The Ten Worst Jobs in America

By Liza Featherstone, AlterNet. Posted September 13, 2005.

For a rich country, the United States has a lot of abysmal jobs, so any list of this kind will necessarily omit some true horrors. Still, there's no doubt these are 10 of the very worst (in no particular order).

Poultry processor These folks quit their jobs five times as often as other workers, and it's not hard to see why. This job boasts an impressive "ick" factor -- you can imagine how gross these plants smell. The workers -- two-thirds of whom are black women -- are surrounded all day by gizzards and offal. The pay is lower than any other job in the manufacturing industry, except apparel. It would be tough to decide which was the worst task in a poultry plant -- would you rather be crapped on and scratched by live birds; slaughter and behead them; or pull their guts out? The work is repetitive, with relentless pressure for profit-maximizing efficiency. Bathroom breaks are discouraged and often punished. Because of the brutal pace and casual safety training (portrayed in a Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal investigation of the industry) one in four poultry workers are injured or made ill by their jobs. Cuts from the equipment -- knives and scissors -- are common, as is carpal tunnel syndrome. Many poultry plant workers live in trailers on the premises, paying their rent through pay deductions. Alarmingly, this has been one of the fastest growing factory jobs in recent years.

Sewing machine operator There's no offal on the factory floor, but the upsides to this job end there. Garment workers' wages are even lower than those of poultry workers. They also face a constant threat of unemployment; because of unregulated overseas competition, apparel is expected to lose 245,000 jobs by 2012, probably more than any other industry. Sewing areas are the noisiest parts of the factory, and operators must sit for long periods leaning over machines and work under intense time pressure; repetitive stress injury is common. Their average wage is about $7.72 an hour; of course, in illegal "underground" shops, even lower -- or unpaid -- wages are common. Only 8 percent of U.S. garment workers are covered by a union contract; even those who are union members have found it almost impossible to bargain for better wages and conditions in recent years, because of global economic pressures. Most people doing this job are women, and in large cities like New York and Los Angeles, most are immigrants. There are about 140,000 sewing machine operators in the U.S. garment industry today.

Farm laborer Waking up early and planting things -- it sounds like the bucolic, Jeffersonian dream, but more often than not, it's a nightmare. Farm workers are among the poorest in the United States; not only are their wages low, they must also endure the instability of seasonal work, and usually receive no benefits. They're excluded from many of the legal rights and protections other workers enjoy: farm employers are not obligated to pay overtime, and many don't even have to pay minimum wage. Some small farmers are even exempt from many occupational health and safety laws, and in any case, throughout the industry, enforcement of such laws is weak. Hundreds of farm workers are killed on the job every year, and tens of thousands injured. They must work around toxic pesticides, with horrifying long-term effects on their health: poisoning, cancer, and, when pregnant women are exposed, birth defects. In a given week, around 793,000 people rely on hired farm work as their primary source of income.

Liza Featherstone is a New York City-based journalist. She is the author, most recently, of "Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights At Wal-Mart (Basic)," a book about sex discrimination at Wal-Mart.

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