The Pros And Cons Of The Meat Traveling Industry

Imagine you were in a meat packing industry and you had just gotten to work and all you thought about was, am I going to survive today. That when you got working, all you thought about was about keeping up with the meat going down the conveyor belt, not cutting yourself while you work as fast as you could, and not getting cut by the person next to you because you are so close together in one small space. This is what it is like for almost all meat packing employees because they work in such harsh conditions that they have to worry about if they are going to survive that day or not because it is so dangerous. In meat packing companies such as Tyson, Cargill, and National Beef, workers are put to the test when they have to work in the conditions
The government should regulate the working conditions the meat packing companies give their workers because it can lead to worker injuries and health problem possibilities among workers and the meat consuming public. The first reason why Meat packing companies should have better working conditions is because it can lead to many different health problems in both workers and in customers that buy the meat in stores. The first health problem that can come from bad working conditions is when workers work to cut and slice meat into the correct packaging and serving sizes. According to an article written by Carey L. Biron, a mintpress news author, “[Workers from the US poultry and meat packing industry] point to high processing speeds as leading directly to significant rates of worker injury, particularly repetitive stress injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome…” This shows that this is a major issue that needs to be solved because it is affecting worker’s lives with injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, and could lead to many problems including nerve issues in the hand and finger tendons. This also shows that companies are not concerned enough to take the time to give their workers a simple break every once in awhile, and that they are not willing to slow
The first injury that workers can get is when they have to cut the meat flying down the conveyor belt as fast as they can. For example, “As one worker stated: The line is so fast there is no time to sharpen the knife. The knife gets dull and you have to cut harder. That’s when it really starts to hurt, and that’s when you cut yourself,” (foodispower). This shows that the regulations in which workers work at the conveyor belts need to be changed because as they keep on cutting as fast as they can, the risk of them trying to cut the meat and slipping to cut themselves is much greater than is has to be. To fix this, all they have to do is have the conveyor go slower, and give time for workers to sharpen their knives, yet they don’t which makes it so that every time somebody cuts a piece of meat, it is taking the chance of them cutting of a limb to possibly eventually die from something that could have been prevented. This also tells us that this is the main reason why workers get the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and that it can be prevented, just that companies don’t spend the time and effort to fix these problems. The second reason that they should fix this problem is because they can not only get cut by themselves, but by the person that is right next to you doing the exact same thing. For example, in a study executed by OSHA, it was said that “workers have also been cut by other workers as they remove their knives from a slab of meat. These ‘neighbor cuts’