Wisconsin dairy farms home to several unreported injuries and deaths

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Maryan Jameel

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A reporter for ProPublica, Maryam Jameel, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to talk about the recent article that she co-authored on workplace conditions at dairy farms in Wisconsin, including injuries and workplace deaths not being reported to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

For Jameel, she found her passion for journalism in high school writing for the school paper and magazine. This led to her pursuit of journalism in college at Northwestern University, before graduating and being hired by ProPublica. Recently, Jameel has been working with a colleague on a series about workplace conditions on dairy farms.

This partnership led to research work at dairy farms in Wisconsin., where they began focusing on deaths on dairy farms. If there is a workplace injury or death on the job, OSHA should be notified, and these OSHA reports are where the research began. However, there is a “small farms exemption” with OSHA, meaning that OSHA can’t inspect any farm with fewer than 10 workers. Unfortunately, it’s federal law that OSHA is unable to use its federal funding to inspect these small farms, except for a loophole found in Wisconsin.

Jameel was able to collect the information for her article based on the inspections done by the state-level OSHA. She found that many farms employed undocumented workers, living on-site. There were 17 deaths on dairy farms in Wisconsin that were identified by Jameel in her article. She goes into further detail about the accidents and the investigations that followed along with the lack of protections involved with the work.

To hear more on Jameel’s article and research into Wisconsin dairy farms, press play above.

America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

Wisconsin dairy farms home to several unreported injuries and deaths

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