ABSTRACT

For over a century, worker concerns over the dangers of line speed have been well documented. Despite this, line speed—the rate at which workers are expected to perform discrete tasks along a meat processing line—is set at the federal level without any consideration of the impact on workers. The result is a persistent his- tory of oppressive working conditions that have only worsened as processing technology has improved and as industry has pushed the federal government to authorize faster speeds. In the plants, workers suffer from frequent and, often, debilitating injury—amputations, concussions, and life-altering exposure to chemical substances—to keep pace with the demands of fast work speeds. The long-standing lack of support in law for the objectives of labor unions also hinders workers’ ability to organize in support of slower line speeds. In this environment, the clear regulatory mismatch guts any effort by workers to have a voice in the line speed determination process.
In this Article, I seek to draw attention to the ways in which workers’ lives are devalued by their exclusion from the setting of line speeds. In response, I propose technical and regulatory interventions—the most obvious being to give the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration direct power to regulate line speed. Additionally, I discuss what a humane work environment in the meat-packing sector might look like and the conditions of the industry that must change to make such a vision possible.