Reported for Statewide by Brad Penner.

Begin with this assumption - slaughtering animals, removing bones, and cutting meat is hard work. That is not the issue. The question facing government leaders and the meatpacking industry is whether workers doing that hard work are mistreated. Allegations of mistreatment come from the shadows, from workers who insist on confidentiality. Many are immigrants who don't speak English. We will call this worker Jane. She told us her story with the help of interpreter Pablo Suarez.
[Jane] "If we got injured, they don't treat us properly. We don't have the time to get well again."
Jane says she was injured several times at work. A back injury has kept her off the job. But she is reluctant to reveal other details. She won't say what company she worked for or where the plant is located. She doesn't want anyone to know she is speaking out.
[Jane] "The fear that you mostly experience at work is to lose your job. Many people are fearful after they get injured that they will be fired so they will not report some of their injuries."
The fear is there. And I think sometimes the ignorance is there because people are new to this culture or new to this society.
Blanca Ramirez and her family came to America from Mexico 25 years ago. Her profession is community and regional planning. Her passion is helping immigrant meatpacking workers. She has become a trusted advocate.
[Blanca Ramirez] "They do not know that it is ok to speak up. It is ok to question authority so if their supervisor does not assist them, they can go above that supervisor. If the head of that supervisor does not assist them, they can go above that person. To work within that system and if that system is not working, they have to change that system. "
At the Excel plant in Schuyler, Sean Butler says employees have nothing to fear.
[Sean Butler] "When we're painted with a wide paintbrush in terms of what the employee advocates are saying in the Omaha or Lincoln area or wherever they're saying them, we have a collective bargaining agreement in place. If employees have issues or complaints, they can exercise that option if they so desire. We also have an open door policy at this facility and all Excel facilities that if an employee has an issue, whatever issue that may be, they can come forward and bring it to our attention."
Butler says worker safety is a top priority. It begins with six weeks of initial training and continues on the job. Safety monitors work throughout the plant.
[Butler] "They're assigned specific areas those employees have expertise in. As you tour around today, you will see individuals with purple hats. There's going to be quite a few of those. Those individuals will check personal employee equipment, check knife sharpening skills, check the different types of mesh to make sure there's no holes in it, they'll check the hooks and then ask the employees if there are any issues that are safety related. "
The current safety film we're working on is over on the kill floor gutting table.
[Butler] "We're actually going out and filming employees in different locations and trying to determine possible safety hazards. We're using those for training. We're actually going ahead of the curve in terms of safety. "
When the company built a new kill floor a few years ago, workers helped design it. An ergonomics monitor looks for other ways to make the work safer.
[Butler] "An employee could come and say I need a different type of mat or different type of stand. Our ergo monitor goes out and looks at it, films it, and makes suggestions and those suggestions are carried forward. The hook at one time was right in the middle of that handle and they found that employees were experiencing difficulty with how they were actually hooking the meat to bring it off and cut it up. What was discovered at one of the facilities that if you just moved that hook over a little bit, it's more ergonomically correct with the way your hand is and you can actually pull that meat off without experiencing any pain."
[Lt. Gov. Dave Maurstad] "I believe they are concerned about workplace safety. They are taking what steps they feel they can reasonably take to improve the working conditions in their plant."
Last Fall, Lieutenant Governor Dave Maurstad investigated working conditions in packing plants. He listened to the concerns of workers and reported the results to Governor Mike Johanns.
[Cecilia Olivarez-Huerta, Mexican-American Commission] "Until the Governor actually created the task force to look at the safety issues, we were really kind of butting up against the wall because even though we had people who were willing to step forward and talk about the issue, there really was not a lot we could do."
[Gov. Johanns] "Our attitude was that the workers were very, very sincere in what they were saying and in expressing their concern. But probably most importantly I think what became apparent to the Lieutenant Governor and then ultimately to me was that these people are looking to us for some kind of assistance and help."
The Johanns' administration developed a set of recommendations beginning with the Workers Bill of Rights. It's a list of voluntary guidelines for packing plants. The 11 items deal with working conditions and safety issues. Most of those areas are already covered by existing state and federal law.
[Butler] "The Workers Bill of rights to me should be for all Nebraska employees, not just meatpacking employees. That's a personal opinion I have. And I think that what they're doing there in terms of the 11 points the Governor has put forward, some do have some merit and some are already in place."
Lieutenant Governor Maurstad says the Workers Bill of Rights can help employees understand rights they already have.
[Lt. Gov. Maurstad] "What I focused on was better communication and better understanding of what the concerns are, what avenues are available to workers when they have a situation arise or a grievance or an injury."
[Mike Dowd, labor attorney] "An individual goes into that work setting, is unaware of their rights, sustains an injury and then they're lost."
Omaha attorney Mike Dowd represents injured meatpacking workers in worker's compensation cases. He says workers often don't understand their rights even when they're given information.
[Mike Dowd] "I don't know if it's enough just to hand somebody a piece of paper and say here, it is written in Spanish, this is what your rights and entitlements are. A lot of these people haven't even attended school."
[Ramirez] "One of the real problems of all these misunderstandings and let's say, the discrimination, issues that arise in the meatpacking plants is because of language and miscommunication."
Jane, the injured worker we interviewed, wasn't satisfied with the medical care she received from company doctors. Communication was an issue.
[Jane] "Perhaps part of the problem is that the doctors might not be able to understand me and sometimes if you can get somebody to go with you to explain to the doctor a little better, they're able to listen better."
Trust is another issue. Blanca Ramirez recalled helping a worker who had three fingers cut off.
[Ramirez] "I met him a week ago and he asked me to come to his doctor's appointment last week because he didn't think that he-- he thought that they were playing games with him. The interpreter that was available was not an adequate interpreter. I don't believe the quality was good. He was the one that was being paid by the company to actually do the interpreting but because I do some of that, too, I stepped in and pretty much I cleared up the situation."
[Dowd] "You have a lot of these situations where the company will say well, I have an interpreter. Well, the interpreter happens to be either a supervisor or manager who happens to be bilingual who is going into the doctor appointments with these individuals. We don't know if the information is being communicated correctly or not to the individual, to the doctors. You really need some independent third party out there."
At Excel, Spanish language translators are available throughout the plant. Written information is also offered in Spanish. But Sean Butler says they might be able to do better. It's an item in the Workers Bill of Rights that caught their attention.
[Butler] "Number six actually is one that we talked about as a management team and Excel as a whole. The right to understand information provided. We feel that's a good point. We want to make sure-- maybe there is some merit to that and how can we change our practices to make sure our employees understand what information they're bringing forward."
Butler says a new training center at the plant could be used for English classes and other programs to help workers. He says employee training is an important part of their safety program. Excel plans to share that program with other meatpacking companies. They're joining a new OSHA initiative aimed at reducing injuries in packing plants.
[Ben Bare, OSHA Director] "The data shows that the industry as a whole has a higher than normal accident illness rate and we need to do something about that."
OSHA administrator Ben Bare says the normal injury rate for industrial plants is four injuries per 100 employees per year.
[Bare] "And the meatpacking, meat processing industry is running about five times that. They're up around 20 injuries per 100 employees."
Under OSHA's new initiative, large companies like Excel are asked to help smaller packers develop their own safety plans.
We are trying a new approach where we work cooperatively with companies up front and give them an opportunity with assistance from us and other organizations to eliminate those hazards, reduce injuries and illness to their work force.
At a meeting in February, seven workers from five different cities told their stories to the State Mexican-American Commission. Most of the complaints related to treatment on the job after injuries occurred. Jane says she was told to do work she was physically unable to do.
[Jane] "My experience, what I saw is that it almost always, the majority of the people getting injured instead of getting better, they get worse."
The policy at Excel is to have injured workers take training courses or work on jobs that don't aggravate their injuries.
[Butler] "We have a physician that comes on site once a week and actually evaluates employees that have restrictions as a result of some type of injury. That physician reviews them in addition to that employee's personal physician. The goal is to not create economic harm for our employees in terms of not being able to return to work."
Mike Dowd says workers who don't understand their rights are more likely to hide injuries because they're afraid of being fired.
[Dowd] "What I think would be very important is to have some requirement with a certain size employer to have some liaison who is bilingual, who is not an employee of the company be available to go ahead and inform the employees of their rights and entitlements."
An unofficial network of advocates is growing.
[Ramirez] "I won't mention who is helping. It's almost like that underground railroad. There are many folks who are helping in different communities but some of them don't want to be mentioned. They're only known to the folks who they're assisting."
Blanca Ramirez would like to see government take a stronger role in assisting workers. The legislature took a step in that direction last month. They passed a bill that establishes a new task force under the Mexican-American Commission. The group will examine issues related to immigrant meatpacking workers. Lawmakers also approved a new worker rights coordinator who will keep tabs on packing plants.
[Huerta] "You know, with the Workers Bill of Rights and with the monitoring position in place, I'm hoping that it's really going to make meatpacking plants and employers accountable for what's happening to their employees."
Lieutenant Governor Maurstad believes workers' complaints are sincere. He also believes meatpacking companies are doing some positive things for their workers.
[Lt. Gov. Maurstad] "And I just never have gotten the sense that there was some big industry conspiracy to stop that, to not try to make the environment as good as possible for their workers."
Maurstad says there's no magic bullet solution that will make everyone happy. It's too early to tell if new initiatives will improve the lives of meatpacking workers. In the meantime, people like Blanca Ramirez will do what they can to help.
[Ramirez] "I want to make sure that these people are respected, that their dignity is maintained, that they don't get this negative attitude about this country and they think that everything is the same, that everybody is going to treat them wrong. I want them to remain positive and to know there are people like myself who are helping them."

Captioning by Nebraska Captioning Center, Lincoln, Nebraska .