Workers in plants run by the largest U.S. poultry producers are reduced to wearing diapers while working on the processing line as they are regularly being denied bathroom breaks, Oxfam America said in a report.

“It’s not just their dignity that suffers: they are in danger of serious health problems,” said Oxfam America, the U.S. arm of the U.K.-based global development group. The group focuses on topics ranging from refugees in Greece to malnutrition and works for a “just world without poverty”.

Supervisors mock them, ignore requests and threaten punishment or firing said the report quoting unnamed workers from Tyson Foods Inc., Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., Perdue Farms Inc. and Sanderson Farms Inc. according to the report, the workers are sometimes given just 10 minutes for a break and they wait in long lines even though they are given limited time. As they could not hold it any longer, some workers have urinated or defecated themselves while working, the report said. Oxfam said that some workers “restrict intake of liquids and fluids to dangerous degrees.”

Since the days of Upton Sinclair- the American author who wrote of abuses in his 1906 novel “The Jungle” it has been known that the conditions for workers in the meat industry have been notoriously poor.

Workers who face low wages, suffer elevated rates of injury and illness and face a climate of fear in the workplace is the reason for cheap chicken in the U.S., Oxfam had said in a 2015 report. The industry was also highlighted in the 2008 documentary Food Inc.

According to the latest report, for menstruating or pregnant women especially, the conditions present difficulties. The latest report also states that managers have told some workers to eat and drink less to avoid going to the bathroom and workers could hence face medical problems, including urinary tract infections.

Sanderson Chief Financial Officer Mike Cockrell declined to comment on the Oxfam report to the media.

It does “not tolerate the refusal of requests to use the restroom”, Tyson said in an e-mailed statement.

The “anecdotes reported are not consistent” with the company’s policies and practices, Perdue said in an e-mailed response. “Any allegations of the nature claimed by Oxfam, if proven, would be clear violations of company policy and would result in disciplinary action”, Pilgrim’s Pride said in an e-mailed statement.

“We value our team members and treat them with respect,” according to an e-mailed statement from Tyson.

The company is “concerned about these anonymous claims, and while we currently have no evidence they’re true, are checking to make sure our position on restroom breaks is being followed and our team members’ needs are being met,” says the statement.

“Regarding bathroom breaks, our associates receive two 30-minutes breaks during each eight-hour shift. If an associate is unable to wait for the scheduled break and needs to use the restroom, they are to be given permission to leave the line as soon as someone can cover for them,” Perdue said.

“We’re troubled by these claims, but also question this group’s efforts to paint the whole industry with a broad brush based on a handful of anonymous claims. We believe such instances are extremely rare and that U.S. poultry companies work hard to prevent them,” the National Chicken Council and the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association said in a joint statement.

(Adapted from Bloomberg)

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