Troubles at the chicken plant

[Helpme2020]

I work at a chicken plant in Alabama. This is my first time but I happen to be really fast and very good at my job and Im not just saying this it sounds crazy but the whole chicken plant knows it.This probably sounds like Im making it up but its true.Im so good that they take advantage of my speed by running alot of chicken through my line because they know Im fast. They treat me wrong! I cant get help because everybody is crooked from line leader to top people at the plant. This needs to stop!I need the job I have a family!They also dont pay what I deserve for all the product i put out! Also I've heard they are trying to overwork me so that I quit. Another issue is we are allowed up to 6 points it's up to supervisor to give u the points...well our supervisor is buddy Buddy with people on the line and related to some and they get to stay out when they want or leave when they feel like and don't get any points...some have up to 15 to 20 points but still there and their treated like gold but I'm a hard worker and if I was to get the 6 points they would try to get me out the door. Everything about it is so wrong. I know it's dumb to stay but I need the money but I know they are doing wrong. They try to bully me by laughing about me because I'm so fast and stuff ..I ignore them and keep working by it's like why do they do this if I'm helping them get product out? This whole thing is weird. I know when something's not right and this isn't. Where I live is just fast food and this chicken plant which pays the most out of everything. I wish somebody would come investigate to see I'm not lying and help me do something legal about this I don't know what to do because when I speak up and try to voice this stuff it gets worse on me! Seriously it doesn't make sense and I just really need help because this isn't right and I'm getting mistreated and my body is getting drained from the overwork even tho I still keep it pushing because I can't show weakness. Please help me I'm sorry this is so long. I have nobody to go to because when I say everybody is crooked even the people there supposed to help.

 

[Taxing Matters]

The unfortunate reality is that the employer doesn't have to treat everyone the same, doesn't have to be fair, and doesn't have to reward star performers. As long as the employer is not treating you differently because of your race, color, national origin, citizenship, religion, sex, age (if you are age 40+), disability, or genetic test information they are not violating the law. You can try being friendly with your boss, that might help you get more favorable treatment. You can try to form a union in the plant if other employees are interested. Apart from that, do your job as best you can and try not to upset the people in charge.

 

[Dandy Don]

So sorry that this is such a difficult situation for you. Please explain what you would like to happen to make things better, because realistically it doesn't seem as if there is anything that could be done to make it better. How old are you? Does your wife work? Did you graduate from high school? This place of employment is horrible and you are limiting your options by continuing to stay there, falsely hoping that things will get better.
This job is not worth the money if you are paying too high a price in stress that causes your body to break down. The bottom line is that they don't care if their employees get hurt---they only care about the profits they make out of exploiting the labor. That is why the unfair point system was initiated--so they get rid of employees who speak up and complain about the safety or poor working conditions.

Don't you realize that it is possible that you will eventually become injured as a victim of carpal tunnel syndrome if you continue doing this work--and then you will be disabled without a job. Please seriously consider trying to save up enough money to find another job in another city or county (move out of the state if you have to) or take some type of courses to educate yourself to do a different line of work.

 

[commentator]

A chicken plant in an area of the southeast where I was living and working and helping to staff ran through an estimated 7000 local people and then, it was well known, begun a direct pipelined hiring operation to the Central American counties. These people were totally dependent on the plant and the situation, didn't even speak real Spanish, much less English, were very grateful to be there and worked like demons. In other words, the ideal employee, which is what you are not. You are an American who used to believe that life is supposed to be a bit better, that employers were actually legally required to be a bit more fair than the way they're treating you. Which, sad to say, they are not simply because it is not illegal with the short number of labor laws, for them to treat you this way, or pretty much any way they choose.

Yes, you can count on it, they are pretty much determined to get rid of you, as you are complaining. You are messing up the timing of the line, working yourself to death, outworking everyone else, making them look bad, and its sad but true, the only attention you're getting is negative attention. Expect to be worked to death if you're willing. The temperature inside the plant is probably going to eventually make you ill, and then you'll be gone for absenteeism, even if you've managed to hang in long enough and not to be forced to quit for other reasons. Just do remember that you don't HAVE to do everything they demand you do or else quit. You can slow your performance down to a bearable level comparable to the other employees instead of continuing to work so hard and complaining about how unfair it is. If you are fired for performance reasons, if you can say you've done your best, you might have some possibility of being approved for unemployment (later) at a low weekly amount for a while until you find another job. Which of course will not pay anywhere near what you've been making in your stent at the chicken plant.

But keep in mind, this job is soul killing. It has upset you in an emotional way, which I'm sure is bleeding over into your home life. If you manage to stick it out for any great length of time, it will probably injure your health, give you carpal tunnel or hurt your back or other problem, depending on your job description. And then one day, whether you're there or not, the plant will leave, leaving you stuck there in Alabama, with nothing equivalent. Save the money you're making right now. Be sure that this is a very temporary job. Think of what else you may be able to do. Yes, there's very little else in some places, that's the reason the chicken plant chose to locate there. It was like the sewing factories, feeding on the desperation of the populace. And later, it will go elsewhere, when they've run through the local workforce and ICE has driven away all the illegals who were willing to come there and work without complaints. It's the reality of the American workplace these days.

 

[quincy]

From Human Rights Watch, a 2019 report on US meat and poultry plants:
https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/09/04/when-were-dead-and-buried-our-bones-will-keep-hurting/workers-rights-under-threat

 

[NeilTheCop]

A legal forum is not the best place to ask for things to be changed.
https://www.ice.gov/webform/hsi-tip-form

 

[quincy]

A legal forum is not the best place to ask for things to be changed.
https://www.ice.gov/webform/hsi-tip-form

It is a good place to seek information and direction.

 

[commentator]

It is hard for people who find that, yes, they really can do this to me, treat me this way, and that there really aren't very many legal protections for bad working situations.

 

[quincy]

https://www.oxfamamerica.org/livesontheline/

Everyone has the power to complain about working conditions that put the health and safety of employees at risk. You do not have to work in a poultry plant to make Tyson Foods, Perdue, Pilgrim’s, Sanderson Farms and the other chicken processors know you want and expect the rights of the workers to be respected and protected.

 

[xylene]

They also dont pay what I deserve for all the product i put out!

Are you paid piecework? Or hourly? Or in some other hybrid manner?

Consider it is time to move.

You are willing to work EXTREMELY hard in a grueling job.

That alone IS a major skill for which people do get paid. There are areas of low unemployment and lower costs of living you can relocate to. Expand your horizons. Your family will be ok.

Look to the others who have left (I'm sure they are numbering many) and see what they have done.

Then do your own thing.

 

[Taxing Matters]

There are areas of low unemployment and lower costs of living you can relocate to.

Most of Alabama has a pretty low cost of living. Finding another place that has a lower cost of living than where the OP is might be a challenge. But if the OP can find a job elsewhere that pays enough to offset any larger cost of living that would still be a better situation.

 

[xylene]

Most of Alabama has a pretty low cost of living. Finding another place that has a lower cost of living than where the OP is might be a challenge.

I didn't intend to imply it would be lower, merely that it would not involve an insurmountable outlay of new cash to relocate, but this is a fair point and the OP might have some cost expectations to increase in a move. But than again some things might be much cheaper too as rural areas have many hidden costs.

 

[NeilTheCop]

It is a good place to seek information and direction.

True, but in this instance the OP is observing what he believes to be criminal activity, which should be reported.

 

[quincy]

True, but in this instance the OP is observing what he believes to be criminal activity, which should be reported.

Okay.

And this forum is a good source for information and direction on what to do when criminal activity is observed in the workplace.

 

[Pinkie39]

Most of Alabama has a pretty low cost of living. Finding another place that has a lower cost of living than where the OP is might be a challenge. But if the OP can find a job elsewhere that pays enough to offset any larger cost of living that would still be a better situation.

We have a relatively low cost of living here in Ohio. Lincoln Electric, a manufacturing employer in the Cleveland area, hires for piecework jobs, and people who are willing to work hard there can earn quite substantial incomes, in addition to large annual bonuses.