what we found is, really, the system is set up in a way that it’s not going to find children. Children work at night, and the auditors come in the morning. Children work with fake I.D.s. The auditors are checking paperwork, not actually speaking with children.
By Laura Barrón-López and Shoshana Dubnow, PBS