According to a very damning report by Oxfam America, titled "No Relief," poultry industry employees across the nation are working in sweatshop-like conditions where supervisors berate the employees and and deny them bathroom breaks.
"Supervisors mock [the workers'] needs and ignore their requests; they threaten punishment or firing," the report's executive summary states. "Workers wait inordinately long times (an hour or more), then race to accomplish the task within a certain timeframe (e.g., ten minutes) or risk discipline.”
They aren’t even given time to use a restroom, forcing many of them to deny themselves human dignity and wear diapers for when they just can’t hold it in any longer.
“Workers struggle to cope with this denial of a basic human need. They urinate and defecate while standing on the line; they wear diapers to work; they restrict intake of liquids and fluids to dangerous degrees; they endure pain and discomfort while they worry about their health and job security.”
The report blames the fact that these supervisors are under immense pressure to maintain the speed of their production since the poultry plants start early and stay open until all of the meat has been processed.
The report says working in a poultry plant is already “demanding and exhausting work” but argues that it doesn’t have to be “dehumanizing.”
“It does not have to rob people of their dignity and health.”
The health concerns are very real, as not using the bathroom can lead to serious health issues. Preventing urination and defecation can cause kidney and bowel dysfunctions, even leading to death from infections caused by massive buildups of toxins and bad bacteria.
Of all the companies Oxfam America reached out to with their findings, only two responded and were quoted in the report.
Tyson Foods, the largest poultry producer in the nation, said they were troubled by the allegations but feel they weren’t given enough information to actually verify and address the issues. They argued they give their employees multiple outlets to express their concerns and have recently hired a third-party company to audit their plants.
Perdue Farms, another well-known poultry company, said it not only has an open door policy but also offers an anonymous toll-free hotline to report illegal or unethical activity in their plants. Perdue claims they take the accusation of unethical practices in their plants very seriously but also say they don’t have enough information to investigate the validity of the report’s claims.