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Oxfam Asks Poultry Processors For More Transparency

Matt Davis
/
flickr Creative Commons

An anti-poverty group is pushing the country’s largest poultry companies to be more transparent about worker safety issues.

Advocates at Oxfam America say companies like Pilgrim’s Pride, Tyson and Sanderson Farms have sped up their processing lines, creating unsafe, even harsh, working conditions. Oxfam says that allows the companies to process more chickens and keep prices low at the grocery store.

“That pressure exerts itself down on the workers. They’re forced to work as quickly as possible, and that means that supervisors are reluctant to give workers a break or stop the line if there’s an injury,” says Oxfam's Oliver Gottfried

The largest meatpackers say they do have worker safety standards and that they’ve made strides in making their plants safer, reducing injuries.

As KUNC’s reporter covering the Colorado River Basin, I dig into stories that show how water issues can both unite and divide communities throughout the Western U.S. I produce feature stories for KUNC and a network of public media stations in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada.