Kids Are Working in America’s Meatpacking Plants
Kids Are Working in America’s Meatpacking Plants
Migrant children are being employed at chicken plants.
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I used to work in a meat processing plant doing cleanup when I was about 16. It is a very dangerous job. You have to take machinery apart to clean it and if you are careless you can easily lose fingers/hands/arms/other appendages. My least favorite part of the job was cleaning the bandsaws. You have to take the the blade which is about 10 feet long out of the machine (it's razor sharp so on a good day you don't cut yourself very badly) and clean out what I can only call "meat sawdust" out of every nook and cranny of the machine. Then you have to feed the blade back into the saw. That was probably the least dangerous machine to clean. The meat grinders were also a pain in the ass because you have to remove a giant spiral cylinder with razor sharp edges, again very easy to lose at least a finger if you're not careful
I wouldn't ever want my child to be doing that job, or anyone else's
Not trying to have any gotcha moment or be deceptive but I am genuinely interested what made you go there and possible come back even to work more? Nothing else available and you needed the money maybe? Its OK if this is too personal a question to answer.
The owner was a family friend, and I was a teenager trying to save money for a car. I think I lasted most of the summer before I quit.
Thanks for your reply! Glad to hear you actually quit that job.
Did they not give you fucking gloves?
Gloves are usually made of animal skin or synthetic animal skin
Meat processing machines are built to cut through skin and bone
They make cut resistant gloves specifically for working with things that are meant to cut through skin and bone. I'm wearing a pair as I type this. A3 cut protection has worked on all the band saw blades I've changed.
Why do you wear them to type? Do you use a RAZR?
Dear strong bad, How do you type with boxing gloves on?
Probably don’t make em in child sizes though
They make chainmail gauntlets for shit like this
dont ever wear gloves when working with rotating or moving saws. the gloves will force your hand into the saw.
i am a regular guest on a clinic ward that specializes in hand surgery. people with severed fingers or half of a hand missing always tell me the same story: the glove forced my hand into the sawblade.
Hi, I'm, among other things, an industrial safety guy.
It's understandable not to know this, but I'm industry there's a standard practice of locking out equipment that's being maintained. Either by physically placing a lock on the power box or by simply putting the plug to the device in your pocket for smaller equipment. And then ensuring that all the energy in the equipment has been exhausted and that the machine cannot be started.
This is the subject of one of many annual trainings for everyone in any given facility.
When changing blades or cleaning equipment, it would be standard that it's locked out during this process. So wearing gloves and presumably arm guards to protect against laceration when working with blades would be not only acceptable but I imagine expected.
Most of us have seen the "lathe video." We know.
Thanks for the insight in your profession. Yes, all what you said makes total sense. still, you don't want to have a standart work glove when dealing with moving blades, in germany that's also forbidden by security laws, out of the rasons I mentioned, maimed hands and so on. I must have met at least 8 - 10 people. but, yea, its a hand surgery facility.
I guess cleaning is not done while the band saw is moving
yes, that makes sense, i failed to understandt this part, the glove thing only applies to moving blades and discgrinder, oh, dont forget lathes and drill presses.
But in general you are absolutely right. No gloves for work at rotating equipment
That sounds like an environment from childhood nightmares I wish had stayed forgotten