Report: US Poultry Workers Forced To Wear Diapers On Job

FILE - In this file photo taken June 19, 2003, chickens gather around a feeder in a Tyson Foods Inc., poultry house near Farmington, Ark. A report released May 10, 2016, by international advocacy group Oxfam says som... FILE - In this file photo taken June 19, 2003, chickens gather around a feeder in a Tyson Foods Inc., poultry house near Farmington, Ark. A report released May 10, 2016, by international advocacy group Oxfam says some poultry workers in the United States are denied bathroom breaks. A Tyson worker said in the report that many workers at his North Carolina plant “have to urinate in their pants.” Tyson said it's "concerned" by the claims, but currently has "no evidence they’re true.” (AP Photo/April L. Brown, File) MORE LESS
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BOSTON (AP) — A report from international advocacy group Oxfam says poultry workers in the United States labor in a “climate of fear,” with some forced to wear diapers on the job.

It says many workers are afraid to ask for permission to go to the bathroom. The report says a worker at a Simmons Foods plant in Arkansas told Oxfam that she and many others resorted to wearing diapers. A Tyson Foods worker says in the report that many workers at his North Carolina plant “have to urinate in their pants.”

Tyson says it’s concerned by the claims, but currently has “no evidence they’re true.” Simmons Foods hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

The National Chicken Council says it’s “troubled” by the claims, but believes that “such instances are extremely rare.”

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  1. This problem is not unique to the poultry industry.

  2. Indeed. The Tampa Bay Times is running a story about Wall Marts in the Tampa area and police calls from their locations

    Its seriously messed up. In just the Tampa Bay area, police respond to a Wall Mart call once every half an hour…every day, every week. The vast majority are incredibly minor issues, with a shockingly low number of actual arrests.

    Basically, its typical Wall Mart strategy…why pay for in store security when they can just demand that the local police do it for them?

  3. Avatar for paulw paulw says:

    Because chicken might be more expensive by a few cents a pound. Or the handful of companies that control the majority of meat processing in the US might have to take a slightly smaller profit.

  4. I work(well when I’m not posting comments on websites!) as an engineer for a company that sells equipment to poultry processing plants and I truly have not seen this or gotten the impression from the employees I’ve been around that this is the way things are. That said, poultry processing might need to be added to the list of things the general public should not see!

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

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