LOS ANGELES — On Oct. 29, UCLA Labor Center researchers published a new report on Los Angeles County’s meatpacking and food processing industry. Authored in partnership with LAANE and El Centro, the report analyzes how decades of corporate consolidation and deregulation have reshaped the local industry, resulting in systemic practices that undermine workers’ rights, health, and safety.
Using data from interviews and focus groups with 47 workers, as well as a comprehensive analysis of industry and workforce data — including census and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) records — the key findings include:
- Workers in both meatpacking and poultry processing regularly experience numerous forms of wage theft, including late or withheld paychecks, meal and rest break violations, off-the-clock work, unreimbursed personal expenses, and minimum wage violations.
- Many workers do not receive sufficient documentation of their hours or wages, a violation of California state law, and workers regularly receive employment contracts in languages they do not understand.
- Staffing agencies help food processing companies navigate labor demand uncertainty by providing a flexible quantity of workers, yet they simultaneously sustain a class of long-term employees in “perma-temp” labor arrangements with little opportunity for career advancement.
- Workers reported a pervasive culture of verbal abuse from supervisors, fomenting a fear of retaliation that undermines worker power and prevents workers from speaking up against clear violations.
- Both meatpacking and poultry processing workers contend with dangerous working conditions, especially relating to their ability to meet unrealistic production quotas that require impossible or unsafe operating speeds.
- Substandard working conditions are directly linked to substandard food safety outcomes.
“Over the last several decades, and especially in the aftermath of the pandemic, the local food supply chain has undergone a significant transformation, ultimately at the expense of workers and consumers,” said Brian Justie, senior research analyst at the UCLA Labor Center and report co-author. “Thousands of meatpacking and food processing workers, who previously held stable jobs in union plants, now navigate a shady network of staffing agencies to land temp jobs. In these temp jobs, workers are subjected to unsafe machine operating speeds, provided with little to no training, and fall victim to frequent labor violations.”
“Right now, we have the opportunity to drastically improve the lives of Los Angeles meatpacking and food processing workers,” said Victor Sanchez, executive director at LAANE. “Through a combination of strategic policy changes and worker empowerment efforts — such as prohibiting piece-rate pay in food production and supporting a worker center in Vernon — we can start rebuilding the industry in a more just, equitable way.”
“Workers in this industry, who put food on our tables every single day, are demanding change,” said Edgar Reyes, organizer at El Centro/Center for Worker Training and Leadership. “They deserve safety and dignity in their workplace. The pride they take in their work should be met with long-term job security and advancement opportunities, not abuse and exploitation.”
Download the report: http://bit.ly/LAMPFP
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About the UCLA Labor Center:
Established in 1964, the UCLA Labor Center believes that a public university belongs to the people and advances cutting-edge research, education, and service guided by our core values: economic equity, racial and immigrant justice, and worker power and solidarity. Through our signature approaches and methodology that employ research justice, narrative storytelling, student and leader-to-movement pathways, and culturally and racially responsive evaluation, we partner with workers, unions, worker centers, students, and impacted communities to advance economic justice across California, the nation and globally. Learn more: https://labor.ucla.edu/
About the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE):
Combining dynamic research, innovative public policy, and strategic organizing of broad alliances, LAANE promotes a new economic approach based on good jobs, thriving communities, and a healthy environment. For the past 25 years, LAANE has been at the forefront of Los Angeles’ progressive movement, transforming conditions in key industries and improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of working families in southern California. Learn more: https://laane.org/
About El Centro:
El Centro de Entrenamiento y Liderazgo Para Trabajadores organizes to build a society with just food systems, where all have access to ethically and sustainably produced food that does well by workers, is healthy and healing, and defends the interests and well-being of the next generation and the planet. El Centro believes that those who produce and consume food should be at the center of our food systems.
