- The video discusses the conditions and treatment of workers in the meatpacking industry.
- It highlights the consolidation of the industry, with a few companies controlling a large portion of beef and chicken production.
- The video mentions a disturbing incident at a Tyson Pork Processing Plant in Iowa, where supervisors allegedly placed bets on how many employees would test positive for COVID-19.
- Workers in the industry have disputed claims made by companies about protecting their employees during the pandemic.
- The video describes the fast-paced and dangerous working conditions in meatpacking plants, including lack of breaks and bathroom access.
- It mentions Oxfam's report on poultry industry workers being denied bathroom breaks and having to wear diapers during their workday.
- The meatpacking industry has high rates of occupational injury and illness.
- Companies strategically locate their plants in areas with limited job opportunities and target vulnerable groups for hiring.
- Companies minimize accountability by offering on-site first aid treatments instead of referring workers to doctors.
- Workers face difficulties in accessing medical treatment and workers' compensation benefits.
- The video highlights the influence of companies on state-level workers' compensation programs.

- Senator Bob Glasgow claims he was offered a $10,000 check by Bo Pilgrim, a chicken industry tycoon.
- Pilgrim's lavish spending includes a giant bust of his head, a mansion called Cluckingham Palace, and a peculiar bathroom.
- Tyson, a major chicken company, has pushed for changes in workers' compensation laws, making it harder for injured workers to receive payments.
- Workers at Tyson's corporate offices enjoy fitness classes and meditation workshops, creating a stark contrast with the conditions in their factories.
- OSHA, the agency responsible for workplace safety, is understaffed and limited in its power to enforce safety measures.
- The poultry industry has prevented OSHA inspectors from conducting thorough searches in factories, even when serious injuries occur.
- OSHA fines for safety violations are low, making it cheaper for companies to run unsafe plants and pay fines than to provide a safe work environment.
- During the pandemic, corporate workers were allowed to work from home, while factory workers were kept in unsafe conditions.
- JBS, a meatpacking company, received a small fine after workers died from COVID-19, leading to criticism and calls for stronger worker protections.
- OSHA should implement emergency workplace standards for meatpacking workers, and the USDA should ensure safe working conditions.
- Workers' compensation laws should be improved to protect workers, and swift action is needed to address the critical situation in the industry.

The pandemic has thrown into high relief some of the longstanding issues surrounding working conditions in meatpacking facilities. John Oliver explains why greater oversight is needed, and how we can go about getting it.

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For our main story tonight, we're gonna talk about a product that is wildly popular in this country, but instead of telling you what it is, I'd rather show you an ad for it.

I promise, if you have never seen this commercial before, you will never guess what it's for.

Mom, I think Trippy's been drinking too much milk.

Sometimes you just don't feel like cooking.

Fresh, complete entrees, ready in under 3 minutes.

And what exactly does Jim Perdue think he's doing there?

That family doesn't need 1 of your shitty frozen meals.

They need someone to expel the literal devil from their demented guinea pig.

Perform an exorcism, Jim, or get the fuck out of their house.

The point is, our main story tonight concerns meat.

It's what I technically am to any animal above me on the food chain, like a bear or a tiger, or if we're being totally honest, a medium aggressive pigeon.

And if you're thinking, okay, I know where this is going, this is gonna be a grim story about the conditions animals face in factory farms, you're actually wrong.

Those conditions are horrific, but they do get talked about a lot.

This story is gonna be about the grim conditions humans are facing working in meatpacking facilities.

If you ate meat today, it probably went through 1 of them, and meatpacking is a highly consolidated industry.

Roughly 85 percent of beef production in America is controlled by these 4 companies.

And more than half of the chicken industry is controlled by these 4.

Their employees are extremely important to this country's food supply, And to hear companies like Tyson tell it, they're important to them on a personal level, too.

I said earlier that we're a food company, but we're a family.

And that's genuinely how I feel and how we operate.

Okay, if Tyson's workers are their most valuable asset, then their workers are, by definition, not family.

Because let's be honest, nobody's family is their most valuable asset.

If you're gonna rank everything in life by how much you value it, it goes, number 1, your phone, number 2, food, water, and shelter, Number 3, Judy Dench.

But second, it's a little hard to take Tyson's Workers are our family talk, given this.

Stunning allegations made against managers at this Tyson Pork Processing Plant in Waterloo, Iowa.

1 of the first to shut down when the coronavirus raged uncontrollably in the spring.

A supervisor allegedly taking bets on how many would catch the virus.

According to the allegations, the plant manager of the Waterloo facility organized a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19.

That betting Pool might be the most disgusting thing ever created in a Tyson factory, which is frankly saying something, given that Tyson also makes ranch-flavored chicken chips, a snack 1 customer reviewed online with a note, "'Disgusting.

I gagged in front of my child." That review is on Tyson's actual website.

Now, Tyson fired 7 managers at that plant after that incident, but it does speak to a larger problem in this industry, because while companies have put out endless press statements about the expense they've gone to to protect their workers during this pandemic.

Workers themselves dispute those claims heavily, and they've been hit hard.

As of February 18th, at least 57,000 meatpacking workers have contracted the virus, and at least 280 have died.

But the broader truth is that the treatment of workers in this industry has been very bad for a very long time.

Most feature a series of long conveyor belts with workers packed closely along the line, chopping, deboning, or trimming fat, often at breakneck speed.

Maximum allowable line speeds in poultry have actually doubled since 1979, with workers reporting averaging 35 to 45 birds per minute.

In the time it's taken me to explain line speeds to you, a plant could have processed 5 whole birds.

Checking the time, clearing your throat, determining the worth of a total stranger by how much you want to fuck them.

But safely butchering a chicken probably shouldn't be 1 of them.

And thanks to this relentless pace, meatpacking workers have reported it can be hard to take a break, even to go to the bathroom, which may explain stories like this.

This is security camera video given to our sister station from the Smithfield production line in Virginia.

In the video, you see the employee in front take off his gloves.

Company officials confirm the man relieves himself under the production line, then puts his gloves back on and continues to work.

The worker at the center of all this has been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

The combination of urine and pork is a bit upsetting.

It's 1 of the many reasons I have no interest in seeing Miss Piggy's sex tape.

But it is not just that that man urinated under the production line, it's that he was put in a position where he may have felt like he had to.

That is actually a problem across the meatpacking industry.

Oxfam released a report detailing exactly how grim conditions can be for poultry workers, with 1 detail in particular that hit this local Michigan talk show hard.

Poultry industry workers are put through such extremes that they're denied bathroom breaks, many wearing diapers during their workday.

I know that people need jobs, they need to be employed, but to have to stand in your own...

My mind is racing while you're sharing those details and thinking, surely this is not in our country.

Okay, I get the shock there, I really do, but the thing is, this is totally our country.

We live in a nation where hundreds of thousands of homeless sleep on the streets, people have to launch GoFundMe campaigns for medical treatment, and where George Zimmerman can auction off the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin, a horrific story, which, by the way, your show actually covered in this segment directly before that 1.

So you guys have been doing a pretty good job of showing how fucked up this country can be.

Meatpacking has some of the highest rates of occupational injury and illness in the country.

In fact, in a recent three-year period, a worker in the meat and poultry industry lost a body part or was sent to the hospital for inpatient treatment about every other day.

And a lot of this is down to dangerous working conditions.

Plants are so crowded, a common injury is a cut from your neighbor's knife.

And those rapid line speeds can exacerbate other problems such as repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome, all of which can leave workers feeling pretty disposable.

I mean, you got 2,000 hogs an hour going through.

You're doing that same movement for that same piece of the hog, and it's nonstop, you know.

Basically, you're treated as a human machine.

Unless, of course, it is a fun machine like an immersion blender.

I'd love to be treated like an immersion blender.

You want me to stay in a comfy drawer most of the day and then occasionally come out to robot fuck a soup.

Look, at this point, you might be wondering, how do companies get away with treating their workers like this?

Well, many strategically locate their plants in areas with few other job opportunities and target vulnerable groups like former prisoners, refugees, and especially immigrants for hiring.

Roughly 175,000 immigrants work in meatpacking jobs in America, and they, understandably, may be warier about complaining to authorities about mistreatment.

So, many workers are already operating at a deep disadvantage, on top of which, companies have been able to minimize accountability by gaming the system.

For instance, they are required to report serious injuries to the government's worker protection agency, OSHA.

But there is a simple way around that, Because you actually don't have to report those injuries if treatment stays at a first aid level.

Well, as a GAO report found, plants simply offer first aid treatments on site rather than refer workers to a doctor.

That same report found even workers with severe injuries like fractures weren't sent to doctors, with 1 worker who developed a muscular skeletal disorder, making over 90 visits to the company's nurse before being referred to a physician.

And the workers know the game that is being played here.

There's a nurse, but she doesn't do anything for you.

For example, when our arms hurt, all she did was apply Bengay ointment and sent us on our way.

I needed to see a doctor, but they refused me.

And I asked, I told them, well, can I go down to see my own orthopedics, my own specialist, my own doctor?

And they said, if you do that, we're gonna fire you.

Look, there are lots of good reasons to fire someone.

Frequent absences, poor quality of work, because they get a little racist-y on Ambien.

But wanting to see a doctor really should not be 1 of them.

And it's worth noting, if you do have a severe injury, it can be very hard to get relief.

In theory, you could apply for workers' compensation, programs under which injured workers lose their ability to sue, but in exchange, can get money to cover medical treatment and lost wages.

The thing is, those programs are run at the state level and paid into by companies who've lobbied hard both to hollow those benefits out and make them harder to get.

Just before Texas overhauled its workers' comp system back in 1989, 1 poultry CEO, Bo Pilgrim, tried to personally influence proceedings in a pretty blatant way.

Senator Bob Glasgow of Stephenville says he's never been offered a blank $10,000 check.

Not until East Texas chicken king, Bo Pilgrim, strutted onto the Senate floor Wednesday.

Senator Hugh Palmer of Fort Worth says Pilgrim then slipped him either a bribe or an illegal campaign contribution.

Well, I didn't think he was trying to give me a Christmas present, I'll tell you that.

Because Christmas presents aren't typically used as bribes.

That is, unless you're a child of divorce.

Here it is, Billy, a full-size motorcycle, just like you asked for.

I think you should have it, and if your mother doesn't, well, that is on her.

And look, just a quick word about Beau Pilgrim here.

He co-founded a company called Pilgrim's Pride, and blank checks to legislators aren't even the most shameless thing he spent money on during his life.

Among other things, he had this 37-foot bust of his head installed next to 1 of his distribution centers, and added this second statue underneath it, depicting him reading a Bible to his pet chicken Henrietta.

He also built this hellacious mansion, which locals referred to as Cluckingham Palace, and which included, among other atrocities, this absolute nightmare of a bathroom that fittingly has the exact color scheme of a raw chicken breast, and this nauseating foyer featuring a painting of what appears to be 2 peacocks fucking above some chickens, while a perverted owl...

And it wasn't just Beau Pilgrim fighting workers' comp laws.

Tyson has taken a lead in pushing for changes in workers' comp in state after state, which have made it harder for workers hurt on the job to receive payments.

In fact, in Texas, it is now possible for companies to opt out of paying into workers' comp entirely and essentially write their own rules for how much workers get for their injuries.

And when workers get injured in their plants there, in order to get medical care from the company, they must first sign a document saying they voluntarily release, waive, and forever give up claims arising from their injuries.

But then, your best bet to pay for medical coverage is to sue the company, and that could take fucking years.

And while Texas does now have a law giving workers 10 days to consider signing the waiver, before then, they could actually be pressured on the spot at another company.

An employee who'd had both of his hands crushed was persuaded to sign a waiver with a pen held in his teeth.

And look, I know that this all sounds very bad.

And It does imply that companies like Tyson don't care about the physical well-being of their workers.

But that's actually not true, because they do seem to care very much about the physical well-being of some of their workers.

Employees at Tyson Fresh Meats corporate offices in Dakota Dunes are getting out from behind their desks...

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we offer an on-site fitness class for any employee who wants to come.

A lot of us sit at our desk a lot of times, So even just getting up and stretching, just that little bit of movement throughout the day helps, too.

We had a workshop on meditation last week, and it was pretty good, clearing your mind and relaxing, stuff you can do at work.

Meditation is great for clearing your mind.

You just have to sit still, focus on your breath, and try not to think about the local camera crew that's filming a piece about your corporate office culture that will 1 day be uncomfortably juxtaposed with how appallingly your company treats workers in its factories.

Now, are those thoughts going to creep into your mind?

Sure, But just acknowledge them and return to your breath.

Now, clearly, the contrast between Tyson's corporate offices and their plants is stark.

Almost as stark as the disparity between their salaried workers, over 73 percent of whom are white, and their hourly workers, over 68 percent of whom are Black, Asian, or Latino.

It's just a fun fact I'm throwing in there for no particular reason.

Now, ideally, you would want the government to step in and remedy some of what you've seen.

Unfortunately, OSHA is woefully understaffed.

As of last April, its number of inspectors had dropped to a 45-year low.

In fact, at current staffing levels, it would take OSHA 165 years to inspect every workplace under its jurisdiction.

And even on the rare occasions that inspectors do get to visit the plants, the limits to what they're allowed to do once they're in there can be genuinely ridiculous.

In the Southeast, where a huge, proportion of the poultry industry resides, there is actually a lawsuit that has successfully prevented OSHA inspectors from doing broader searches in poultry factories, even when they know workers are getting seriously injured.

In 1 case, an inspector was told to put a box over her head so she wouldn't see any safety hazards in the plant if she wanted to walk through the plant to investigate a fire.

Not to state the obvious here, but put a box on your head is not an instruction you give when everything is up to code.

Now, if you'll also just please plug your nose and spin around 3 times, we can begin the tour.

And even when OSHA finds violations, their power to do anything is incredibly weak.

In 2019, the average fine for a serious safety violation, a hazard where there is a substantial probability of death or serious physical harm, was just over $3,700.

Meaning it can genuinely be cheaper for companies to run an unsafe plant and occasionally pay those fines than for them to provide a safe work environment.

And all of this came to a head last year when the pandemic hit.

Companies' corporate workers immediately worked from home because it wasn't safe for them to be in the office, but the plants were kept open despite the fact, As you have seen, it's nearly impossible to socially distance on a line.

And when workers, entirely predictably, then started dying, the federal response was characteristically weak.

After 6 workers from a JBS plant in Colorado died from COVID, the company's total fine was just $15,000.

And for the family of Saul Sanchez, 1 of those workers, that understandably didn't sit well.

Saul Sanchez worked for the company for nearly 3 decades and never called in sick a single time.

He was the first JBS worker to die of COVID-19, and his family says his funeral costs more than the fine this company's now facing.

It's a huge slap on the face, and they bring in over 50 billion dollars a year, and they get slapped with 15,000 dollars.

That's what enables these companies to not care for their employees.

That fine amounts to .00003% of JBS's profits last year.

And if you fine a company a fraction of a percent of their profits.

Don't be surprised when they carry on only giving a fraction of a fuck about the welfare of their workers.

Now, legally, I have to tell you, JBS claims that that fine and the government's finding that they failed to protect their employees from exposure to COVID is entirely without merit.

Not only that, they are even fighting the claims for workers' comp survivor benefits from Saul Sanchez's widow and others who've lost loved ones.

Their argument being that the COVID infections were not worker-related.

Although, to be honest, that's a hard argument for them to land, given that the outbreak got so bad there, at 1 point, they had to shut the fucking plant down.

Well, at least for the duration of the pandemic, OSHA should implement a federal emergency workplace standard, giving meatpacking workers the right to social distancing and other protections.

Longer term, that agency needs to be rebuilt and strengthened, and it can't stop there.

The USDA should do more to ensure lines move at safe speeds, and when it comes to workers' comp, we should be setting a baseline for what states have to offer, because otherwise, the race to the bottom will just continue.

And all of this has to be done quickly, because things are critical right now.

Remember that Tyson plant with the winner-take-all betting pool?

As of mid-December, more than 1,500 employees there contracted the virus, and 8 died.

So if Tyson truly is a family, like they love to claim, it does seem to be a pretty fucking dysfunctional 1.

And When you take all of this together, the diapers, the endless trips to the nursing station, the injuries and the deaths, you frankly only need to take a peek inside the way this industry currently operates to draw a pretty simple conclusion.


Speaker 0: ♪♪ Moving on. For our main story tonight, we're gonna talk about a product that is wildly popular in this country, but instead of telling you what it is, I'd rather show you an ad for it. I promise, if you have never seen this commercial before, you will never guess what it's for.

Speaker 1: Mom, I think Trippy's been drinking too much milk.

Speaker 2: Sometimes you just don't feel like cooking. So I've come up with new Purdue entrees. Fresh, complete entrees, ready in under 3 minutes.

Speaker 0: Well, That took a turn. And what exactly does Jim Perdue think he's doing there? That family doesn't need 1 of your shitty frozen meals. They need someone to expel the literal devil from their demented guinea pig. Perform an exorcism, Jim, or get the fuck out of their house.

The point is, our main story tonight concerns meat. It's what I technically am to any animal above me on the food chain, like a bear or a tiger, or if we're being totally honest, a medium aggressive pigeon. And if you're thinking, okay, I know where this is going, this is gonna be a grim story about the conditions animals face in factory farms, you're actually wrong. Those conditions are horrific, but they do get talked about a lot. This story is gonna be about the grim conditions humans are facing working in meatpacking facilities.

If you ate meat today, it probably went through 1 of them, and meatpacking is a highly consolidated industry. Roughly 85 percent of beef production in America is controlled by these 4 companies. And more than half of the chicken industry is controlled by these 4. Their employees are extremely important to this country's food supply, And to hear companies like Tyson tell it, they're important to them on a personal level, too.

Speaker 2: We've all got the same end goal in mind. Protect our team members. They're our most valuable asset. They are our family. I said earlier that we're a food company, but we're a family.

And that's genuinely how I feel and how we operate.

Speaker 0: Okay, if Tyson's workers are their most valuable asset, then their workers are, by definition, not family. Because let's be honest, nobody's family is their most valuable asset. If you're gonna rank everything in life by how much you value it, it goes, number 1, your phone, number 2, food, water, and shelter, Number 3, Judy Dench. She's a fucking treasure. And then, and only then, your family.

That's just an empirical fact. But second, it's a little hard to take Tyson's Workers are our family talk, given this.

Speaker 3: Stunning allegations made against managers at this Tyson Pork Processing Plant in Waterloo, Iowa. 1 of the first to shut down when the coronavirus raged uncontrollably in the spring. A supervisor allegedly taking bets on how many would catch the virus. According to the allegations, the plant manager of the Waterloo facility organized a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19.

Speaker 0: Holy shit! That betting Pool might be the most disgusting thing ever created in a Tyson factory, which is frankly saying something, given that Tyson also makes ranch-flavored chicken chips, a snack 1 customer reviewed online with a note, "'Disgusting. I gagged in front of my child." That review is on Tyson's actual website. Now, Tyson fired 7 managers at that plant after that incident, but it does speak to a larger problem in this industry, because while companies have put out endless press statements about the expense they've gone to to protect their workers during this pandemic. Workers themselves dispute those claims heavily, and they've been hit hard.

As of February 18th, at least 57,000 meatpacking workers have contracted the virus, and at least 280 have died. But the broader truth is that the treatment of workers in this industry has been very bad for a very long time. So tonight, let's look at them. And let's start with how plants operate. Most feature a series of long conveyor belts with workers packed closely along the line, chopping, deboning, or trimming fat, often at breakneck speed.

Maximum allowable line speeds in poultry have actually doubled since 1979, with workers reporting averaging 35 to 45 birds per minute. That is less than 2 seconds per bird. That's fast. In the time it's taken me to explain line speeds to you, a plant could have processed 5 whole birds. And look, there's plenty of activities.

They should only take 2 seconds. Checking the time, clearing your throat, determining the worth of a total stranger by how much you want to fuck them. Hey! I get it. But safely butchering a chicken probably shouldn't be 1 of them.

And thanks to this relentless pace, meatpacking workers have reported it can be hard to take a break, even to go to the bathroom, which may explain stories like this.

Speaker 4: This is security camera video given to our sister station from the Smithfield production line in Virginia. In the video, you see the employee in front take off his gloves. Company officials confirm the man relieves himself under the production line, then puts his gloves back on and continues to work. The worker at the center of all this has been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation. That is disgusting.

Speaker 0: Well, yeah, it is. The combination of urine and pork is a bit upsetting. It's 1 of the many reasons I have no interest in seeing Miss Piggy's sex tape. But it is not just that that man urinated under the production line, it's that he was put in a position where he may have felt like he had to. That is actually a problem across the meatpacking industry.

Oxfam released a report detailing exactly how grim conditions can be for poultry workers, with 1 detail in particular that hit this local Michigan talk show hard.

Speaker 1: Poultry industry workers are put through such extremes that they're denied bathroom breaks, many wearing diapers during their workday.

Speaker 5: Oh, my goodness!

Speaker 1: I know that people need jobs, they need to be employed, but to have to stand in your own... Stuff...

Speaker 6: Yeah, while

Speaker 1: you're working at home. My mind is racing while you're sharing those details and thinking, surely this is not in our country.

Speaker 0: Okay, I get the shock there, I really do, but the thing is, this is totally our country. We live in a nation where hundreds of thousands of homeless sleep on the streets, people have to launch GoFundMe campaigns for medical treatment, and where George Zimmerman can auction off the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin, a horrific story, which, by the way, your show actually covered in this segment directly before that 1. So you guys have been doing a pretty good job of showing how fucked up this country can be. And it's not just bathroom break issues. Meatpacking has some of the highest rates of occupational injury and illness in the country.

In fact, in a recent three-year period, a worker in the meat and poultry industry lost a body part or was sent to the hospital for inpatient treatment about every other day. And a lot of this is down to dangerous working conditions. Plants are so crowded, a common injury is a cut from your neighbor's knife. And those rapid line speeds can exacerbate other problems such as repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome, all of which can leave workers feeling pretty disposable.

Speaker 6: I mean, you got 2,000 hogs an hour going through. You're covered with blood, feces, urine. It's easy to get hurt down there. You're doing that same movement for that same piece of the hog, and it's nonstop, you know. Basically, you're treated as a human machine.

Speaker 0: Look, that is clearly terrible. Nobody should be treated like a machine. Unless, of course, it is a fun machine like an immersion blender. I'd love to be treated like an immersion blender. You want me to stay in a comfy drawer most of the day and then occasionally come out to robot fuck a soup.

Yes, please. Look, at this point, you might be wondering, how do companies get away with treating their workers like this? Well, many strategically locate their plants in areas with few other job opportunities and target vulnerable groups like former prisoners, refugees, and especially immigrants for hiring. Roughly 175,000 immigrants work in meatpacking jobs in America, and they, understandably, may be warier about complaining to authorities about mistreatment. So, many workers are already operating at a deep disadvantage, on top of which, companies have been able to minimize accountability by gaming the system.

For instance, they are required to report serious injuries to the government's worker protection agency, OSHA. But there is a simple way around that, Because you actually don't have to report those injuries if treatment stays at a first aid level. So, what do you think happens? Well, as a GAO report found, plants simply offer first aid treatments on site rather than refer workers to a doctor. That same report found even workers with severe injuries like fractures weren't sent to doctors, with 1 worker who developed a muscular skeletal disorder, making over 90 visits to the company's nurse before being referred to a physician.

And the workers know the game that is being played here.

Speaker 1: There's a nurse, but she doesn't do anything for you. For example, when our arms hurt, all she did was apply Bengay ointment and sent us on our way. It's not even worth going.

Speaker 6: I needed to see a doctor, but they refused me. And I asked, I told them, well, can I go down to see my own orthopedics, my own specialist, my own doctor? And they said, if you do that, we're gonna fire you.

Speaker 0: Look, there are lots of good reasons to fire someone. Frequent absences, poor quality of work, because they get a little racist-y on Ambien. But wanting to see a doctor really should not be 1 of them. And it's worth noting, if you do have a severe injury, it can be very hard to get relief. In theory, you could apply for workers' compensation, programs under which injured workers lose their ability to sue, but in exchange, can get money to cover medical treatment and lost wages.

The thing is, those programs are run at the state level and paid into by companies who've lobbied hard both to hollow those benefits out and make them harder to get. Just before Texas overhauled its workers' comp system back in 1989, 1 poultry CEO, Bo Pilgrim, tried to personally influence proceedings in a pretty blatant way.

Speaker 7: Senator Bob Glasgow of Stephenville says he's never been offered a blank $10,000 check. Not until East Texas chicken king, Bo Pilgrim, strutted onto the Senate floor Wednesday. Senator Hugh Palmer of Fort Worth says Pilgrim then slipped him either a bribe or an illegal campaign contribution.

Speaker 6: Well, I didn't think he was trying to give me a Christmas present, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 0: Yeah, of course he wasn't. Because Christmas presents aren't typically used as bribes. That is, unless you're a child of divorce. Here it is, Billy, a full-size motorcycle, just like you asked for. I think you should have it, and if your mother doesn't, well, that is on her.

She's a difficult woman, Billy. And look, just a quick word about Beau Pilgrim here. He co-founded a company called Pilgrim's Pride, and blank checks to legislators aren't even the most shameless thing he spent money on during his life. Among other things, he had this 37-foot bust of his head installed next to 1 of his distribution centers, and added this second statue underneath it, depicting him reading a Bible to his pet chicken Henrietta. He also built this hellacious mansion, which locals referred to as Cluckingham Palace, and which included, among other atrocities, this absolute nightmare of a bathroom that fittingly has the exact color scheme of a raw chicken breast, and this nauseating foyer featuring a painting of what appears to be 2 peacocks fucking above some chickens, while a perverted owl...

Just watches. And it wasn't just Beau Pilgrim fighting workers' comp laws. Tyson has taken a lead in pushing for changes in workers' comp in state after state, which have made it harder for workers hurt on the job to receive payments. In fact, in Texas, it is now possible for companies to opt out of paying into workers' comp entirely and essentially write their own rules for how much workers get for their injuries. Tyson does exactly that.

And when workers get injured in their plants there, in order to get medical care from the company, they must first sign a document saying they voluntarily release, waive, and forever give up claims arising from their injuries. Now, could you not sign that? Sure. But then, your best bet to pay for medical coverage is to sue the company, and that could take fucking years. And while Texas does now have a law giving workers 10 days to consider signing the waiver, before then, they could actually be pressured on the spot at another company.

An employee who'd had both of his hands crushed was persuaded to sign a waiver with a pen held in his teeth. And look, I know that this all sounds very bad. And It does imply that companies like Tyson don't care about the physical well-being of their workers. But that's actually not true, because they do seem to care very much about the physical well-being of some of their workers.

Speaker 4: Employees at Tyson Fresh Meats corporate offices in Dakota Dunes are getting out from behind their desks...

Speaker 1: All right, looks good, guys.

Speaker 4: ...And into a healthy routine.

Speaker 1: Every Tuesday and Thursday, we offer an on-site fitness class for any employee who wants to come. We focused on stretching at your desk. A lot of us sit at our desk a lot of times, So even just getting up and stretching, just that little bit of movement throughout the day helps, too.

Speaker 6: We had a workshop on meditation last week, and it was pretty good, clearing your mind and relaxing, stuff you can do at work.

Speaker 0: You know what? It's true. Meditation is great for clearing your mind. You just have to sit still, focus on your breath, and try not to think about the local camera crew that's filming a piece about your corporate office culture that will 1 day be uncomfortably juxtaposed with how appallingly your company treats workers in its factories. Now, are those thoughts going to creep into your mind?

Sure, But just acknowledge them and return to your breath. Namaste. Now, clearly, the contrast between Tyson's corporate offices and their plants is stark. Almost as stark as the disparity between their salaried workers, over 73 percent of whom are white, and their hourly workers, over 68 percent of whom are Black, Asian, or Latino. It's just a fun fact I'm throwing in there for no particular reason.

Now, ideally, you would want the government to step in and remedy some of what you've seen. Unfortunately, OSHA is woefully understaffed. As of last April, its number of inspectors had dropped to a 45-year low. In fact, at current staffing levels, it would take OSHA 165 years to inspect every workplace under its jurisdiction. And even on the rare occasions that inspectors do get to visit the plants, the limits to what they're allowed to do once they're in there can be genuinely ridiculous.

Speaker 8: In the Southeast, where a huge, proportion of the poultry industry resides, there is actually a lawsuit that has successfully prevented OSHA inspectors from doing broader searches in poultry factories, even when they know workers are getting seriously injured. In 1 case, an inspector was told to put a box over her head so she wouldn't see any safety hazards in the plant if she wanted to walk through the plant to investigate a fire.

Speaker 0: Okay. Not to state the obvious here, but put a box on your head is not an instruction you give when everything is up to code. It's just inherently suspicious. Right this way, Inspector. Now, if you'll also just please plug your nose and spin around 3 times, we can begin the tour.

And even when OSHA finds violations, their power to do anything is incredibly weak. In 2019, the average fine for a serious safety violation, a hazard where there is a substantial probability of death or serious physical harm, was just over $3,700. Meaning it can genuinely be cheaper for companies to run an unsafe plant and occasionally pay those fines than for them to provide a safe work environment. And all of this came to a head last year when the pandemic hit. Companies' corporate workers immediately worked from home because it wasn't safe for them to be in the office, but the plants were kept open despite the fact, As you have seen, it's nearly impossible to socially distance on a line.

And when workers, entirely predictably, then started dying, the federal response was characteristically weak. After 6 workers from a JBS plant in Colorado died from COVID, the company's total fine was just $15,000. And for the family of Saul Sanchez, 1 of those workers, that understandably didn't sit well.

Speaker 9: Saul Sanchez worked for the company for nearly 3 decades and never called in sick a single time. He was the first JBS worker to die of COVID-19, and his family says his funeral costs more than the fine this company's now facing.

Speaker 5: It's a huge slap on the face, and they bring in over 50 billion dollars a year, and they get slapped with 15,000 dollars. That's what enables these companies to not care for their employees.

Speaker 0: Yeah, exactly. That fine amounts to .00003% of JBS's profits last year. And if you fine a company a fraction of a percent of their profits. Don't be surprised when they carry on only giving a fraction of a fuck about the welfare of their workers. Now, legally, I have to tell you, JBS claims that that fine and the government's finding that they failed to protect their employees from exposure to COVID is entirely without merit.

Not only that, they are even fighting the claims for workers' comp survivor benefits from Saul Sanchez's widow and others who've lost loved ones. Their argument being that the COVID infections were not worker-related. Although, to be honest, that's a hard argument for them to land, given that the outbreak got so bad there, at 1 point, they had to shut the fucking plant down. So, what can we do here? Well, at least for the duration of the pandemic, OSHA should implement a federal emergency workplace standard, giving meatpacking workers the right to social distancing and other protections.

Longer term, that agency needs to be rebuilt and strengthened, and it can't stop there. The USDA should do more to ensure lines move at safe speeds, and when it comes to workers' comp, we should be setting a baseline for what states have to offer, because otherwise, the race to the bottom will just continue. And all of this has to be done quickly, because things are critical right now. Remember that Tyson plant with the winner-take-all betting pool? As of mid-December, more than 1,500 employees there contracted the virus, and 8 died.

So if Tyson truly is a family, like they love to claim, it does seem to be a pretty fucking dysfunctional 1. And When you take all of this together, the diapers, the endless trips to the nursing station, the injuries and the deaths, you frankly only need to take a peek inside the way this industry currently operates to draw a pretty simple conclusion.

Speaker 4: That is disgusting.

Speaker 0: Yeah, it is. It really is.

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Meatpacking: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)