PLAYING CHICKEN WITH PEOPLE - THE OCCUPATIONAL-SAFETY AND HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF THROUGHPUT UBER ALLES

The political-economic and legal analysis of regulation in this articl e argues that the speed of work on disassembly lines in poultry proces sing plants, the fastest growing factory employment in the United Stat es, is de facto regulated not by the Occupational Safety and Health Ad ministration, the agency charged with protecting workers, but, pervers ely, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In arrogating to itself th e power to set line speeds in connection with its inspection of proces sed carcasses, the Department of Agriculture has one-sidedly promoted chicken oligopolies' interests by accommodating their drive to produce as much product as quickly and cheaply as possible (throughput uber a lles) and especially without regard to the incidence of repetitive str ess disorders associated with high-speed machine-paced manual producti on. In contrast, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has failed either to assert its statutory authority over this vital deter minant of workers' well-being or to persuade any administrative or jud icial tribunal that it possesses such authority. Consequently, the art icle concludes, the health and safety of 200,000 low-paid and largely unorganized, female, and non-white workers continue to be held hostage to the self-valorization needs of capital and the state's cheap food policy.