Low Wages and Long Hours

The farmed-animal industry actively recruits immigrants who will accept very low wages, so it’s no wonder that wages for all slaughterhouse and factory farm workers have continued to fall as the meat industry busses in more and more immigrant workers. Though employees in animal-processing plants have one of the most dangerous jobs in America, they also receive some of the lowest wages in the manufacturing sector. In 2002, employees in meatpacking plants made, on average, 24 percent less than their counterparts in other factory jobs.⁶⁴

Plus, many meat-industry workers report that their bosses refuse to pay them fairly for the time they work. In a 2001 U.S. Department of Labor study of 51 chicken-processing plants, the Department found that the plants often failed to pay for the full amount of hours worked.⁶⁵ The plants were also cited for taking unlawful deductions from their employees’ paychecks, failing to pay overtime wages, and falsifying hours-worked logs.⁶⁶

Workers in animal-processing plants are also often pressured to continue working long after their shifts have ended. In the U.S., it is legal to fire workers who refuse to work overtime as demanded by their employers. Even though mistakes that result in injuries are much more common when slaughterhouse workers are forced to work 10- or 12-hour shifts, the workers stay after their regular shifts for overtime because they don’t want to be fired and because they desperately need the money to compensate for their pitiful salaries.

Read more to find out what happens to workers who try to form unions to demand better hours and better pay.