Oxfam Report: No relief, denial of bathroom breaks in the poultry industry
(published May 9, 2016)
Chicken is the most popular meat in America, and the poultry industry is booming. But workers on the processing line do not share in the bounty. Poultry workers 1) earn low wages of diminishing value, 2) suffer elevated rates of injury and illness, and 3) often experience a climate of fear in the workplace.
Despite this, though, workers themselves say that the thing that offends their dignity most is simple: lack of adequate bathroom breaks, and the suffering that entails, especially for women.
The top four chicken companies control roughly 60 percent of the domestic market (Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s, Perdue, and Sanderson Farms), and they can and should implement changes that will improve conditions for poultry workers across the country.
This report is part of Oxfam’s continuing campaign to advocate for improved conditions for US poultry workers. The campaign launched in October 2015, with publication of our comprehensive report, Lives on the Line: The Human cost of Cheap Chicken.
The immersive website, Lives on the Line, uses multimedia to convey the experiences of workers inside the poultry plant
Excerpts from the Report: (but really, the whole thing is only 15 pages long & definitely worth reading, as is 'Lives on the Line')
"Routinely, poultry workers say, they are denied breaks to use the bathroom. Supervisors mock their needs and ignore their requests; they threaten punishment or firing. Workers wait inordinately long times (an hour or more), then race to accomplish the task within a certain timeframe (e.g., ten minutes) or risk discipline.
Workers struggle to cope with this denial of a basic human need. They urinate and defecate while standing on the line; they wear diapers to work; they restrict intake of liquids and fluids to dangerous degrees; they endure pain and discomfort while they worry about their health and job security. And it’s not just their dignity that suffers: they are in danger of serious health problems.
The situation strikes women particularly hard. They face biological realities such as menstruation, pregnancy, and higher vulnerability to infections; and they struggle to maintain their dignity and privacy when requesting breaks. Supervisors deny requests to use the bathroom because they are under pressure to maintain the speed of the processing line, and to keep up production. Once a poultry plant roars to a start at the beginning of the day, it doesn’t stop until all the chickens are processed. Workers are reduced to pieces of the machine, little more than the body parts that hang, cut, trim, and load-rapidly and relentlessly. By its nature, it is demanding and exhausting work. But it does not have to be dehumanizing, and it does not have to rob people of their dignity and health..."
Keeping the machine running
A poultry plant is a complicated industrial operation, with many moving parts that need to keep going for the whole enterprise to run smoothly. If one part stops, the whole line slows down. Bathroom breaks for line workers pose challenges. When a worker needs to use the restroom, they ask the supervisor; the supervisor needs to find someone to fill that spot to keep the line running. Ideally, there are enough replacement workers (line assistants or floaters) who are available to step into any spot on the line. If a plant is adequately staffed and running smoothly, workers know they can ask to use the restroom, and they will get a break within a reasonable time. Moreover, they know they can take enough time: to travel to and from the restroom (poultry plants are large and bathrooms may be far away; floors are slippery with water, blood, fat), to remove and put back on the layers of protective gear (e.g., gloves and smocks), and to accomplish the task.
In the course of hundreds of interviews, only a handful of workers reported that their bathroom needs are respected. These exceptions are primarily in plants that have unions, which offer important protections, inform workers of their rights, and ensure they have a voice on the job. Unionized workers report that they feel comfortable leaving or stopping the line when their requests are denied for too long. Roughly a third of the poultry workforce is unionized, leaving most workers without these crucial protections.
The vast majority of workers report a lack of adequate bathroom breaks. In one survey of 266 workers in Alabama conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, nearly 80 percent said they are not allowed to take bathroom breaks when needed. A recent survey in Minnesota revealed that 86 percent of workers interviewed said they get fewer than two bathroom breaks in a week. The problem is so large, and of such vital importance to workers, that poultry workers at the Case Farms plant in Morganton, NC recently launched a campaign with Western North Carolina Workers’ Center solely around the issue, demanding the company provide them with bathroom breaks when needed.
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