Documents meat industry 83 results

"The posting of migrant workers has become an important employment channel for cross-border employment within the European Union (EU). Although posted workers are not formally excluded from labour rights, regulations are enacted in such a way that de facto they often are, as posted workers face many irregularities in their employment relations, while receiving hardly any protection from established representation and law enforcement authorities. Drawing on qualitative interview research in the Dutch construction and meat processing sector, this article shows how posted employment creates socio-economic precariousness for the workers involved. Although migrants in the meat sector have more opportunities to fight the exclusionary effects of posted employment because they usually reside for longer periods in the Netherlands than the more mobile migrants in construction, both groups of workers experience similar social and economic vulnerabilities, and a lack of protection mechanisms to change their precarious position."

"This article summarises results of a project whose aim was to analyse the role of migration within the current recomposition of the working class in Germany. We focus on the example of the meat industry in the Oldenburger Münsterland, a region that is experiencing a strong economic boom based on the expansion and modernisation of industrial work. The exploitation of migrant labour, composed of “newcomers” to the industry with both European Union and refugee backgrounds, is a pivotal feature of that boom. Most research on migrant labour focuses on legal frameworks and labour market dynamics. By focusing instead on the labour process, we are able to examine the connections between exploitation, resistance and collective organisation among migrant workers. We show that the experience of migrant workers is not one of complete powerlessness and subjugation. We contrast workers in two sub-sectors, slaughtering and packing on the one hand and industrial cleaning on the other. Although both of these activities are similarly low-wage and migrant-dominated, we find variation in the ability of these workers to exercise power. The importance of skill and the need to avoid turnover gives workers in slaughtering and packing some levers of power, despite their vulnerable immigration status. This power has even instigated a shift towards some formalisation of these jobs on the part of management. In contrast, the different labour process has prevented industrial cleaning workers from accessing the same levels of power, despite sharing a similar labour market position to their co-workers in slaughtering and packing."

"Germany's new Occupational Safety and Health Inspection Act, passed in December 2020, has banned subcontracting in the meat industry, a practice that was exploited on a large scale to hire migrant workers on less favourable terms and conditions. In an industry that has long been dogged by harrowing tales of working conditions, a mass outbreak of Covid-19 in a meatpacking plant became a catalyst for reform. The Act is an important milestone for the sector not just in Germany but across Europe, where pressure along the supply chain has created similar problems in multiple countries."

"«Leurs journées commencent en général avant celle des autres, au milieu de la nuit. Ils saignent, découpent, dépècent et désossent. L'obsession est de suivre les cadences et de tenir. Au départ, c'est un petit boulot, et ça devient un métier. En France, 50.000 ouvriers travaillent dans les abattoirs. Ils tuent et découpent, chaque jour, trois millions d'animaux et les transforment en steaks, côtelettes ou saucisses. Pendant trois ans, je suis partie à la rencontre de ces mal-aimés qui nourrissent les Français. Je les ai écoutés, j'ai entendu leur souffrance. Pour ce livre, je les ai rejoints sur la chaîne, quelques jours, sans me cacher, histoire de “faire les gestes”. Pour comprendre.»
Cet endroit à part, où l'on travaille dans le sang et les viscères, on le voit rarement d'aussi près. Pas même en vidéo. Sans parler de la «tuerie», le lieu auquel personne ne veut penser. Alternant portraits, rencontres et témoignages, Olivia Mokiejewski nous offre un récit puissant et salutaire. Bienvenue dans le monde tabou de l'industrie et de la mort."

"Un CV imaginaire, une fausse identité, et un crâne rasé. Steak Machine est le récit d'une infiltration totale de quarante jours dans un abattoir industriel en Bretagne. Geoffrey Le Guilcher a partagé le quotidien des ouvriers : les giclées de sang dans les yeux, les doigts qui se bloquent et les défonces nocturnes. Un univers où, selon un collègue de l'abattoir, "si tu te drogues pas, tu tiens pas". L'usine ciblée par le journaliste abat deux millions d'animaux par an. Une cadence monstrueuse qui mène inéluctablement au traitement indigne des hommes et des animaux."

"This study investigated delivery scenarios of service drivers working in the retail meat industry. The methodology included analysis of accident reports, and field investigations of deliveries at craft-butcher shop premises, including semi-structured interviews with managers and workers. The findings provide greater clarity about the hazards in this job, and suggest for peripatetic delivery activities, four main factors on which decisions about risk and good practice may be made: composition of the orders; characteristics of the delivery vehicle/truck; handling method most often used; and, the road/access conditions."

"During the last few decades, the German meat industry has experienced an incomparable economic expansion, becoming one of the largest European producers and exporters in the sector. At the same time, Germany, traditionally characterized as a coordinated market economy with strong social partners and labour market institutions, has been nationally as well as internationally criticized for establishing a system of institutional exploitation of mobile and migrant labour in the industry. The aim of this article is to analyse how it was possible to create and maintain such a system under the eyes of social partners and to identify the defining factors for this development."

"Zusammenfassung: Die Migration aus den neuen in die alten Mitgliedstaaten der EU nimmt außerordentlich unterschiedliche Ausmaße und Formen an. In Ländern mit wohlgeordneten Arbeits- und Sozialsystemen fügen sich die Migranten in die bestehenden Strukturen ein. Entscheidend sind dafür innere Kontrollen, etwa durch Betriebsräte, Gewerkschaften und Branchenverbände. In Ländern mit hohen Anteilen von Schwarzarbeit und mit deregulierten Arbeitsmärkten kommt es zu unkontrollierten großen Migrationen, die zur weiteren Absenkung von Löhnen und Sozialstandards beitragen. Eingewanderte können dann zu Sündenböcken für soziale Probleme werden und es kann zu politischen Verwerfungen kommen. In Deutschland gibt es diese Probleme in bestimmten Sektoren wie der Fleischwirtschaft und der Pflege, diese Sektoren können reguliert werden."

"Participatory ergonomics projects are traditionally applied within one organisation. In this study, a participative approach was applied across the New Zealand meat processing industry, involving multiple organisations and geographical regions. The purpose was to develop interventions to reduce musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) risk. This paper considers the value of an industry level participatory ergonomics approach in achieving this. The main rationale for a participative approach included the need for industry credibility, and to generate MSD interventions that address industry level MSD risk factors. An industry key stakeholder group became the primary vehicle for formal participation. The study resulted in an intervention plan that included the wider work system and industry practices. These interventions were championed across the industry by the key stakeholder group and have extended beyond the life of the study. While this approach helped to meet the study aim, the existence of an industry-supported key stakeholder group and a mandate for the initiative are important prerequisites for success."

"In the context of financial crisis and recession, concern has grown in the UK and elsewhere over the relationship between labour immigration and indigenous unemployment. This article argues that, to understand this relationship, it is necessary to adopt a historical perspective and examine closely both the experiences and representations of migrant and indigenous workers and the unemployed together, as these develop and evolve in local labour markets over time. Presenting a case study of employment shift at a meat processing factory in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, the article demonstrates how the promotion and acceptance by employers and others of a discourse that constructs Merthyr locals as bad workers reframes a history of local labour conflict as a matter of endemic worker deficit, and shifts attention away from problems of poor job quality to alleged problems of poor local labour supply, thus legitimating the turn to employing migrant workers in the first place. It is argued that investigating these kinds of local labour market histories is essential for developing appropriate and effective policy on immigration, employment and unemployment alike."