Source:Chris Scott, MEATINGPLACE, 3/19/15


A group of civil rights organizations are vowing to continue their fight for protein processing plant worker safety following a formal refusal by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Organization (OSHA) to create work speed protection standards.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) said OSHA sent a letter this month denying a request from the SPLC and other organizations because of the agency’s “limited resources,” according to an SPLC news release distributed yesterday. OSHA said it didn’t have the capability to do the work needed to create safeguards for these particular workers, according to the SPLC.

SPLC and other groups wanted OSHA to set up safeguards for workers in poultry and meatpacking facilities to protect them from what the groups described as “alarming rates of severe and crippling repetitive motion injuries” at work. OSHA even noted in its rejection letter that the incidence of occupational illnesses in the poultry industry alone were more than five times the average for all U.S. industries in 2011 and 2012, the SPLC said.

SPLC added that it will continue to push for these protections. The groups involved in this dispute also are involved in a lawsuit filed last year by Food & Water Watch seeking a federal court injunction to stop implementation of USDA’s New Poultry Inspection System, which they contend violates the Poultry Products Inspection Act.

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