Uploaded October 2012 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
The grain handling industry is a high hazard industry where workers can be exposed to numerous serious and life threatening hazards. These hazards include: fires and explosions from grain dust accumulation, suffocation from engulfment and entrapment in grain bins, falls from heights and crushing injuries and amputations from grain handling equipment. Grain handling facilities are facilities that may receive, handle, store, process and ship bulk raw agricultural commodities such as (but not limited to) corn, wheat, oats, barley, sunflower seeds, and soybeans. Grain handling facilities include grain elevators, feed mills, flour mills, rice mills, dust pelletizing plants, dry corn mills and others similar facilities. Suffocation is a leading cause of death in grain storage bins. Grain dust explosions are often severe, involving loss of life and substantial property damage. Over the last 35 years, there have been over 500 explosions in grain handling facilities across the United States, which have killed more than 180 people and injured more than 675. Falls from height can occur from many walking/working surfaces throughout a grain handling facility. Mechanical equipment within grain storage structures, such as augers and conveyors, present serious entanglement and amputation hazards. Workers can easily get their limbs caught in improperly guarded moving parts of such mechanical equipment. Storage structures can also develop hazardous atmospheres due to gases given off from spoiling grain or fumigation. Workers may be exposed to unhealthy levels of airborne contaminants, including molds, chemical fumigants (toxic chemicals), and gases associated with decaying and fermenting silage. Fumigants are commonly used for insect control on stored grain and many have inadequate warning properties. Exposure to fumigants may cause permanent central nervous system damage, heart and vascular disease, and lung edema as well as cancer. These gases may result in a worker passing out and falling into the grain, thus becoming engulfed and suffocating or otherwise injuring themselves. For more on the hazards of this industry and how they can be prevented, go to the OSHA webpage osha.gov/SLTC/grainhandling/index.html . This is clipped from the 1993 documentary film, Deadly Corn, produced by labor video activists by Rose Feurer and Dave Rathke of Labor Vision of St Louis. The film shows the abusive and dangerous conditions of the workers in a plant in Illinois, and the struggles of the union members against unsafe working conditions and 12 hour days. Members of Allied Industrial Workers Local 837 averaged 21 years in the plant at the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company, a corn-processing plant in Decatur, Illinois. In the 1980s, Staley and the Union cooperated to correct many health and safety hazards after a deadly fire and dust explosion in the late 1970s. When British multinational Tate & Lyle bought Staley in 1988, nearly 80 years of peaceful and mostly cooperative labor-management relations ended. The new owners hired union-busting experts as top managers in Decatur. During 1992 contract talks, these managers attacked seniority and the grievance procedure, and they sought to impose 12-hour shifts, with workers switching between nights and days every 30 days. They were locked out by Staley in June 1993 after nine months working without a contract. Local 837 then mobilized nationwide support for an aggressive corporate campaign against Staley. The workers and their Union struggled for another 30 months, returning to work in December 1995. The Allied Industrial Workers Union (AIW) is now affiliated with the United Steelworkers Union (USW).
The grain handling industry is a high hazard industry where workers can be exposed to numerous serious and life threatening hazards. These hazards include: fires and explosions from grain dust accumulation, suffocation from engulfment and entrapment in grain bins, falls from heights and crushing injuries and amputations from grain handling equipment. Grain handling facilities are facilities that may receive, handle, store, process and ship bulk raw agricultural commodities such as (but not limited to) corn, wheat, oats, barley, sunflower seeds, and soybeans. Grain handling facilities include grain elevators, feed mills, flour mills, rice mills, dust pelletizing plants, dry corn mills and others similar facilities. Suffocation is a leading cause of death in grain storage bins. Grain dust explosions are often severe, involving loss of life and substantial property damage. Over the last 35 years, there have been over 500 explosions in grain handling facilities across the United States, which have killed more than 180 people and injured more than 675. Falls from height can occur from many walking/working surfaces throughout a grain handling facility. Mechanical equipment within grain storage structures, such as augers and conveyors, present serious entanglement and amputation hazards. Workers can easily get their limbs caught in improperly guarded moving parts of such mechanical equipment. Storage structures can also develop hazardous atmospheres due to gases given off from spoiling grain or fumigation. Workers may be exposed to unhealthy levels of airborne contaminants, including molds, chemical fumigants (toxic chemicals), and gases associated with decaying and fermenting silage. Fumigants are commonly used for insect control on stored grain and many have inadequate warning properties. Exposure to fumigants may cause permanent central nervous system damage, heart and vascular disease, and lung edema as well as cancer. These gases may result in a worker passing out and falling into the grain, thus becoming engulfed and suffocating or otherwise injuring themselves. For more on the hazards of this industry and how they can be prevented, go to the OSHA webpage osha.gov/SLTC/grainhandling/index.html . This is clipped from the 1993 documentary film, Deadly Corn, produced by labor video activists by Rose Feurer and Dave Rathke of Labor Vision of St Louis. The film shows the abusive and dangerous conditions of the workers in a plant in Illinois, and the struggles of the union members against unsafe working conditions and 12 hour days. Members of Allied Industrial Workers Local 837 averaged 21 years in the plant at the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company, a corn-processing plant in Decatur, Illinois. In the 1980s, Staley and the Union cooperated to correct many health and safety hazards after a deadly fire and dust explosion in the late 1970s. When British multinational Tate & Lyle bought Staley in 1988, nearly 80 years of peaceful and mostly cooperative labor-management relations ended. The new owners hired union-busting experts as top managers in Decatur. During 1992 contract talks, these managers attacked seniority and the grievance procedure, and they sought to impose 12-hour shifts, with workers switching between nights and days every 30 days. They were locked out by Staley in June 1993 after nine months working without a contract. Local 837 then mobilized nationwide support for an aggressive corporate campaign against Staley. The workers and their Union struggled for another 30 months, returning to work in December 1995. The Allied Industrial Workers Union (AIW) is now affiliated with the United Steelworkers Union (USW).
