Slaughterhouses get green light to increase speeds. Workers say not so fast.

As the pork and poultry industries cheer deregulation that will let them permanently increase the speed of production lines at slaughterhouses, workers say they’re already moving too fast.

“We don’t need a faster line,” said Aster Abrahame, who trims loins at the JBS pork plant in Worthington, Minn. “If it goes faster, more people will be injured.”

Last week the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would let slaughterhouses permanently increase the rate at which animals are processed. The USDA says the move does away with “outdated administrative requirements that have slowed production and added unnecessary costs for American producers.”

Abrahame, who has worked at the Worthington plant for a decade and is a union steward, said she sees too many injuries at the current rate of hog processing.

As swine are sliced into distinct cuts of meat at a rate of 1,100 hogs per hour, workers stationed on a slaughterhouse line will rapidly repeat the same cutting motions thousands of times a day. The repetitive motions can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome and other conditions. Plants that recently tested faster line speeds were processing more than 1,300 hogs per hour.

“Already there’s too high a speed,” Abrahame said. “Everyone I contact says they have a lot of pain in their hands and distress.”

JBS did not immediately respond to a question asking if the company intends to increase line speeds at its Minnesota plants in Worthington or Pipestone. Minnesota is the nation’s second-largest pork producer after Iowa, and more than 17,500 Minnesotans work in meat processing.

The Quality Pork Processors (QPP) plant in Austin, Minn., was one of several slaughterhouses around the country to test out faster speeds in a waiver program that was extended several times. The union representing workers there is waiting on recent injury data, but the sentiment among members is clear.

“Folks are not happy that their plant is under that waiver‚” said Ruth Schultz, meatpacking director for UFCW Local 663. “Talking to people at QPP, they wish they didn’t have that.”

Industry groups applauded the waiver program and hailed USDA studies published earlier this year that found line speeds are not a direct cause of increased injury.

In a news release, the president of the National Pork Producers Council, Duane Stateler, said faster speeds “will provide financial security and more stability for pork producers.”

Unions said those studies also found staffing levels need to keep up with higher speeds to prevent injuries.

“The decision to allow facilities to operate at higher speeds without any additional safety measures only puts workers and consumers at risk,” UFCW International President Marc Perrone said in a statement. “We are again calling for a full range of safety measures to include additional staffing, improved reporting of workplace injuries, expanded access to early and adequate medical treatment and job modifications that minimize ergonomic stressors.”

UFCW successfully sued to uphold line speed regulations during President Donald Trump’s first term. A federal judge ruled USDA did not properly consider risks to workers.

This time around, the agency enters rulemaking with studies that “confirmed no direct link between processing speeds and workplace injuries,” according to a USDA news release.

But the agency’s own studies found the piece rate — the number of animal parts a worker handled per minute — was associated with a higher risk of musculoskeletal diseases.

“Reducing piece rate, by increasing job-specific staffing or decreasing job-specific line speed, may reduce musculoskeletal disorder risk for workers,” the USDA wrote.

UFCW Local 663 and JBS are currently negotiating a new contract for Worthington employees, and the union wants to give more workers “the ability to enforce safer line speeds and staffing levels,” Schultz said.

“We will be fighting for stronger health and safety protections in this contract, as well as workers really receiving what they deserve for the risks that they are taking in working in this industry,” she said.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a statement that increasing speeds is all about remaining “competitive on a global scale without being held back by unnecessary bureaucracy.”

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are cutting unnecessary red tape, empowering businesses to operate more efficiently, and strengthening American agriculture — all while upholding the highest food safety standards,” she said.

Schultz called the move “Trump’s gift to corporate agribusiness.”

“It’s deregulating the industry even more than it has been, which is not good for worker safety, it’s not good for consumers and it’s not good for food safety,” she said. “It’s only good for the companies who have less rules they have to follow.”