Report: Chicken plant in West Virginia has recorded a number of serious injuries; immigrants 'shoulder' more risks

Chicken segmentation line (Adobe Stock photo)

Working in any U.S. factory comes with some risk of injury, but immigrant workers at Pilgrim’s Pride’s chicken factory in Moorefield, West Virginia, have faced compounded dangers, according to a report.

"Over the past 30 years, thousands have left their homelands and come to Moorefield to work at West Virginia’s only industrial poultry plant," reports Allen Siegler of Mountain State Spotlight. "Seeking safety and a better life, they’ve often faced unsafe working conditions. . . . Throughout the last decade, Pilgrim’s Moorefield plant has been one of the most dangerous non-coal industrial workplaces in West Virginia."

Large knives, saws and automated equipment make poultry production inherently dangerous. This plant has had a number of documented injuries. "From 2015 to late 2023, 12 factory employees had workplace injuries that led to amputations or overnight hospitalizations, according to data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration," Siegler writes. Debbie Berkowitz, a former OSHA chief of staff, told Siegler, "This is a red flag on safety conditions in the plant."

Federal data doesn't include all injuries. Siegler explains, "In 2022 and 2023, local paramedics responded to calls to the Moorefield factory 138 times — about once every five days — according to the Hardy County Emergency Ambulance Authority. . . . In a state in which 91% of residents are white, a disproportionate amount of the danger is shouldered by the plant’s large immigrant workforce."

Immigrant workers often fear deportation should they speak up about workplace dangers or ask questions about how a job should be done. Others don't speak English, so a job at the Moorefield plant is one of their few options, Siegler reports. 

Despite efforts to get local or corporate Pilgrim's Pride officials to comment, "they didn’t answer a letter with over a dozen questions related to this story," Siegler writes. "A recent lawsuit against major American poultry corporations, including Pilgrim’s Pride, alleged the companies recruited vulnerable immigrant workers to staff some of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. . . . Pilgrim’s denied these allegations and said the workers’ lawyers were selectively pulling unflattering quotes from various reports and people."

Walmart, a big warehouser, starts shifting to robots

Walmart transitioned to using autonomous forklifts.
(Photo by Thomas Simonetti, The Wall Street Journal)

"Please, A.I., don't take our jobs, take our tasks," Talib Babb mused in his New Yorker "Daily Shout." He must have shouted gustily, because someone at Walmart heard him. "Inside a sprawling Walmart warehouse here, hundreds of jobs slinging boxes are changing into roles managing robotic arms, conveyor belts and screens, report Sarah Nassauer and Dave Cole of The Wall Street Journal. "The central Florida warehouse in Brooksville, is surrounded by cow pastures and housing developments, has been one of this county's largest private employers since it opened in 1991, say local officials. By the end of the year, it will be the first U.S. Walmart warehouse of its kind to use automation to handle most products."

The center marks a dramatic change in warehouse labor; robots are doing the heavy lifting, and employees are directing the bots. José Molina has been "a Brooksville warehouse worker for 25 years. Three months ago, he became an autonomous forklift operator in the facility after years unloading semi trucks the manual way with a pallet jack," the Journal reports. Molina told reporters: "Now I'm watching the robots unload the truck. I'm behind the robot taking care of the issues. It's a big change. The work is less manual, there is more software knowledge involved, and he has more energy at the end of a shift, he said. Workers who make the leap to automated jobs generally don't earn higher pay. Walmart's supply-chain workers earn an average of $25.50 an hour."

The shift to automation was met with mixed responses. "Skepticism and fear of layoffs among workers are common when a warehouse first transitions to automation, said Piyush Sampat, a supply-chain consultant from Deloitte," the Journal reports. "Many workers are excited about a new challenge, but others leave, he said. Employers automate, in part, to cut labor costs, so losing some workers during the process helps avoid the need for layoffs, said Sampat. As Walmart automates, it doesn't expect its overall U.S. workforce to shrink as it hires for new roles, but it will grow more slowly than in the past, executives said." To encourage employees to try new roles, managers have framed the change as healthier and offering more promotion opportunities.

"Because of Walmart's scale, its plan to make automation standard in more of its supply chain is likely to affect how smaller competitors invest in their own facilities and what a U.S. warehouse job becomes," the Journal reports. "Workers receive around six weeks of training when they transition, learning about software, fixing issues as they arise and how to track inventory as it is passed between robots. . . . David Guggina, executive vice president of supply chain for Walmart, said what this technology does for us is increases capacity, increases the accuracy of our loads, increases the speed of the supply chain and lowers cost."

Despite extreme heat, outdoor laborers have few exposure protections, first days on the job can be the most dangerous

The Washington Post graph, from OSHA data

In a world that's getting hotter, laws don't protect most workers who are subject to extreme heat, and some are not even guaranteed water breaks, no matter the temperature, report Jacob Bogage and Eli Tan of The Washington Post. "Recent weeks have seen Earth's highest average temperatures on record, according to climate studies, yet most U.S. workers have few legal protections related to extreme heat conditions. The federal government is in the midst of a years-long process to draft heat safety rules, and only six states have their own regulations that guarantee laborers access to water, rest and shade — the three elements that medical professionals say can protect workers from heat illness." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website explains that heat-related illnesses, such as heat exhaustion or heat stroke, happen "when the body is not able to properly cool itself. While the body normally cools itself by sweating, during extreme heat, this might not be enough. In these cases, a person's body temperature rises faster than it can cool itself down. This can cause damage to the brain and other vital organs."

Heat exposure can lead to poor decision-making and indirectly cause accidents. "Between 2017 and 2022, the deaths of 121 workers on the job were officially attributed directly to heat, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which says that number is almost surely an undercount because heat-related deaths are often blamed on other workplace accidents or underlying health conditions." Elizabeth Strater, director of strategic campaigns for the United Farm Workers, told the Post: "You are already reacting more slowly, and you are making different choices than you would. A lot of people become irritable at this point, they’re not going to be taking the advice of the people around them." "

Some states have removed or rejected heat protections. "In Texas, lawmakers nullified heat safety ordinances in Dallas and Austin as part of a sweeping statute that stripped local governments' rights to regulate workplace issues. . . . . The Texas legislature found those and other local workplace ordinances too burdensome on employers. . . . Texas is the only state that doesn't guarantee workers' compensation, where workers are paid if they get injured or sick on the job." Bogage and Tan write. "Legislators in Florida, where 11 workers died of heat-induced causes since 2017, according to OSHA data, rejected legislation that required employers to implement outdoor heat exposure safety training programs, provide cool drinking water, shade and rest breaks in hot conditions."

"The most dangerous workplaces during heat waves are outdoor sites," the Post reports. "According to OSHA data, the three most fatal heat-related jobs are construction, agricultural work and landscaping, and among these jobs, OSHA says 50 to 70 percent of heat fatalities occur within a worker's first few days. . . . In Inman, Neb., in July 2019, a worker collapsed and died in the extreme heat after digging holes next to telephone poles for 11 hours on his first shift, the agency found. 'The body needs to build a tolerance to the heat gradually over time,' according to OSHA's website, a process called 'acclimatization.'. . . The agency, along with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, says acclimatization programs should last five days, where workers start with 20 percent of their normal workload and gradually increase."

Telecom companies left a network of lead-clad cables, endangering communities; cable workers first to be exposed

Graphic by Mark Nowlin, Seattle Times, from Public Health of Seattle-King County, CDC, NIH

"Get the lead out" is a solid health warning. "Tens of thousands of workers at American Telephone & Telegraph and its successor companies were exposed to lead on the job over many years. Current and former workers say they often felt left in the dark about their exposure and how to stay safe," report Shalini Ramachandran, Coulter Jones, Susan Pulliam and Thomas Gryta of The Wall Street Journal. "Some of the workers have neurological disorders, kidney ailments, gastrointestinal issues and cardiovascular problems, illnesses that can be linked to lead exposure. There's no way to determine what triggered specific ailments. Doctors say no amount of lead is safe."

Lead's presence in cables, glass or industrial supplies harms more than the handler. "The lead, which those workers handled for decades, is a potential health risk for communities across the U.S. The cables sheathed in the toxic metal are the subject of a Wall Street Journal investigation that has detailed how AT&T, Verizon and other telecom giants left behind a sprawling network of cables, many of which are leaching lead into the environment. Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of lead exposure," the Journal reports. "AT&T dismissed 'anecdotal, non-evidence-based linkages to individuals' health symptoms,' saying those symptoms' could be associated with a vast number of potential causes.' Verizon said it has 'a robust safety and health program to provide training, materials and resources and that workers can get lead testing at any time at no cost."

Tommy Steed, who is now 74 years old, provided the Journal with an object example. He "removed lead underground cables. . . said he often vomited after eating breakfast. He said he never got his blood test results from Nynex, now part of Verizon, despite repeated requests. The state health department later provided them, showing high levels of lead: 'Steed's blood-lead level was 43 micrograms per deciliter in May 1988 and 39 micrograms two months later, according to New York health department records. The average level for the U.S. population at the time was 2.8 micrograms per deciliter, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.'. . . Nynex' didn't try to get me any remedial help,' said Steed, now chairman of the Association of BellTel Retirees, which advocates for former workers."

"A study conducted in the 1970s at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital of 90 Bell System cable splicers showed 'a high lead content in their blood, with 10 'in danger of suffering medical and/or physical deterioration if they continue on their jobs,' according to letters among union officials. A small study last year of lead in Verizon workers' bones showed that exposures continued," the Journal reports. "AT&T and Verizon declined to comment on the studies."

Slaughterhouse-cleaning firm paid $1.5 million in fines after feds found minors using chemicals to clean equipment

Department of Labor map

In the fall of 2022, the Labor Department got an injunction from a federal judge in Nebraska requiring Packer Sanitation Services Inc. to stop 'employing oppressive child labor' and to comply with the department's investigation of the firm.

The department has now ended its inquiry saying it found "102 children as young as 13 working hazardous overnight jobs cleaning slaughterhouses in eight states in what it called a 'corporate-wide failure” by one of the largest food sanitation companies in the country," report Laura Strickler and Julia Ainsley of NBC News. "The Labor Department says the children who were working overnight shifts used 'caustic chemicals to clean razor-sharp saws."

Michael Lazzeri, regional administrator for the division in Chicago, told NBC, “Our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services’ systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags. When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults — who had recruited, hired and supervised these children — tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices.”     

PSSI has paid a $1.5 million fine for the violations, "dictated by the Fair Labor Standards Act, which allows a penalty of $15,138 for each minor who was employed in violation of the law, according to the Labor Department," NBC explains. "Advocates and lawyers for the children say some of the child workers for PSSI were unaccompanied minors who recently came across the southern border. . . . The company signed a consent decree in December with the Labor Department and agreed to abide by child labor laws after federal investigators documented 50 children working at slaughterhouses for it."

The company issued a statement: "We are pleased to have finalized this settlement figure as part of our previously announced December resolution with the DOL that ends their inquiry. We have been crystal clear from the start: Our company has a zero-tolerance policy against employing anyone under the age of 18 and fully shares the DOL’s objective of ensuring full compliance at all locations."

The company is based in Kieler, Wiscomsin, and contracts with at least 700 facilities and employee over 17,000 people nationwide, its website says.

3 Charleston Gazette-Mail reporters say paper fired them for criticizing publisher's fawning interview with ex-coal baron

Three reporters from West Virginia's Charleston Gazette-Mail say the newspaper fired them after publicly criticized their company president's video interview with former coal baron Don Blankenship, "who was convicted of a safety violation in connection with the worst U.S. mine disaster in decades," reports John Raby of The Associated Press.

Doug Skaff

Caity Coyne, Lacie Pierson and Ryan Quinn said they were fired because of comments on Twitter about the interview by HD Media President Doug Skaff of Huntington, who is leader of the Democratic minority in the state House of Delegates. He didn't reply to messages seeking comment.

The interview, part of the “Outside The Echo Chamber” feature on the paper's website, was posted last week but is no longer there. "In response to a question about the dwindling coal industry, Blankenship calls climate change 'an absolute hoax.' The comment goes unrebutted," Raby reports. "Blankenship also is asked to promote his 2020 book about the mine disaster, in which he repeats his claims of innocence and blames the administration of then-President Barack Obama."

Don Blankenship

Blankenship once ran now-defunct Massey Energy, which owned the Upper Big Branch mine where a 2010 explosion killed 29 miners. He was convicted in 2015 of a misdemeanor for conspiring to violate mine safety laws and was sentenced to one year in federal prison.

Skaff told Blankenship at the end of the interview, “Thanks for what you did for the community down there. I know your heart’s in the right place. And you want to see southern West Virginia built back to the best that they can.”

Quinn said in a series of tweets, backed by Pierson and Coyne, that Skaff shouldn't have given Blankenship a platform without giving journalists the opportunity to ask follow-up questions.

“I don’t have the words for how screwed up this is,” Coyne, who had previously announced she was leaving the paper, told AP. “I’ve met families whose loved ones died in UBB. I’ve watched them cry as they remember their relatives and their fight for answers after the disaster. Who cares where Blankenship’s heart lies? What a slap in the face to them.”

On his WestVirginiaVille newsletter on Substack, former Gazette journalist Douglas John Imbrogno recalls the newpsaper's storied history and laments this episode.

Imbrogno's post includes a screenshot from an old "Meet the Press" on NBC-TV, right, in which one of the questioners was then-Publisher Ned Chilton, whose main marching order to the Gazette staff was "sustained outrage." Imbrogno says this meant "to stick like a bloodhound to a story of misuse of power, corruption, and naked self-interest."

Labor Dept. accuses big meatpacking sanitation firm of illegally employing children as overnight workers

Worker using a high-powered hose to clean
meatpacking equipment. (Labor Department photo)

A Labor Department investigation found that “One of the largest food safety companies in the United States illegally employed more than two dozen children in at least three meatpacking plants, several of whom suffered chemical burns from the corrosive cleaners they were required to use,” reports Remy Tumin of The New York Times.

The department said at least 31 children aged 13 to 17 were employed as overnight meatpacking cleaning staff by Packers Sanitation Services “in hazardous occupations. The jobs performed by children included cleaning dangerous powered equipment during overnight shifts."

Tumin reports, "Their jobs included cleaning kill floors, meat- and bone-cutting saws, grinding machines and electric knives, according to court documents. The mix of boys and girls were not fluent English speakers and were interviewed mostly in Spanish."

Packers Sanitation Services is based in Kieler, Wis., and contracts with at least 700 facilities and employee over 17,000 people nationwide, its website says.

The department got an injunction from a federal judge in Nebraska requiring the company to stop “employing oppressive child labor” and to comply with the Labor Department investigation.

The company says it has cooperated, and denies any child-labor violations. It “has an absolute company-wide prohibition against the employment of anyone under the age of 18 and zero tolerance for any violation of that policy — period,” it said in a statement.

Heat roundup: States help farmers in drought; industries resist mitigation for workers; mountain snowpack shrinks

While Central Appalachia struggles to recover from record flooding, parts of the western U.S. face the opposite problem: a searing drought that's drying up water sources, killing livestock and withering crops. Here's some of the latest related news:

Farmers in rural Arizona and Minnesota complain that mega-dairy operations (both owned by the same Minnesota company) are depleting and polluting the aquifers they rely on for irrigation. Read more here.

As of last week, 234 million acres of crops in 42 states were in varying levels of drought. Route Fifty looks at how three states—Iowa, Kansas, and Utah—are trying to help their farmers. Read more here.

Extreme heat is making outdoor work more dangerous, but most industries are pushing back against efforts to ensure safe working conditions in the heat. Read more here.

Experts say climate change threatens farmworkers' health in several ways. Not only is working in extreme heat dangerous, but the heat increases the risk of wildfires; even farmworkers hundreds of miles away can be injured from inhaling the smoke. Read more here.

Heat and drought are drying up the mountain snowpack that feeds rivers vital for irrigation and drinking water. Losing that snowpack threatens to upend the lives of 76 million Americans. Read more here.

Baby formula roundup: More robust shipments from other nations will boost supplies for low-income Americans

"New infant formula shipments landing this week from abroad will provide a small reprieve to the Biden administration and low-income Americans still struggling to find formula amid ongoing shortages," Meredith Lee reports for Politico.

Rural families enrolled in the Women with Infants and Children program are having a harder time finding formula. Read more here.

The formula shortage is also creating more stress for farmworker families. Read more here.

The Biden administration wants to permanently allow carefully vetted foreign suppliers to continue selling baby formula in the U.S. to prevent future formula shortages. Read more here.

The formula shortage highlights the fact that breastfeeding isn't an option for everyone, and that many workers don't receive the workplace support they need to do so, says one op-ed. Read more here.

A few weeks ago, Senate Republicans spiked a bill that would have protected more workers' right to breastfeed. Meanwhile, another bill that would increase job protections for pregnant workers was passed in the House in May, but has not advanced out of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

U.S. mine-safety agency says it will ramp up enforcement of limits on silica; another Labor Dept. unit calls for lower limit

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration says it will inspect underground mines more frequently for silica dust and make them reduce its levels below federal limits while it keeps working on a new standard for silica.

Research has shown that prolonged exposure to silica dust causes pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease. Exposure to silica has increased as thinner coal seams are mined, raising the ratio of silica to coal dust in the process, especially in Central Appalachia.

MSHA said it would make spot inspections at mines with histories of miners being repeatedly overexposed to silica, and if mines have not "timely abated" the hazard, they will be shut down.

“For coal mines, the agency will encourage changes to dust control and ventilation plans to address known health hazards,” MSHA said in a press release. It said it will “focus on sampling during periods of the mining process that present the highest risk of silica exposure for miners.”

"Mine safety advocates want MSHA to cut the amount of silica dust allowed in mines in half, to match what the Occupational Safety and Health Administration allows in other workplaces," notes Curtis Tate of West Virginia Public Broadcasting. The change has been recommended by the Office of Inspector General in the Labor Department, which includes OSHA and MSHA.

"An NPR investigation in 2018 found that exposure to high amounts of silica dust put miners, especially younger ones, at increased risk of developing black lung disease and dying of it," Tate notes.

Republicans still effectively control mine-safety commission, which seems not to be a priority for Senate Democrats

"Sixteen months into the Biden presidency, Republicans still effectively control a federal agency that oversees mine safety, frustrating miner advocates who say the Trump nominees will continue to hand down decisions friendly to mine operators," Dave Jamieson reports for Huffpost. "Not many people outside the industry would be familiar with the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, an independent agency that reviews legal disputes stemming from citations and fines against mining companies. But the commission plays a crucial role in making sure workers come out of their mines alive, by interpreting health and safety law and seeing that it’s properly enforced by federal inspectors."

The commission is meant to have five members with staggered terms: three from the president's party and two from other parties. Right now the chair, Art Traynor, is the only Democrat on the commission, and he can be outvoted by his two Republican counterparts, William Althen and Marco Rajkovich (both of whom are longtime mining company lawyers). President Biden has nominated two Democrats, but the Senate has not scheduled a vote to confirm them, Jamieson reports. 

The main problem is that the Senate has too much on its plate to prioritize the mine safety commissioner confirmations, according to Max Stier, president of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, which tracks presidential nominees. "It’s a classic small pipe with too much being jammed through it," he told Jamieson. "It’s the agencies that don’t have the overall political pull that end up falling by the wayside." One United Mine Mine Workers of America official said he believes a Republican senator is blocking the confirmation votes with a hold, Jael Holzman reports for Energy & Environment News. Even if Biden's two nominees were quickly confirmed, the commission might not stay under Democrats' control for long unless the Senate also reconfirms Traynor, since his term expires in August, Jamieson notes.

Traynor, meanwhile, has recently alleged "seriously unethical and criminal misconduct" by the two Republican commissioners, including fraudulent work benefits issued through a pandemic relief program, Holzman reports.

Labor Dept. watchdog says USDA and OSHA should have better protected meatpacking workers during pandemic

The Agriculture Department’s Food Safety Inspection Service and the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration should have worked together more, and done more in general, to make sure meatpacking workers were better protected during the pandemic, says a new report released Tuesday by the DOL's Office of Inspector General.

Then-USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue "made clear he saw no role for the agency in protecting workers and mostly put it off on OSHA," Sky Chadde reports for the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. But "OSHA has been roundly criticized for failing to protect meatpacking workers from the coronavirus. In the pandemic's first year, the agency doled out small fines to only a handful of plants, and it failed to inspect every plant where cases were publicly reported."

OSHA “entered the pandemic with its fewest number of inspectors in its history. At the same time, the number of workplaces it has to oversee has increased,” Chadde reports. “Still, according to the inspector general's report, OSHA should have identified what federal agencies oversaw high-risk industries — including meatpacking — and provided training to on-the-ground employees in how to assist with worker safety.”

It was critical for OSHA and FSIS to work together because of the risky conditions in meatpacking plants, the report said, but “OSHA and FSIS had some history that made collaborating challenging … Before the pandemic, when FSIS inspectors would make a referral about potential worker safety violations to OSHA, OSHA would investigate FSIS, not the plant, according to the report. Because of this, FSIS inspectors were hesitant to refer possible violations.” Read more here.

Quick hits: Ginseng and Appalachia; why your brain likes forests more than cities; did you know about Manure Expo?

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Registration is open for the North American Manure Expo, which will take place in Chambersburg, Pa., July 13-14. Registrants can enter a t-shirt contest for the Top 10 Rejected Manure Expo Slogans; a recent one suggested that attendees "be part of the movement." We want some of the official swag! Read more here.

On the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park, a fifth of its wolves have been killed by hunters in the last six months. Read more here.

A new book explores the importance of wild ginseng to Appalachia. Read more here.

 

A newly published study shows why your brain prefers walking in a forest to walking down an urban street. Read more here.

The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund is funded by a federal tax on domestically produced and sold coal. At the end of last year that tax was cut by more than half, and the fund is running out of money. Democratic lawmakers have proposed legislation to extend the tax at its original rate through 2031, but the bill has stalled out, leaving the program's future uncertain. Read more here.

Nursing homes in crisis as many low-wage employees quit

"Frustration is surging among the low-wage workers who make up the backbone of the nursing-home industry, as tens of thousands of their colleagues call out sick with Covid-19, inflaming shortages that already were at crisis levels," Rebecca Tan reports for The Washington Post. "Hailed as 'heroes' during the early months of the pandemic, these workers, most of whom are women and people of color, say they’re facing untenable levels of pressure. Government support has failed to end the crisis, advocates say, allowing care for the elderly and the infirm to worsen, forcing facilities to limit admission or close entirely and clogging up hospital beds. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nursing-home industry has lost more than 420,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic, reducing its workforce to the size it was 15 years ago."

There are many reasons for the shortages. Many workers retired early rather than deal with the pandemic, and others quit for higher-paying jobs that nursing homes can't compete with. That has compounded the temporary shortages caused by staff illnesses and resulted in a pressure cooker of stress for remaining workers, Tan reports. The problem has become so bad that many nursing homes and hospitals are telling Covid-infected workers to come back even if they may still be contagious.

"Even as the Omicron variant retreats, the staffing crunch will persist, nursing home leaders and unions say," Tan reports. "At community colleges, interest in skilled nursing courses has plunged, with some class sizes dropping to half what they were before the pandemic. Of those training to become nursing assistants, many are avoiding nursing homes, where they would earn a median annual wage of $30,120, according to federal data, and are looking instead for jobs as travel nurses or home health aides." That's particularly concerning as more Baby Boomers require skilled nursing.

"This is a crisis on steroids," David Grabowski, a Harvard Medical School researcher who studies the economics of aging and long-term care, told Tan. "The long-standing issue of underinvesting and undervaluing this workforce is coming back to bite us."

Quick hits: How agri-tourism can empower rural women; what's working and what's not in rural programs to lure remote workers; Amazon opening more rural delivery hubs

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Clean-up after disasters is a costly, messy, wasteful process that often takes years. Researchers who study disaster management write in an op-ed that governments need better strategies for it, especially since climate change will likely increase the frequency and potency of disasters. Read more here.

Biden's rural investments run up against the culture wars in Wisconsin. Read more here.

Rural Virginians are being offered training in mental-health first aid. Read more here.

A recent webinar discussed how agri-tourism can empower rural women. Watch the recording here.

Amazon has opened more than 30 new rural delivery hubs in the U.S. this year in an effort to save money by cutting out the U.S. Postal Service. Read more here.

The Agriculture Department has a program for hog farmers hurt by the pandemic. Read more here.

USDA has also announced four new state-level directors: two for the Farm Service Agency (New York and West Virginia) and two for Rural Development (Maine and Missouri). Read more here.

The pandemic turned a rural Colorado county into a battleground for national political issues in a fight waged by millionaires. Read more here.

A supportive social network is a key to overcoming substance abuse, but a study found many rural abusers' social networks are often heavily populated with fellow substance abusers. Read more here.

Mobile-phone emergency alerts can play a vital role in warning people of tornadoes and other disasters, but many blue-collar workers are not allowed to have their phones with them while working. After six Amazon warehouse employees in an Illinois warehouse died in the Dec. 10 tornadoes, the company is reviewing its no-phones policy. Phones have been a critical resource in other disasters. Read more here.

Fifty-three communities in 24 states and Puerto Rico are trying to lure new residents from expensive coastal cities, but most haven't seen much success. A Stateline article digs into what has worked and what hasn't. Read more here.

Rural Americans are the most likely to say pandemic is over, least likely to take precautions; do news deserts play a role?

The Atlantic/Leger poll conducted Nov. 5-7. Click the image to enlarge it or click here for the rest of the report.

Though the coronavirus remains entrenched in rural areas, rural Americans are more likely than their suburban or urban peers to have rejected or given up on social distancing, masking and/or vaccinations. "They feel, in short, that the pandemic is 'over,'" Olga Khazan reports for The Atlantic. According to a recent Atlantic/Leger poll, "people in rural areas are most likely to feel like things are 'back to normal' where they live—45 percent thought so, compared with 30 percent of urbanites and 36 percent of suburbanites. Rural Americans were also the least likely group to say they wished their neighbors would be more cautious about Covid-19."

Rural Americans were less likely than suburban or urban residents to say most adults they know are vaccinated against the coronavirus, and more likely to say they socialize indoors with unmasked friends, Khazan reports. State and community laws were more likely to foster rural Americans' attitudes: Only 27% of rural residents said they have to wear a mask to work, and rural schools and daycares were less likely to require kids to wear masks or require kids to stay home if they have Covid-19 symptoms.

"For a lot of people who aren’t wearing masks or getting vaccinated, they think that this has just been blown out of proportion, and that people are just too fearful and need to go about their lives," Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told Khazan.

"Among the rural unvaccinated, this is a false sense of security. Covid is spreading rapidly in rural areas, which is worrisome because rural people tend to be older, poorer, and in worse health to begin with," Khazan reports. "If they do get sick, they have less access to hospitals—more than 100 rural hospitals have closed since 2013. The Covid-19 death rate in rural America is now twice the death rate in urban areas. And the longer that pockets of unvaccinated Americans remain, the greater the likelihood that new variants will take hold and spread elsewhere."

But, Khazan notes, policy makers may not have tried hard enough to understand rural Americans' viewpoints on the pandemic. And it's difficult for many rural counties to get accurate information, especially since many lack health departments and local newspapers. "Of course they feel abandoned, and at this point, defiant," Khazan writes.

USDA to allow faster line speeds at some pork plants

The Agriculture Department "will again allow faster line speeds in a select few pork processing plants as part of a pilot project after a federal court in Minnesota vacated a USDA rule earlier this year," Todd Neeley reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer. The court "struck down a provision of USDA's New Swine Inspection System, or NSIS, allowing for faster harvest-facility line speeds. NSIS was initiated during the Clinton administration and was evaluated at five pilot plants over the past 20 years." USDA told DTN it will let "existing NSIS facilities to apply for up to a one-year trial to operate at increased line speeds." Existing NSIS plants are in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Oklahoma.

Faster line speeds not only increase injury concerns, but also probably help spread the coronavirus. USDA said participating plants must implement extra worker safety measures as part of the deal. The pilot facilities would experiment with different ergonomics, automation and crewing approaches to see how they can increase productivity without sacrificing safety for workers or the food they process. USDA said it will collect that data from the facilities and share it with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for input on future rulemaking, Neeley reports.

Meatpacking deaths from Covid-19 are three times worse than thought; new OSHA rule requires vaccination or testing

A new federal rule will mandate that employers of more than 100 must "require vaccinations or test everyone regularly and enforce mask-wearing includes meatpacking plants, which have been linked to tens of thousands of Covid-19 cases and hundreds of deaths," Sky Chadde reports for the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. The rule "is the kind of enforcement that advocates of meatpacking workers and unions representing plant employees had been asking for since the early days of the pandemic." The rule is set to take effect Jan. 4.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis obtained data from the five largest meatpacking companies and discovered far more infections and deaths among workers than previously known, Chadde reports: "In roughly just the first year of the pandemic, 269 people who worked for Tyson Foods, JBS, Smithfield Foods, Cargill and National Beef died due to complications from the coronavirus . . . Combining the subcommittee’s data with Investigate Midwest’s tracking shows that, across the industry, about 86,000 workers tested positive during the pandemic and that 423 died."

Meatpacking workers have received little mandatory protection during the pandemic. President Trump declared meatpackers essential to keep them open during the pandemic, but his administration did not require the industry to take specific precautions to protect workers, Chuck Abbott reports for the Food & Environment Reporting Network. And though President Biden asked OSHA to better protect workers earlier this year, meatpackers were exempted from workplace safety rules published in April.

Labor unions applauded the new rule, though they worried it doesn't go far enough, Abbott reports. However, the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives denounced it, saying that, though the Jan. 4 deadline "does take farmer co-ops past harvest and does exempt employees working exclusively outdoors, implementing this standard will be disruptive, and it contains no provisions included to help ensure the integrity of the food and agriculture supply chain."

Quick hits: PG&E charged with wildfire manslaughter; meatpacking workers say their injury reports were ignored

Grasshoppers in the Field, created by artist Gary Greff in 1999, is one of seven sculptures along the "Enchanted Highway" (which has no road number) near Regent, North Dakota. (Photo provided)

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

An artist has single-handedly turned a 32-mile stretch of highway in North Dakota into a tourist mecca of art called the Enchanted Highway. It started in 1990 in Regent, a farming town struggling from economic troubles and a declining population. Local teacher-turned-artist Gary Greff decided to try to make the town into a tourist destination, so he began erecting large metal sculptures by the roadside. See how things are going for Regent now.

A social-justice activist raised in rural Montana has launched a project to train white people who have never thought of themselves as activists to organize and confront racist policies in their communities. It's not an issue of white guilt, he says, but rather because most people don't benefit from our current social structure. Read more here.

California utilities giant Pacific Gas & Electric has been charged with four counts of manslaughter and other felonies for allegedly causing 2020's deadly Zogg Fire. PG&E is accused of not properly maintaining the vegetation around equipment, which allowed a sickly tree to fall onto power lines and start the fire. This isn't the first time PG&E has been found responsible for a wildfire: In 2020, PG&E pleaded guilty of 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in the 2018 Camp Fire, after it was discovered the company did not maintain electrical equipment in rural areas. Read more here.

Native American tribes demand 'immediate action' from the Biden administration to restore the boundaries for Bears Ears National Monument after Donald Trump shrank it by 85%. Read more here.

At one of the nation's largest meatpacking plants, workers say their complaints of serious injuries were ignored or downplayed, reports the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. One man was pushed to work with what turned out to be a fractured vertebra. Read more here.

Pandemic roundup: In-depth portrait of an Appalachian hospital; U.S. sees biggest drop in life expectancy in developed countries; vaccine mandates cut hospital staffs

A TV meteorologist of 33 years in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was fired after refusing to take a coronavirus vaccine. Read more here.

The Daily Yonder has an in-depth profile of how the surge in Covid patients is hammering the hospital in Morehead, Kentucky. Read more here.

What it's like working for Walmart, the nation's top rural employer, in a pandemic. Read more here.

The pandemic has caused one of the biggest global drops in life expectancy since World War II. A study of 29 developed countries revealed that Americans saw the largest drop, especially in men and people of color. The advanced nations that didn't see a drop (Denmark and Norway) both have comprehensive, universal health-care systems and implemented widespread, early "non-pharmaceutical interventions" with high compliance, such as social distancing and masking. Read more here.

Though 99% of its employees complied, North Carolina hospital system Novant Health fired about 175 people for not getting vaccinated. The company has 15 hospitals and 800 clinics, some in rural areas. Last week, 375 workers were suspended and given five days to comply. Nearly 200, including some who had been approved for exemptions, got their first dose by Friday and were reinstated. Novant's compliance numbers jibe with recent data that suggests employees who say they'll quit rather than get vaccinated aren't likely to follow through. However, dozens of state troopers in Massachusetts quit following a vaccine mandate, and hundreds of New York health-care workers have been suspended after its vaccine mandate went into effect. And meanwhile, leaders in a rural Colorado county are asking the governor for an exception to the vaccine mandate because too many health-care workers are quitting, worsening workforce shortages. Without local control of the vaccine mandate, they say many health-care facilities won't be able to stay open.