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.