• A bombshell report from Bloomberg Businessweek revealed shocking work conditions for slaughterhouse cleanup crews.

• The workers are often rushed for time and work around dangerous equipment, sometimes leading to serious injury.

• Many of these workers are undocumented immigrants — and technically employed by contractors, not the meat plants themselves.



Sanitation workers at slaughterhouses may just about have the worst job in America.

And that's not just because the gig involves wading through a sea of "blood and grease and chunks of bone and flesh" in the dead of night, according to a recent report from Bloomberg Businessweek's Peter Waldman and Kartikay Mehrotra.

Here are just a few of the conditions cleanup crews have to deal with at slaughterhouses, as detailed by the Bloomberg report:

• Employees risk horrific injuries working around dangerous equipment — including crushed limbs, severed arms, and even a gruesome death in a meat blender, as detailed in the story.

• The slaughterhouses can make for terrible work environments. The Bloomberg article detailed spaces flooded with bloody water and cramped rooms where the stench of meat and cleaning products made it difficult to breathe.

• Sanitation workers typically work the graveyard shift and are often pushed to work fast by management. Meat plants have extended their work days to ensure more output, leaving less time for cleanup crews to work.

• In some instances, meat plant machines have been left on to speed up the sanitation process — leading to terrible injuries.

• Roughly a third of America's workers in the meat industry are foreign-born non-citizens. These undocumented immigrants tend to be less likely to report problems and abuse, as well as join unions.

• In many cases, sanitation workers don't work for meat processing corporations like Tyson Foods — they work for sanitation contractors. This means they are typically paid far less than daytime meat production employees.

Business Insider has pulled together lists of the most unhealthy and dangerous occupations before. But slaughterhouse sanitation workers — and people in similar jobs — aren't likely to make such lists. The data's just not there. The Bloomberg report revealed that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration "doesn't require plants to report contractors' injuries."

But the use of contractors to cut costs on labor isn't limited to the meat industry. The New York Times reported on how many large companies have outsourced jobs outside of their "core competence," like custodial work, resulting in growing economic inequality and fewer opportunities for workers employed by said contractors.

Are you a meat industry employee with a story to share? Email careers@businessinsider.com.