This Labor Day, we’re thinking about the people who make our picnics possible. People like Marielena, who works in a poultry plant in North Carolina. More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the workers “do not have sufficient time to even disinfect our hands,” says Marielena.
That’s just one of the preventable hazards faced by workers processing the meats we’ll be sizzling on our grills this weekend. Several of her co-workers, Marielena reports, “hurt themselves lifting because the floors were wet. There were chemicals; they have cuts and the velocity [of the line] is so fast [but] the supervisor comes and yells at us to move faster.”
Marielena tells her story at WorkedUp, a new platform hosted by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, where we are co-executive directors. WorkedUp highlights testimony from workers standing up for better work conditions. But she prefers not to use her real name due to the very real threat of employer retaliation.
