Roughly 100 workers have walked out of a Smithfield meat plant in Monmouth, Illinois, following a colleague’s death

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/53152091

Following an anonymous complaint in February, OSHA inspected the plant and fined Smithfield Foods $9,931.60 after observing workers’ exposure to “amputation hazards.” This was preceded by serious citations in 2021, 2023, and 2025.

Working in a slaughterhouse is extremely dangerous. In the US, there are approximately two amputations per week, primarily due to the industry’s poor working conditions and excessively fast pace.

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As reported by KWQC, the leaders also acknowledged “community concerns” over a backlog of rendering material – animal waste, internal organs, and decaying meat – being stored outside the plant, causing a strong, unpleasant smell in the city.

  • fireweed@lemmy.world
    36·
    11 days ago

    Isn’t Smithfield the company that was videoed grinding up moldy bread still in the plastic packaging for use as pig feed?

    • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
      41·
      11 days ago

      Yep, more than just moldy bread, and more than just Smithfield

      One of the more surprising ways plastics end up in the food system happens on livestock farms in a practice called garbage feeding. Legal in 27 states, the practice is shown in a 2022 video taken by a maintenance technician at a grain elevator owned by Smithfield, where bread in plastic wrappers was being processed into feed. The video went viral, and an executive from Smithfield responded to say most plastic is vacuumed out onsite. The technician disagreed, but there is no agency that inspects or oversees the process to tell for sure.

      https://sentientmedia.org/how-microplastics-get-into-meat/

        • twizttid1@reddthat.com
          3·
          6 days ago

          Oh - my buddy used to work overnights at a food processing plant in the summers to afford university… His job, take all the bread that came back from the grocery stores, rip the bags open and throw them in the hopper of the industrial toaster that started the breadcrumb process.

          Not to say all the bread was moldy, but plenty was… It was the bread that came back that didn’t sell before their expiry… My buddy would describe a lot of what he’d throw in had a rainbow of mold colors on it.

        • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          5 days ago

          Well, sources only exist if youre rich and powerful enough to get it into the news and not get it buried or get murdered. The amount of shit we dont know is likely beyond any of your wildest evil dreams.