Health Hotline Magazine | September 2023

"I would tell people … how we fight for our lives with strength and sweat." EXCERPTED FROM “MILKED: IMMIGRANT DAIRY FARMWORKERS IN NEW YORK STATE”

By Charity Isely

I magine you work in the third most deadly industry in the U.S.—agriculture— but the federal agency tasked with holding workplaces accountable for safety doesn't investigate most injuries or deaths in your industry.

given personal protective equipment (PPE) or made aware of the health hazards these chemicals present, so when they do have PPE, they often don't use it. Meanwhile, the pervasiveness of occupational respiratory diseases can be as high as 30 percent among factory farm workers. A lack of training heightens the risks CAFO workers face. One-third of those surveyed in the New York dairy report said they hadn't received any job training. For others, protecting milk quality was the sole focus, with no information on worker safety. Another survey of immigrant laborers at Midwest cattle feedlots found that 40 percent hadn't received any safety training, but more than 90 percent were interested in receiving it. One risk management strategy CAFO owners are using is breaking up each segment of operation into separate limited liability companies (LLCs). Civil Eats reports that this allows groups of farmer investors to run CAFOs through third party management companies, making it even harder to "decipher ownership, file lawsuits, and demand action on health and safety issues." At the end of an exhausting CAFO workday, this harsh fact remains—most farmworkers are also the most vulnerable to employer abuses. An estimated 73 percent of U.S. agricultural workers are immigrants—doing jobs that U.S. citizens often don't want. And, in dairy specifically, the expected minimum of immigrant labor is 51 percent, with many undocumented. Yet, if this workforce disappeared, experts say milk prices would rise by as much as 90 percent and the dairy industry would collapse.

Workers in the CAFO "farming" machine, churning out everything from butter to bacon, have few resources to ensure their health and safety. Civil Eats reports that "Federal OSHA protections don't apply to 96 percent of the animal agriculture operations that hire workers in America." Thanks to a loophole created in 1976, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has no jurisdiction over farms employing 10 or fewer non-family workers. And while CAFOs hold thousands of animals, modern automation means they can often operate with 10 or fewer human laborers. A report, co-authored by the Worker Justice Center of New York, investigating the plight of the state's immigrant dairy farmworkers estimates that more than 80 percent are employed at facilities falling outside OSHA jurisdiction. How do they fare? Two-thirds of workers surveyed have experienced one or more on-the-job injuries, with 68 percent of those severe enough to require medical attention. Crushed limbs, broken bones, head kicks from aggressive animals, and chemical-induced eye injuries were some of the most frequently reported. Animal agriculture-related fatalities that have been reported to OSHA over the last 20 years include drowning in manure pits, being gored by bulls, and suffocating in grain bins. And, from CAFO barns to slaughterhouses, amputations caused by equipment or crushing injuries from moving animals are commonplace. Still, Civil Eats found that less than 25 percent of severe injuries reported in animal ag operations from 2015 to 2021 received follow-up inspections by OSHA, including those resulting in amputations, eye loss, or hospitalization. Air pollutants, including poisonous gases, particulate matter, and endotoxins, are also an ever-present threat to CAFO workers' wellbeing. Yet, many workers aren't

Imagine you’re walking through the grocery store, watching people piling milk, pork chops, and burgers in their carts—food you can’t afford but that your labor helped deliver—and you think to yourself, "I just want them to know about us."

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