RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Working conditions at three U.S. meat processing plants -- in North Carolina, Nebraska and Arkansas -- violate basic human rights, according to a Human Rights Watch report.þþThe report, released Tuesday after a year of research, is based on interviews with employees and managers at a Nebraska Beef factory, a Tyson Foods chicken plant in Arkansas and the Smithfield Packing Co. pork plant in Tar Heel, about 100 miles south of Raleigh. It says workers at all three plants are frequently injured, then refused medical care or fired.þþThe report found that repetitive motion injuries are universal in the industry; unsanitary conditions sometimes leave workers covered in animal urine and feces; and attempts to unionize are sometimes violently quashed.þþSmithfield Foods has violated workers' rights for years, said Tom Clarke, leader of an 11-year effort to unionize the pork plant, which employs about 5,000 and is the country's largest hog-killing factory.þþ``It's been an attitude of, `Look, this is rural North Carolina. Who's going to know, and who's going to care?''' said Clarke, part of the Washington-based United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. ``This is going to shine a brighter light on the activity of the company.''þþA spokesman for Smithfield Foods, based in Smithfield, Va., told The New York Times that the report focused on decade-old labor disputes and did not reflect current conditions. Officials with the other two companies cited in the report also denied its claims.þþThe American Meat Institute, based in Washington, issued a news release Tuesday calling the report ``way off the mark.'' The group said that employees in meat plants are paid on average almost twice the minimum wage and that their rates of unionization are higher than in other industries.þþThe institute said the industry is closely monitored by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and that injury rates are falling. Human Rights Watch says that injuries are underreported.þþHuman Rights Watch said the report was researched in 2003 and 2004.þþBesides interviews with workers and managers, Human Rights Watch said it interviewed community organizations, union representatives, workers' compensation attorneys, ergonomics experts and government officials.þþThe human rights group said it also reviewed court records, injury reports, OSHA records, company memorandums, government and academic studies, books on the industry and newspaper and magazine articles.þþHuman Rights Watch often reports on international issues, such as torture in Iraq.þþ
Source: NY Times
