The United Food and Commercial Workers Union has announced it is filing a complaint with OSHA about alleged ergonomics injuries to workers at a Pilgrim's Pride poultry plant in Lufkin, Texas.

The union wants OSHA to inspect the plant on the grounds that the Occupational Safety and Health Act's General Duty Clause broadly requires employers to provide safe workplaces for employees.

"Workers with repetitive stress injuries at Pilgrim's Pride Lufkin plant are given aspirin and ice and sent back to the production line," said UFCW International Vice President John Rodriguez in a statement. "The surgeries we know about are at epidemic proportions as a result of conditions we haven't seen for 20 years."

"Since the political assassination of the ergonomic standard, more than a million workers have suffered needless ergonomic injuries," said UFCW International President Doug Dority in the same statement. "I promised that the UFCW would not wait for another standard and that we would begin immediately to organize and mobilize workers to file complaints with OSHA in cases where ergonomic hazards are crippling and injuring workers."