Chemicals hospitalize 173 Tyson chicken workers

Source: CBS News

Five workers exposed to chlorine gas at a Tyson Foods Inc. chicken processing plant are in intensive care and about 50 others remain hospitalized after an accident caused by the unintentional mixing of two chemicals, the company said Tuesday.

The accident Monday at the plant in Springdale resulted in the evacuation of about 300 workers, 173 of whom were treated at hospitals. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chlorine gas can cause a range of respiratory problems, from irritated tissue to sudden death from narrowing of the upper airway.

The company reported Monday that 45 workers were hospitalized and that none of the injuries from the potentially deadly gas were life-threatening. But on Tuesday it said five of its workers were in intensive care and that it had set up a clinic staffed with a doctor and nurses at the plant for workers to receive continued treatment.

Company spokesman Gary Mickelson said the discrepancy occurred because some patients had not yet been evaluated when the company released the Monday numbers.



Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/28/national/main20075261.shtml?tag=stack

Chlorine is commonly used as an antimicrobial treatment in chicken production.


Violence against animals isn't something we should be proud of --

D&P...like your posts.

for hard surfaces like processing machinery, the floor, the walls, the workers' boots...50 to 100 ppm chlorine solution deals with microbes on hard surfaces very effectively. You'd do the same thing if you were running a bagged-salad plant.

...standing next to me at this time, they also use similar dilution of chlorine for rinsing the actual chicken meat due to fecal matter, etc getting on the meat during gutting and processing.

Mexican nationals? Salvadoran? Honduran? Haitian? Maybe a U.S. citizen sprinkled in among the hospitalized. How many women who work on the assembly line.

can't wait to get their hands on.

Ya...right.

He said that gutting chickens for two weeks was more than he could bear.

Back during the Reagan Recession, I myself almost applied for a job at Tyson's in Springdale, at the location where this incident occurred, just east of downtown. I arrived at the gate, then got cold feet after remembering what my classmate had told me.

And some for lack of a better term U.S. born.

http://www.nwaonline.com/photos/galleries/2011/jun/27/tyson-gas-leak/

Just as suspected, most are latinas, who probably gut chickens for eight hours a day.

Photo #30 does show a man who appears to be a Tyson supervisor or boss.

19.66% of the population in Springdale is Hispanic/Latino.

are being taken by people whose native language is not English. Thirty years ago, the Latino population of Springdale, and nearby Rogers, was low single digits. Now 20% of Springdale's population is latino, and the figure is said to be higher in Rogers. Most of this population growth is attributed to the arrival of Latin Americans to work in these factories.

(Though Spanish being their first language because they live in a Spanish speaking household)

I live in Mesa where it is 26% Latino/Hispanic and I admit we do have immigration, illegal & legal, most here are Mexican-Americans. I often go through a Day Labor (they check your ID, social, & fill out a tax form) and most are Mexican-Americans. I guess my point is how do you make the determination that they are immigrants from a photo?

About as white as you could get, for a city of its size (45,000 or so back then).
On top of that, Tyson's has a local reputation for hiring latinos.

I actually worked in the same frozen warehouse as Tyson one time. I didn't work for Tyson, just same building, there was also Safeway, I worked for Sharmrock Farms.

Anyways I looked into the company and saw at one time they would ignore employer checks on Hispanic/Latino looking names and hired illegal immigrants in the past. Sorry for being contrary. :)

As opposed to the white/African American who have been here for several generations.

We all know why. Need to work, lower pay, nonunion.

I saw something about their controversial hiring practices after I posted in this thread. Though I will point out when you look at Texas to California people of Mexican ancestry have been here longer. Other countries in Latin America I see your point.

more likely to be first or 2nd generation. Though of course there are always exceptions. It's a fact that the plants like this are more likely to be employing illegal or 1st generation legals because of wages.

We're repeating the labor history of the late 1800's - 1940's without the unionization.

I live in Pittsburgh so I know the history of the abuse of immigrants/blacks by the steel, coal and railroad barons.
Those stories & history were part of my own family history. German & Slovak immigrants who worked those mills, railroads & mines & some were injured (losing limbs) or killed.

I also remember both my grandfather & my family having to survive the economic hardship of a long strike (59 or 60?).

I once watched Youtube Vid
about Factory Farming, and
the manner newborn Male
Chicks are simply dumped in
a grinder, Chicks beaks are
burned off, and egg layers
packed in cages so crowed the
birds cannot even flap their
wings. Totally barbaric ways
of treating animals. Now if
we even eat chicken it is
from suppliers who raise them
running free, with no growth
hormones added. I wouldn't
feed Tyson chickens to my
dogs.

Prollee not hugh.

Depends.

About 15 miles down the pike from Wal-Mart's head office.
The odds of it being unionized are about a million to one.

their work conditions :grr:

Undocumented workers are hired everywhere there are nasty, dirty, dangerous jobs in America. They are treated terribly. In my small town, these workers came to work construction on a school project and they were heating up highly toxic roofing tar with no special clothing, masks or even heat-resistant shoes. Then they were up on the roof applying the steaming tar, which permeated the whole neighborhood with sickening tar emissions for days, without special gloves or anything else OSHA would demand. This in the summer where days are humid and temps are in the 90's F. When I complained to those in charge of the project, they laughed me off.

Tyson execs should be held accountable. :grr:

if these workers were represented by a union, we would hear their side of the story and there could be no coverup. Tyson would be held more accountable for worker safety too.
Tyson is infamous for exploiting workers. It is a bad company, but it could be better if it's employees were unionized.
But the company doesn't care...it doesn't have to care. If a few immigrant workers are injured or killed, it can always help ramp up the anti immigrant propaganda thru the corporate media and blame the victims. That always seems to work in the USA. Americans have little sympathy for the poor people of color.
I don't buy Tyson products. It means I sometimes have to pay a little more, but I don't want to ever confuse price with real costs.

... due to lack of corporate income taxes and right to work laws (right to work for as little as they want to pay you). They, moved the offices to Dakota Dunes, South Dakota. Yes, that Dakota Dunes that is under water from Missouri River flooding. They have their plants here and there (Dakota City, Nebraska, an "IBP plant" is one of the biggest) and are famous for making deals for illegals to go back and forth between Mexico and the respective plants they work in, ie..."hey boss, I need to go back to Mexico and see my momma and give her some money, I will be back in about 3-6 months", to which the boss says, "that's fine, here is my phone number, call me when you are ready come back and I will have it all lined up for you again". No kidding, my brother is a USDA inspector and had overheard that several times while working at Dakota City IBP plant.

Just thought I would offer some insight. Tyson bought out IBP a few years ago and my brother now works at a beef plant down by Phoenix, Az.

their world headquarters are still in Springdale, Arkansas.

http://www.tysonfoods.com/About-Tyson/Locations/List-Page.aspx

...Headquartered in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, Tyson Fresh Meats maintains 17 production sites throughout North America and employs nearly 41000 team members.

- Dakota Dunes — Fresh Meat headquarters, International sales office

"Welcome to Tyson Fresh Meats, a subsidiary of Tyson Foods, Inc., and the world's leading supplier of premium beef and pork. Headquartered in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, Tyson Fresh Meats maintains 17 production sites throughout North America and employs nearly 41,000 team members"

<www.tysonfoods.com/Business-to-Business/Fresh-Meats.aspx>

OK, Arkansas gets the chickens, South Dakota gets the real meat. I will concede on that.

I just wonder, what is the significance of "world" versus "international" in the titles?

No problem then, carry on.