The hazardous conditions make it one of the most dangerous in private industry. For poultry workers the rates of illness are six times higher than the national average for all industries. They're injured almost twice as often. Overall, the work has about three times the serious injury rate as other US industries, and as distressing and disturbing as those numbers are, they probably represent a serious under-count.

Writer Elizabeth Grossman reports on the under-reported health costs of meat and poultry processing work - from the dangers of knife-work at high speeds and airborne hazardous chemicals, to the longterm debilitating conditions workers under-report to keep their jobs - and explains why the workers most at risk of serious injury are the least protected members of society, with little bargaining power against their employers.

Elizabeth wrote the In These Times story New Study Reveals Just How Brutal Meat and Poultry Work Is for Workers.