Contact
National Employment Law Project
90 Broad Street, Suite 1100, New York, NY 10004
Despite a 44-year-old law requiring employers to provide a safe workplace, more than 5,000 working people are killed on the job every year, and nearly three million are seriously injured. Many low-wage jobs are dangerous jobs, including the poultry and meat industry, where workers suffer much higher rates of serious job injuries.
For injured workers—especially workers in low-wage industries—a work injury can cause serious physical suffering and have enormous economic consequences, since studies show that workers pick up almost 50 percent of the costs of a work-related injury.
NELP is working to strengthen safety and health protections for workers by fighting for improved safety and health standards and workers’ compensation laws; advocating for robust enforcement of safety and anti-retaliation protections in low-wage industries; and building effective campaigns to hold employers accountable.
As part of our efforts to strengthen health and safety protections for workers, NELP is dedicated to improving labor standards for poultry workers and protecting them from on-the-job harm, while taking their highly profitable employers to task for their mistreatment.
Read NELP’s comments urging the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service to reject the National Chicken Council’s petition to permit waivers from the maximum line speed requirements for young chicken slaughter establishments.
Workers’ compensation, often known as the “grand bargain,” is failing workers—big time. Over the past two decades, changes in state laws governing workers’ compensation—a system that has been in place for more than 100 years—have made it harder and harder for injured workers to receive adequate benefits, which are paltry when they are awarded. Further, an increasing number of studies confirm that only a fraction of injured workers receive any benefits at all. We hope the following resources will be useful to advocates working on improving their state’s workers’ compensation laws and preventing further rollbacks of these critical worker protections.
National Employment Law Project
90 Broad Street, Suite 1100, New York, NY 10004
