poultry industry

June 1, 2021 - It was 32 years ago that Southern Exposure — the print forerunner to Facing South — set out to document conditions in the region's fast-growing poultry industry. Many of the problems it reported on continue today. And as our recent reporting has shown, the pandemic created new challenges for the industry's changing workforce while also presenting opportunities for organizing in an industry that's long resisted unionization.

June 1, 2021 - In the Summer 1989 issue of Southern Exposure, poultry organizer Donna Bazemore talked about lives on the line — and overcoming fear.

June 1, 2021 - Working at a breakneck pace in one of the most dangerous of all industries leaves many poultry workers crippled for life.

May 12, 2021 - Poultry giant Tyson Foods Inc., the third-largest employer in Arkansas, accounted for nearly one-third of the state's 9,065 sickened workers across all industries over nearly a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by reporting project Arkansascovid.

April 16, 2021 - Virginia-based Valley Proteins is one of the largest U.S. rendering companies, turning slaughterhouse waste like blood and bones into profits. Buoyed by the unionizing efforts of Amazon workers in Alabama, the company's drivers are organizing in North Carolina — and they've already won concessions.

February 5, 2021 - Documents obtained by Facing South show the meatpacking giant's director of state and local government affairs smearing a local worker safety advocate, and how the company worked with local government officials to control the narrative about COVID-19 outbreaks in their plants.

January 28, 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic has not ended in the nation's meat and poultry processing facilities. Here's what organizers and advocates say the new administration can do to help keep workers and their communities safe.