Poultry workers in the United States have routinely been denied bathroom breaks and forced to wear diapers, an investigative report from Oxfam America revealed Wednesday. The troubling conditions were reported by employees of some of the largest poultry providers in the nation with "the vast majority" of those interviewed citing a persistent lack of adequate bathroom breaks.
Workers from Sanderson Farms, Pilgrim's Pride, Perdue Farms, and Tyson Foods claim that supervisors often threaten them with punishment for asking to use the bathroom or ignore their bathroom requests altogether. "In the course of hundreds of interviews, only a handful of workers reported that their bathroom needs are respected," the report stated. "These exceptions are primarily in plants that have unions, which offer important protections, inform workers of their rights, and ensure they have a voice on the job."
However, only a third of those in the poultry workforce are unionized. As a result, workers are faced with the embarrassment of urinating and/or defecating on themselves while on the processing line. Workers across the country, seeking protection from alleged mockery by supervisors, have resorted to wearing diapers. During the investigation, "Betty," a Tyson plant worker from Arkansas, told the global advocacy organization that one woman regularly wears a diaper on the line because "they don't let her" use the bathroom. "Marta," a Pilgrim's worker from Texas, reported similar conditions.
Oxfam's report, the culmination of months of investigation, also found that women were often hit the hardest by this denial of basic bathroom privileges. "The supervisor gets mad at us because we take longer, but we are women, and our needs are greater than those of men," one worker recalled. "They don’t consider that we have more gear to remove, or the fact that the bathrooms are too far away; just walking towards them takes our time is up. When we have our [menstrual] cycle, we need to go more often to the bathroom, but they don't let us, they don't like it."
Another worker, Dolores from a Simmons plant in Arkansas, said she was denied bathroom privileges "many, many times." After being advised by her supervisor that she should drink and eat less to avoid bathroom visits, Dolores took matters into our own hands. She started wearing a sanitary napkin before switching to Pampers because the napkin "would fill up with urine" too quickly. "I and many, many others had to wear Pampers," Dolores said, adding that she felt she had "no worth, no right to ask questions or to speak up."
"Most of this comes down to a stark gender imbalance between workers and supervisors," Oliver Gottfried, Oxfam America's Senior Advocacy Advisor, told Complex via email. "Supervisors, mostly male, take advantage of the workers under their supervision—both women and men. Unfortunately, women feel there's little they can do to fight back. They say the anonymous hot line goes straight to the human resources office; they talk to HR or management, and they feel immediate recrimination."
But Gottfried is confident that both consumers and lawmakers are becoming increasingly aware of the many issues facing poultry workers, to the point of protest. "Fortunately, poultry workers do have some champions in Congress, and we appreciate their leadership and tenacity on the workers' behalf," Gottfried told Complex. "Just yesterday, 18 Members of Congress wrote a letter to OSHA calling on the agency to continue its program of increased oversight and enforcement in the poultry industry, which has been beneficial in addressing health and safety concerns in poultry plants."
According to Colleen O'Brien, Senior Director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Oxfam report is simply indicative of the wide variety of problems that have long plagued the poultry industry. "Abuse runs rampant in the meat industry, and PETA has documented it at poultry farms mentioned in Oxfam's report: at Tyson, where PETA revealed that workers slammed birds into shackles and urinated on the slaughter line; at Perdue, where chickens were left to die of heatstroke in exposed crates; and at Pilgrim's Pride, where workers were caught stomping on and kicking chickens," O'Brien told Complex. "Like the workers, these animals are stripped of their dignity and their inherent worth as living beings, all so others can have a fleeting, low-cost meal."
Perdue and Tyson issued statements to Oxfam, touting their dedication to fair working conditions and urging their employees to take internal action. "Our production supervisors are instructed to allow Team Members to leave the production line if they need to use the restroom," a Tyson representative said. "Not permitting them to do so is simply not tolerated."
Perdue said they had conducted an "internal review," claiming workers had not fully utilized the company's "open door" policy. "We offer an anonymous toll-free hotline to report illegal or unethical activity in the workplace," a rep for Perdue said. "Calls made to this number will be kept confidential and associates don't have to give their name if they don't want to."
