Jesse Leal, a 29-year-old Guatemalan worker, was killed at the Pilgrim’s Pride meat processing plant in Minnesota after being crushed by machinery while repairing a loading dock on June 25.
While workers managed to remove Leal from underneath the equipment, Leal was pronounced dead by the time emergency responders arrived. Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has opened an investigation.
Coworkers and local residents organized a community fundraiser and a GoFundMe for funeral expenses and to return his body to Guatemala.
Pilgrim’s Pride is a multinational monopoly based in Colorado and a subsidiary of JBS, the largest meat processor in the world. The Cold Spring chicken processing facility where Leal was killed was purchased by Pilgrim’s Pride from Gold’n Plump in 2016 and has a non-union workforce of at least 750 workers.
A seven-month survey by the Greater Minnesota Worker Center in 2019 found that workers’ conditions had deteriorated since the takeover. Of those surveyed, 98% of workers said they have concerns about safety at work; 27% have been injured at work, with workers noting that fear and intimidation prevent workers from reporting injuries; 100% said the line speed was too fast; and about half said they come to work when they are sick in order to get paid.
Workers also report religious discrimination. About 70-90% of the workforce is Muslim or Somali, and all surveyed Muslim workers report that they do not get prayer breaks and have to hide to pray.
A former line worker who was fired for speaking up after working at the plant for 12 years told Workday Magazine, “I’ve never seen a place with such adverse conditions on workers as Pilgrim’s Pride,” adding, “It’s a slave-like management system.”
Like others in the industry, Pilgrim’s Pride has a history of workplace safety violations and has been fined multiple times.
In 2025, 26 workers were hospitalized at the Cold Spring facility after an acid spill. OSHA proposed a $110,000 fine in 2022 for endangering workers in Canton, Georgia after an ammonia leak hospitalized two workers and led to the evacuation of about 50. The US Department of Justice ordered the monopoly to pay a fine of $108 million in 2021 for price fixing.
Meat processing is one of the most dangerous industries in the US. Monopolies rely heavily on foreign-born workers and are often in violation of child labor laws. Deportation threats are coupled with increasing line speeds and suppressing wages to maximize profits and discipline labor.
Image: Jesse Leal. Retrieved from GoFundMe.
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