WASHINGTON – The North American Meat Institute (NAMI) has released the 12^th installment of its Glass Walls video series focusing on worker safety in processing plants. Worker safety has been a non-competitive issue for the past 25 years, allowing companies to freely share best practices to improve safety throughout the industry. The meat industry has partnered with the United Food and Commercial Workers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to create industry-specific voluntary ergonomic guidelines to help processors develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) focusing on worker safety.

NAMI developed the worker safety installment of its Glass Walls video series to take viewers inside plants to see the safety steps in action. Tom Young, Smithfield Foods’ senior director of corporate safety and chairman of the Meat Institute Worker Safety Committee, is featured in the video discussing the safety procedures workers follow to help reduce injuries and accidents and the equipment that is commonly found in meat processing environments.

“Our employees are the backbone of the meat and poultry industry and the reason why we’re able to bring delicious and nutritious products to consumers’ plates every day,” said Meat Institute President and CEO Barry Carpenter. “We’re proud of our worker safety progress and want to show the variety of ways companies keep people safe.”

Other videos in the Glass Walls series include tours of beef, pork, lamb and turkey plants featuring animal welfare expert Temple Grandin, Ph.D. Other videos cover how ground beef, bacon and hot dogs are made as well as food safety interventions. To date the videos have been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube.

All of the videos are available on the Meat News Network You Tube page and can also be accessed on the Meat Institute Facebook page.