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Dangerous and essential: Workers in Alaska’s seafood processing industry face high injuries and severe conditions

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Dangerous and essential: Workers in Alaska’s seafood processing industry face high injuries and severe conditions

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Content DANGEROUS AND ESSENTIAL:
Workers in Alaska’s seafood processing industry face high injuries and severe conditions
By
Corinne Smith
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION AND
JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)
December 2024
Copyright 2024 Corinne Smith

Dedication
This project is dedicated to all the workers in Alaska seafood processing, especially those so far
from home.
ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project began in the summer of 2020 in Petersburg, AK in the height of the COVID-19
pandemic, and my first summer in Alaska as a reporter with KFSK Radio. I began talking with
seafood processing workers through locked fences, masked and socially distanced, catching them
between the plants and the dorms, and after long shifts, day after day. These workers were
confined to a “closed campus” due to COVID-19, but at the same time in the middle of
downtown - seen yet confined. While seafood company managers made clear they did not want
the stories of workers to be told, and tried many ways to stop the reporting, I persisted and
especially appreciate the support and news leadership of Angela Denning, Joe Viecknicki, KFSK
staff and editors of Alaska Public Media to make it happen. That launched my interest in
reporting on both the world of Alaska fisheries, later taking me to several summers in Bristol
Bay, and examining the seafood industry statewide, and what conditions are like for the essential,
yet largely unseen processing workforce.
This project also began with my dad, uncle and college friends who drove from California to
Alaska in the summer 1982 to work in a cannery in Homer. They arrived too early, broke,
camped on the beach (known locally as “Spit Rats”), sometimes in the driving rain, met people
from all over the world, and told the stories again and again to me and my cousins years later.
Deep gratitude to my Alaska journalism cohort, friends, family and mentors for making this
project possible. First, thank you to Hal Bernton, who jumped in with me and provided
incredible support, wisdom and mentorship throughout this investigation. Thank you Kirsten
Dobroth, Izzy Ross, Mitch Jeserich, jen byers, Paulina Velasco, Maggie Blumfeld, Katja
Liukkonen, Liv Kelleher, Zoe Trask, Jordyn Paul-Slater, Lauren Cohn-Frankel, Marina Blum,
Amy Eisenberg, Jaclyn Morawa, Ariel Boone, Annie Takahashi, Jessie Sheldon, Jack Darrell,
Hope McKenney, Evan Erickson, Shelby Herbert, Theo Greeley, Brian Venua and Amelia Boger
for hosting me in Kodiak, and to Catherine Benoit-Massraff and family for such a warm
welcome and making Los Angeles home for the year.
Thank you to the archivists at the Kodiak History Museum, the Haines Sheldon Museum, the
Kodiak Maritime Museum, and the Kodiak Filipino-American Association.
Thank you to my USC Annenberg editors, mentors and professors: Gary Cohn, Gabriel Kahn,
Sandy Tolan, Mark Schoofs, Christina Bellantoni, Alan Mittelstaedt, Dr Allissa Richardson, and
Jon Regardie.
iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ………………………………………………………………………………………..ii
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………iii
List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………….iv
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………..vi
Introduction: Dangerous and essential: Workers in Alaska’s seafood processing industry
face high injuries and severe conditions…………………………………………………………..1
Chapter One: High hazards on the factory floor………………………………………………....13
Workers’ testimony: safety concerns across plants, companies and fisheries …………………..23
Chapter Two: Fly-in labor powers Alaska fisheries………………………………………….….24
Chapter Three: Overtime pay, short seasons draws workers to Alaska fisheries ……………….29
Chapter Four: Workplace deaths rarely make the news………………………………………….30
Chapter Five: Hazardous plants on AKOSH’s list……………………………………………….38
Chapter Six: COVID pandemic hit processing, but prompted some improvements………....….42
References………………………………………………………………………………………..47

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Seafood processing workers cut and package pollock (Hope McKenney)......................1
Figure 2. The Star of Kodiak ship turned processing plant in Kodiak (Corinne Smith)..................2
Figure 3. Half a dozen processing plants, plus some worker dorms line Shelikof Street on
the waterfront in Kodiak (Corinne Smith).......................................................................................2
Figure 4. Salmon delivered to a processing plant in Seward (Hope McKenney)............................3
Figure 5. Seafood processing employment and number of facilities by area, 2022.
(Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Research and Analysis Section)......4
Figure 6. Workers load salmon into a spiral freezer (Casey Chandler)...........................................5
Figure 7. Salmon enter an OBI Seafoods plant in Seward, fished from the North Gulf
Coast region (Hope McKenney)......................................................................................................6
Figure 8. Workers process pollock at a plant in Dutch Harbor (Hope McKenney).........................7
Figure 9. Converted shipping containers house 6 workers in 3 bunk beds and one bathroom
each, in Dillingham, at the formerly Peter Pan Seafoods plant now owned by Silver Bay
Seafoods (Corinne Smith)................................................................................................................8
Figure 10. Naknek, on the east side of Bristol Bay, a processing hub for the peak summer
salmon season, June-Aug (Corinne Smith)......................................................................................8
Figure 11. Silver Bay Seafoods’ processing plant in Valdez, one of the major facilities for
commercial fishing in Prince William Sound (Corinne Smith).......................................................9
Figure 12. Workers move fish boxes of sockeye salmon ready for shipping (Jessie Sheldon).....10
Figure 13. Workers unload an early season catch of sockeye salmon at the harbor in
Cordova (Corinne Smith)...............................................................................................................11
Figure 14. Workers pick bones from previously frozen salmon filets to make smoked
salmon in a small processing plant in Kodiak (Corinne Smith)....................................................12
Figure 15. Seafood processing, construction, agriculture/forestry/fishing/hunting have the
highest injury rates in Alaska (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).....................................................13
Figure 16. The beach crew unloads a tender vessel by suctioning fish from the hold
Seward (Hope McKenney)............................................................................................................14
Figure 17. Salmon inside the hold of a tender (Hope McKenney)................................................14
Figure 18. Commercial fishermen haul in sockeye salmon in a historic 2022 fishing
year in Bristol Bay (Hope McKenney)..........................................................................................15
Figure 19 Typical accidents and injuries among Alaska manufacturing
(Alaska Department of Labor).......................................................................................................16
Figure 20. Bristol Bay’s summer fishery is the most abundant wild salmon fishery
in the world (Hope McKenney).....................................................................................................17
Figure 21. Alaskan salmon for sale at Pikes Place Market in Seattle (Corinne Smith).................19
Figure 22. The Westward seafood plant in Dutch Harbor, which runs year round, landed
more than 610 million pounds of seafood in 2022 (Hope McKenney)........................................20
iv

Figure 23. Overlooking Unalaska, including the UniSea plant, and the Port of Dutch
Harbor from Bunker Hill (Hope McKenney)................................................................................22
Figure 24. Flying over the Nushagak River, Bristol Bay (Corinne Smith)...................................24
Figure 25. A fisherman at the Dillingham harbor, almost full with boats ready to launch
for the salmon season (Corinne Smith)..........................................................................................25
Figure 26. Dillingham’s Main Street (Corinne Smith)..................................................................26
Figure 27. Some worker housing for OBI Seafoods’ Wood River plant (Corinne Smith)............27
Figure 28. Cannery of Pacific American Fisheries, Excursion Inlet, Southeast Alaska, 1911…..28
Figure 29. The “Iron Chink” was a fish cutting machine, which mechanized a task
previously done by Chinese cannery workers...............................................................................28
Figure 30. Workers place Bristol Bay sockeye salmon in a tray for flash freezing (Jessie
Sheldon).........................................................................................................................................30
Figure 31. Jonathon Goolsby, 37, a first time seasonal worker with UniSea, Inc was found
dead in the Unalaska harbor on March 5, 2023. His death was ruled a drowning, but his
family suspects foul play and wants further investigation…………………………………….…31
Figure 32. 16 worker deaths in Alaska shore-based seafood processing, 2016-2023…………...32
Figure 33. Outside UniSea worker housing in Dutch Harbor in January 2022………………….33
Figure 34. Goolsby’s mother called Unalaska PD who performed a welfare check, but
within hours he was found dead in the nearby harbor…………………………………….……..34
Figure 35. Screenshot of online obituary by the New Tacoma Funeral Home, WA…………….35
Figure 36. Worker dorms in Naknek, Bristol Bay……………………………………………….37
Figure 37 Injuries and accidents at Peter Pan’s plant in King Cove include crushing,
repetitive motion injuries, and eye and head injuries (Screenshot from OSHA 300 logs)............38
Figure 38. Partial statement from a worker at Peter Pan Seafoods Valdez plant to an
AKOSH inspector in 2022…………………………….…………………………………………39
Figure 39. Peter Pan’s Valdez plant was acquired by Silver Bay Seafoods in 2024, and
some dorms cleared out ahead of the season (Corinne Smith)......................................................40
Figure 40. Annual AKOSH enforcement inspections……………………………………………41
Figure 41. UniSea shut down at the start of 2021 when a COVID outbreak infected
at least 54 workers (Hope McKenney)…………………………………………………………..42
Figure 42. OBI workers line up to enter the local Petersburg grocery store in summer 2020.
Technically off campus, they had one hour to shop there each week (Corinne Smith)................44
Figure 43. Workers walk between dorms and the cafeteria at around 6am in Valdez
(Corinne Smith)…………………………………………………………………………………45

ABSTRACT
It takes hard work and many hands to cut, handle, and process the millions of pounds of fish and
crab harvested in Alaska each year, including roughly half of the world’s wild salmon. The work
is done by more than 20,000 people, flying in from around the United States and internationally
each year, to remote Alaska fishing ports to do these essential, yet largely invisible seafood
processing jobs. The Alaska seafood industry is one of the largest in the state known as “The
Last Frontier,” and generates over $6 billion annually. Workers come for the promise of overtime
pay, up to 20 hour shifts in peak seasons, with housing and airfare included. But the human cost
can be high: the work is grueling, with cold, wet, hazardous conditions - from risks of chemical
exposures, to broken bones, a general lack of safety training, fear of retaliation for reporting
concerns, and even death. In a year-long investigation, interviewing dozens of workers - from
across companies, plants and fisheries throughout Alaska - OSHA officials, seafood executives,
labor attorneys, occupational safety researchers and healthcare professionals, analyzing
accident/injury data and extensive public records requests, this project aims to provide a
comprehensive and current statewide picture of labor conditions of the Alaska seafood
processing industry.
vi

Dangerous and essential: Workers in Alaska’s seafood processing industry face high
injuries and severe conditions
An icy January snow falls on a giant military cargo ship turned factory, the Star of Kodiak,
docked at one of the United States’ largest fishing ports, Kodiak, Alaska. Since World War II, it’s
been converted into a seafood processing plant, currently owned by one of the Alaskan seafood
giants, Trident Seafoods. Inside the steel windowless plant a winter crew of workers is
maneuvering equipment to change over from processing and packaging long spindly tanner crab,
to Alaska’s biggest harvest: pollock. Each year, more than 2 billion pounds of the high protein
white fish is hauled from Alaskan waters, cut, cleaned and processed, and turned into classics
like fish sticks, filets or the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich.
Fig. 1 Seafood processing workers cut and package pollock, a mild white fish sold fresh or frozen (Photo by Hope McKenney,
shared with permission)
“The pay is good,” said a young man from Burkina Faso, who stopped to chat briefly while
loading boxes in front of the Star of Kodiak, his black hood pulled low against the cold. Down
the snowy Kodiak harbor road, where half a dozen more plants border the water, workers coming
and going said they hail from Serbia, Mexico, the Philippines, and several of America’s lower 48
states.
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“It’s all included, food, housing, everything,” one worker from Ohio said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Fig. 2 The Star of Kodiak ship turned processing plant in Kodiak (Corinne Smith)
Fig. 3 Half a dozen processing plants, plus some worker dorms line Shelikof Street on the waterfront in Kodiak (Corinne Smith)
2

The work comes with the fishing seasons and the tides: black cod, halibut, sole, rockfish, many
varieties of crab, and others. In the summer, workers handle a massive influx of salmon, across
fishing ports from Southeast to the Aleutian Islands. During the peak summer seasons, workers
do 16 hour shifts, even up to 20 hours a day, seven days a week, processing and packaging fish.
In wet, cold, and slick conditions, workers keep a fast-pace in these largely invisible factory jobs,
handling sharp knives, high-volume industrial machinery, and threats of possible exposure to
toxic chemical refrigerants.
Fig. 4 Salmon delivered to a processing plant in Seward (Photo by Hope McKenney, shared with permission)
Some 20,000 people work in Alaska’s on-shore seafood processing plants each year. Essential to
Alaska’s seafood industry which generates an estimated $6 billion in economic activity every
year, workers in plants like these do the largely invisible job of preparing millions of pounds of
fish and crab for markets around the world. But their working conditions contribute to a rate of
injury and illness in Alaska’s seafood processing business that is about double that for all of the
state’s private sector industries and almost triple that for US industry overall, state and federal
statistics show.
Workers’ fingers get cut off in machinery, their bones crack when they slip on slimy floors, and
their hearts go into cardiac arrest after working the long hours of peak harvest season, records
and interviews show.
3

“The most common one is amputations,” said William “Dale” Williamson, chief of enforcement
for Alaska Occupational Health and Safety (AKOSH), which regulates the industry. “There's a
lot of rotating and crushing equipment involved in fish processing plants. I would say that’s the
number one injury that we end up responding to is amputation or crushing.”
Thousands of miles from home, drawn by the promised overtime pay and adventure in Alaska,
“the Last Frontier,” seasonal work at these jobs can come at a high cost.
Fig. 5 Shared with permission from Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Research and Analysis Section
In a year-long investigation into labor conditions in Alaska’s on-shore processing plants
statewide, included interviews with dozens of workers (including walking the docks in Kodiak,
Dillingham, Valdez, Cordova as well as phone calls, texts and emails from Dutch Harbor and
Naknek), analyzing available industry injury/accident data, and interviewing Alaska OSHA
officials, occupational health researchers, healthcare providers, labor attorneys, and seafood
company representatives. This project aims to provide a comprehensive and current picture of
this essential workforce in Alaska’s seafood industry:
4

● People pursue seafood processing jobs for the promise of overtime pay and lucrative
short-term contracts. At around $18 per hour and $27 per hour for overtime, paychecks
can range from $1,500 - $5,000 every two weeks during peak fishing seasons.
● Workers’ views are mixed: some said they manage harsh conditions and that it’s worth
the overtime pay, while others describe a status quo of serious safety concerns and
hazardous conditions - from working through broken bones, risk of chemical exposures,
to inter-personal fights, sexual harassment or violence.
● Many workers quit mid-season, though the exact number each year is unknown.
● Workers report safety training is required, including providing personal protective
equipment like proper boots, gloves and earplugs, but enforcement is at the discretion of
management, and is often sacrificed for productivity. Workers said they must look out for
themselves and their coworkers to stay safe.
● Isolation, high turnover and the seasonal nature of the job lead to a culture of favoritism:
if workers prove themselves and don’t complain, they’re more likely to get more
overtime hours, better jobs in the plants, or promotions. If they do not perform, or get
injured or sick, they risk being fired.
● Divides based on gender, race and language often define workers’ roles in the plants.
Workers report managers may favor those of their own race. Women are often put on
lighter tasks like fileting or picking bones, while men are assigned to heavy lifting or
transporting goods.
● Long overtime hours, night shifts, and workplace fatigue can lead to interpersonal
conflict, bullying, and/or assault, often exacerbated by alcohol use during workers’
off-hours.
Fig. 6 Workers load salmon into a spiral freezer (Photo by Casey Chandler, shared with permission)
5

Over two dozen processing workers gave interviews for this reporting, and described injuries and
illnesses such as broken ribs and collar bones, sliced fingers, fingers and toenails falling off,
bacterial infections like “fish-handler's disease,” trench foot, COVID-19, dental emergencies, as
well as fear of retaliation and general exhaustion. The workers interviewed for this story are
current and former employees spanning seafood companies, plants, regions, and fisheries.
Interviewee names are kept anonymous to protect against potential retaliation.
Fig. 7 Salmon enter an OBI Seafoods plant in Seward, fished from the North Gulf Coast region (Photo by Hope McKenney, shared with
permission)
The industry is one of America’s most dangerous, behind logging, roofing and commercial
fishing. From 2011-2017, seafood processing workers had the highest injury and illness rate of
any U.S. maritime workers at 6,670 injuries/illnesses per 100,000 workers, according to the
Centers for Disease Control.
In Alaska, obtaining a more recent or comprehensive accounting of injuries and deaths for
seafood processing is extremely difficult. Months of public records requests for this investigation
were met with delays, extensive redactions of records that were released, and claims that state
6

agencies do not track even basic information on employees who have died while working at
plants across the state.
As a result, the number of dead is not publicly known. Alaska Occupational Safety And Health
(AKOSH) provided a count — which it said was not comprehensive — of 12 employees who
had died at onshore seafood processing plants between 2016 and 2023. However the state’s
division of Workers’ Compensation tallied 16 deaths for which death benefits were distributed
during the same period. Citing privacy laws, Workers Compensation refused to identify the dead.
AKOSH also redacted many of the names of workers who’ve died. Months later, after repeated
requests, they identified several more names.
Still, for the first time, this investigation is naming some of the people who died and revealing
how they met their end. They range from 41-year old Anthony Dozier who was crushed by an ice
machine, Gloria Flores, 53, who died after falling on her way back to work from a company
cafeteria in 2022, to Skang Tkel who was found dead after testing positive for COVID in 2021.
The work of processing seafood is inherently dangerous with fast moving-knives, industrial
machinery, long hours and cold conditions. But workers, healthcare professionals and labor
advocates said that the industry’s culture makes it more so.
Fig. 8 Workers process pollock at a plant in Dutch Harbor (Hope McKenney, shared with permission)
7

The grueling work, as well as the plants’ remote locations, force seafood companies to pay up to
$18 an hour plus overtime and to provide free or heavily subsidized meals, lodging, laundry, and
transportation. Even so, they cannot find enough Americans willing to do the job, so they hire
and recruit workers from around the world through temporary work visas, finding many in
countries where the pay far exceeds what they would be able to make at home.
Fig. 9 Converted shipping containers house 6 workers in 3 bunk beds and one bathroom each, in Dillingham, at the formerly
Peter Pan Seafoods plant now owned by Silver Bay Seafoods (Corinne Smith)
Fig. 10 Naknek, on the east side of Bristol Bay, a processing hub for the peak summer salmon season, June-Aug (Corinne Smith)
8

“If you're ready for a summer adventure like no other, come work with us in Alaska,” one job
posting for salmon processing in Bristol Bay reads, promising overtime for 16-hour days, 7 days
a week. “Earn $$$ for tuition, a new car or your next travel adventure.”
Fig. 11 Silver Bay Seafoods’ processing plant in Valdez, one of the major facilities for commercial fishing in Prince William
Sound (Corinne Smith)
But the relatively high pay combined with the isolated and insular nature of the seafood
processing plants, where the employer provides virtually everything, can also foster a culture that
leads to injuries and harm. The seafood companies pay to fly workers in and to fly them back
home, within the US and back to workers’ home countries — if they finish their contract.
If they get fired or quit early, however, they often have to pay their own way home. In recent
years, some companies will fly workers out of remote towns back to Anchorage or as far as
Seattle, from where they must pay their own airfare. And one way they can get fired, workers
say, is reporting workplace safety concerns, getting injured, or becoming sick. They also say that
working through exhaustion is common, in part because workers fear reprisal if they say they
need rest.
9

“Alaska has this extreme macho masculinity to it. I have fallen victim to it. You don’t want to
look lazy or cowardly,” one worker from the Midwest said, who worked through a broken collar
bone, safety scares and severe sickness to be promoted to assistant manager. “I probably
wouldn’t have the position I have now if I complained about my discomfort and work related
injuries.”
Fig. 12 Workers move fish boxes of sockeye salmon ready for shipping (Photo by Jesse Sheldon, shared with permission)
In recent years, the industry has made marginal improvements, according to workers and public
data, enhancing safety protocols and reducing the number of reported accidents and injuries.
Some of those improvements include better protective equipment like earplugs, gloves and work
boots; varying tasks to avoid repetitive injuries; proper training on shutting down cutting
machines, called “lock out tag out,” and responsiveness to reported safety concerns and injuries,
including more professionalized human resources departments.
“Worker safety is, and will always be, a number one priority for Alaska seafood processors,” said
Julie Decker, president of the Pacific Seafood Processors Association, in an email where she
declined repeated requests for an interview. “Safety regulations, laws, standards, and training
have not changed,” she wrote. “Any cost-cutting measures will not risk worker safety.”
10

But the precariousness of the seasonal workforce in Alaska seafood processing is greater than
ever. Over the last 18 months, the Alaska seafood industry has suffered a severe economic
downturn. The Star of Kodiak is slated to be sold, just one of many plant closures and sales
across the state caused by global market competition, declining demand and lower fish prices.
No one is watching the seafood industry changes more closely than Alaska commercial
fishermen - who contract with seafood processors to buy their fish - and processing workers.
“I decided on Silver Bay (Seafoods) since my first season and I stay with them,” said one worker
from Mexico who described the loyalty to the companies like a soccer fan’s loyalty to their team.
“If you love a team, you need to be with your team to the end. That's how we are.”
Processing workers watch industry news closely - what companies kept plants open and closed,
hours and jobs available. This past summer, workers interviewed said there were no visible
cost-cutting measures other than typical deferred maintenance around machinery and the plants,
nor were there improvements in safety culture. While some plants cut hours and shifts, maxing at
12 hours this year, workers for the 2024 season described the typical harsh work environment in
the plants: when the fish come, all bets are off, time to work.
Fig. 13 Workers unload an early season catch of sockeye salmon at the harbor in Cordova (Corinne Smith)
11

Fig. 14 Workers hand pick bones from previously frozen salmon filets to make smoked salmon in a small processing plant in
Kodiak (Corinne Smith)
12

Chapter One: High hazards on the factory floor
Commercial fishing is famously dangerous work, highlighted by TV shows such as Deadliest
Catch, but the hazards of seafood processing are less known. In 2022, there were 6.4 injuries per
100 workers, almost double the rate for all of Alaskan private industry (non-government sectors),
3.3, and almost triple that for all US industry, 2.3. This trend has remained roughly consistent for
the last decade.
Fig. 15 Seafood processing, construction, agriculture/forestry/fishing/hunting have the highest injury rates in Alaska (Source: US
Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Commercial fishing boats dock up to processing plants, where the “beach crew,” usually four or
five strong men unload the catch using cranes to lift fish buckets or huge suction hoses deep into
holds, depending on the size of the harvest. Those fish are delivered and paid for by the pound.
Fish are taken in, and handled quickly, usually immediately frozen, and controlled by federal
food grade standards. Temperatures are kept cold in processing plants — refrigeration areas are
often below zero to freeze the fish quickly — and water is constantly flowing to keep fish guts
and bacteria at bay.
13

Fig. 16 The beach crew unloads a tender vessel by suctioning fish from the hold Seward (Photo by Hope McKenney, shared with
permission)
Fig. 17 Salmon inside the hold (Photo by Hope McKenney, shared with permission)
14

Workers stand for long hours, shoulder to shoulder on the “slime line,” sorting, cleaning, and
removing heads and guts with knives and fingers. They load fish into industrial machines for
cutting, freezing, or packaging. From crab and cod in the winter to salmon in the summer,
workers handle high volumes, especially during peak season when fishing boats race to catch
their legal limit.
“I was prepared for 16-hour days, I just wasn't ready for that pace,” said one worker from
Pennsylvania, reflecting on processing in Naknek, known for its high volume sockeye salmon
seasons. It’s one of the largest summer ports in Bristol Bay, which is the most abundant wild
salmon fishery in the world. In 2023, the commercial harvest topped 40 million salmon, with
most hauled in and processed during roughly the first six weeks in summer. “It was a blistering
pace.”
Fig. 18 Commercial fishermen haul in sockeye salmon in a historic 2022 fishing year in Bristol Bay (Photo by Hope McKenney,
shared with permission)
Last year, the Alaska processing industry produced $5.2 billion worth of seafood products,
according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. Fisheries are regulated closely by the
state’s Department of Fish and Game, and though it varies by region, with advances in gear
15

technology, scientific research and monitoring, harvest volumes and value have increased
steadily.
Hazards for processing workers vary with the type of job, which can include handling and
cutting fish, lifting boxes, driving forklifts or performing mechanical or electrical tasks.
Researchers have found that most typical injuries in processing were related to “contact with
objects,” such as getting cut by a knife or dropping a box of frozen fish on one’s foot, and
overexertion, as well as ergonomic hazards like repetitive motions, heavy lifting, excessive
noise, hazardous chemicals such as ammonia and disinfectants, and workplace stress.
Seafood processing workers are not unionized. While some workers said they can report
complaints to company human resources departments, others said reporting their concerns is
either pointless or risking retaliation. That can mean being assigned fewer hours of work, being
put on less desirable jobs, or suffering verbal reprimanding or harassment.
Fig. 19 Typical accidents and injuries among Alaska manufacturing (Source: Alaska Department of Labor Research and Analysis
Section, shared with permission)
The Alaska Department of Labor said more recent accident and injury data is not available, but
would have to be requested from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Once those 16-hour days kick in, it's exhausting,” another worker said, at the same plant in
Naknek. “You just go into this automatic kind of zombie mode where you just, you do it. But
yeah, it's just like nothing you've ever done in your life. Mentally and physically, it's draining,
absolutely draining.”
16

Fig. 20 Bristol Bay’s summer fishery is the most abundant wild salmon fishery in the world (Photo by Hope McKeney, shared
with permission)
“The most common damage was blunt force, overwork, or sickness,” one American worker in
his mid-20s said, who did a four month season in 2022 in King Cove, a remote year-round
fishing port in the Aleutian Islands. He worked for Peter Pan Seafoods, which is currently
embroiled in lawsuits and receivership, and ceased processing operations for all four of its plants
in spring 2024. He worked one more season for Silver Bay Seafoods in the Prince William
Sound port city of Valdez, and then left the industry. In a lengthy phone interview he described
his experience and safety concerns.
“You would either get hit by something that would fuck you up, you would work yourself too
hard and get muscle damage or nerve damage, or you’d get really, really sick,” he said. “And
they’d tell you suck it up, get to work.” At the Peter Pan Seafoods’ King Cove plant, he said
workers couldn't take a sick or rest day without running the risk of being fired.
The worker was a visibly strong young man, and said he did a variety of tasks, usually heavy
lifting or moving fish boxes. But he feigned a respiratory problem to avoid the most dangerous
place in the factory: the blast freezer, which blows extremely cold air — zero degrees Fahrenheit
or colder — at very high velocity across the fish. Workers there, he said, have to rush back and
forth across icy, concrete floors carrying 50-pound boxes of fish. “All the hard workers who
17

would not complain and be like, ‘Oh, I'm just trying to get my money,’ they would always go
home with a broken leg or a broken arm,” he said.
Before seafood processing, the man worked in a bakery, but started looking for a higher paying
job to save up money in order to travel. “I really wanted to stop paying rent, stop worrying about
money all the time. So I was thinking I really want to go to the Philippines or Thailand,
somewhere really cheap where I can make a little bit of money in the United States and live the
rest of the year overseas.” He found a job posting on a Reddit discussion board and decided to
apply. Within weeks, he put his stuff in storage, and was on a plane flying over 2,000 miles to
King Cove.
“I was mentally drained just on the first day,” he said of his first 12 hour shift. “My job was to
open up the stomach of the fish, put my finger in the body of the fish, pull out all the guts and I
would do that for 12 hours every single day, and my fingers would get cramped. By the end of
that first day, I went to sleep and I was even dreaming about the same stuff I was doing all day.
Man, like that was the first time I thought ‘shit I need to rethink my life.’”
But he stuck it out, got assigned to different jobs in the plant, and made up to $5,000 every two
weeks for a few months processing pollock in King Cove.
Nevertheless, he said he quit after seeing a plant manager use a lighter to test for an ammonia
leak. Ammonia is used in industrial refrigeration systems, highly flammable and toxic if inhaled,
causing burning eyes and lungs, vomiting and even death. Last year a crew member aboard an
American Seafoods catcher-processor vessel died of suspected ammonia exposure.
Ammonia refrigeration is a serious workplace hazard, and one of the systems routinely inspected
by AKOSH. The agency enforces federal and state workplace laws, conducting surprise and
whistleblower-prompted inspections, as well as a mandatory number of safety trainings each
year. Safety training highlights ammonia safety, and so the worker interviewed said many were
alerted to its dangers.
But that day at King Cove, the worker said people were still on the processing line, and no safety
precautions seemed to be taken for the highly flammable ammonia leak. Fear rippled through the
plant, and he said he heard others had reported the incident to OSHA, but no inspection was
completed at that site that year, according to federal records.
Peter Pan Seafoods’ legal team did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
This type of safety incident is one among many examples where workers say stopping to attend
to a safety issue seems to be something managers overlook for the sake of productivity. And,
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processing can require operations running 24/7 based on the fishery and harvest times, making
for long hours, night shifts and added fatigue. There are no federal or state limits on how many
hours workers can stay on the job, nor are there requirements to monitor worker fatigue, which
can increase risks of injuries and accidents.
“Something that I did notice this year was people passing out on the line,” another worker said of
the peak salmon processing time in 2023, at Canadian-owned Leader Creek Fisheries in Naknek.
Other workers confirmed workers have passed out due to exhaustion. “People dropped to the
ground at times because of how tired they were,” another said.
Leader Creek Fisheries, subsidiary of Canfisco did not respond to repeated requests for
comment.
Fig. 21 Alaskan salmon for sale at Pikes Place Market in Seattle (Corinne Smith)
Mark Johanson is the president of Alyeska Seafoods and Westward Seafoods, subsidiaries of the
Japanese seafood giant Maruha-Nichiro. He was the only seafood company executive to respond
to interview requests for this investigation.
In a 45 minute phone interview, he answered questions and discussed the company’s safety
culture for its roughly 1200 employees, with about 450 people working year round.
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They run two processing plants and one floating processor, the Northern Victor, in Dutch Harbor,
the nation’s largest commercial fishing port. They primarily process pollock from the Bering Sea,
as well as black cod and halibut.
“Our job is to cut fish, and so we have a lot of machinery and a lot of human beings. And when
human beings and machinery interact, there can sometimes, if people are not careful, be injured,”
he said. For pollock, he said the fish cutting is done by industrial machines, so “lockout tagout” -
making sure machines are switched off properly - is one of the most important safety steps. “So
the big issue in that kind of operation is to make sure that people don't accidentally put their
hands in the machines, or put the hands in the machines while they're actually running.”
Fig. 22 The Westward seafood plant in Dutch Harbor, which runs year round landed more than 610 million pounds of seafood in
2022 (Photo by Hope McKenney, shared with permission)
Johanson described factory floors with tight spaces, lots of people and fast-paced production
requiring situational awareness and safety equipment like helmets. He said end-of-season fatigue
is a known risk factor for accidents, as people work significant overtime hours, and six days a
week. “So it becomes more and more important that people are vigilant at the end, when people
are starting to get a little bit tired. And we do remind people about that, and I guess trying [to] up
our game,” he said. “Although we try to stay on our feet, you know, 100% of the time, making
sure that people stay safe.”
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Johanson said the company complies with Alaska OSHA inspections, and that their workers’
compensation insurance broker, Marsh, also conducts annual compliance reviews and onsite
inspections, to reduce workplace hazards. The New York-based insurance giant, Marsh, declined
to comment on what that risk assessment or onsite workplace safety review looks like for this
investigation.
Johanson said workers can report issues to staff in their human resources department who are
trained to address employees' concerns. If workers quit or are fired, he said the company
maintains a responsibility to return them home, and he said return airfare is provided from Dutch
Harbor to their home airports.
“We don't have any incentive or disincentive for any of our employees related to safety,” he said,
when asked about workers’ fears of retaliation for reporting safety concerns or injuries. “So
there's no bonus for not having any injuries. There's no penalty if an injury happens,” he said.
“We just try and learn from it.”
Additionally, Johanson emphasized that Alyeska and Westward’s safety departments are
independent of production departments. “Our safety department reports to our Bellevue
(Washington) headquarters, to our human resources vice president. And so by having that
reporting responsibility separated from operations, there's a lot less incentive for somebody to try
and keep, you know, an injury hidden. We believe in full transparency. People don't get dinged
for reporting an injury like that, or reporting an issue in their department, whether it's a
supervisor or an employee themselves.”
“Our philosophy is that safety is the responsibility of everybody at the plant,” he said, and later
in the conversation added that the culture of safety in the plants is supported by reducing
turnover, and keeping employees trained up and returning each season.
“Our parent company in Japan, believes that the first thing that we should always do is follow the
law, even if we don't make any profit,” Johanson said. “That's our very first priority, is to make
sure that all legal aspects are taken care of in a proper way. And so that's our focus first. And
then, of course, profit is second, after taking care of our employees and our obligations. And so I
believe that we're good corporate players, that we contribute to the Alaska economy and the
Alaska society and the greater, you know, United States and world at that.”
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Fig. 23 Overlooking Unalaska, including the UniSea plant, and the Port of Dutch Harbor from Bunker Hill (Photo by Hope
McKenney, shared with permission)
While AKOSH requires workplace training, safety protocols vary depending on company and
plant management, according to workers.
One Alaskan worker, who started in processing at age 18 to pay for college, said that different
plants with the same company could be vastly different. “You just hope you had a good
supervisor who was training you,” she said. “But if you got hurt, it was like, it would have to be
bad enough for him (the manager) to take you to the local clinic. And who even knows if that
would be open, since we’re processing all night, seven days a week sometimes.”
She said she was surprised when she went to work for another plant, with the same company,
which had an on-site nurse available. “Even for just a headache, or if you need a back brace,
something like that. That was mind-blowing to me when I went there.”
Williamson, AKOSH’s chief of enforcement, said companies face challenges including the wide
range of languages spoken by the international workforce, and the high rate of employee
turnover. “They have to make a lot of effort to ensure that their employees are understanding the
training that they're getting,” he said.
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Workers’ testimony: safety concerns across plants, companies and fisheries
“This company always has a blanket clause of trying to convince you,“This is Alaska.
Things are more rustic. Alaska is a dangerous environment, and this is a dangerous line
of work,” which is a piss-poor excuse to avoid the respect and safety of your employees.
The boss’ boss has likely never touched a fish he hasn’t ordered at a Michelin star
restaurant. They can afford safer measures, they just don’t want to cut the profit.”
- Worker from the Midwest,
Leader Creek Fisheries,
Naknek, 2024
“Two people nearly fucking died in the freezer. One guy, he was actually crushed, and he
did die for like five minutes, and crushed his pelvis. And one of my roommates was one of
the guys that helped carry him out. They resuscitated him, brought him to the hospital for
like a day and a half…then they told him, ‘you’re gonna have to return to work in two
days, fit for work and such and such or you’re going to be breaching the contract… I’m
just like, I’m so pissed off, I almost said something, I should have. But then again, you
know, that’s my money.”
- Worker from Texas, OBI
Seafoods, Dillingham, 2024
“Yeah, they [workers] would get scolded when they got sick. Because they [managers]
just thought they are just a wasted body in a bed, when they could be working for them
for anything. And if they didn't like you, and you got sick, they would purposely short
your hours and give them to someone else. But if they liked you and you did get sick, they
would definitely pump the brakes for you, and make sure you got the hours that you
needed.”
- Worker from Northwest,
Peter Pan Seafoods, Valdez,
2022
“If you keep presenting that you need time off, then they know you really don't want to be
there. So then there's the first flight out, which has been dubbed “The Sick and Dying” or
“The Lazies and the Crazies.”
- International worker, Leader
Creek Fisheries, Naknek,
2023
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Fig. 24 Flying over the Nushagak River, Bristol Bay (Corinne Smith)
Chapter Two: Fly-in labor powers Alaska fisheries
Planes touching down for the summer salmon season in Bristol Bay bring thousands of
passengers from all over the globe for the peak commercial fishing season, valued at over $2
billion. In Dillingham, on the west side, the town of roughly 2,000 people doubles in population
for a few weeks of the fishing season, perched on the edge of the tundra and the most abundant
wild salmon run in the world.
There are just two stores, a school, post office and liquor store, lining the boat yard, small harbor
and processing plants which go from quiet to bustling in the summer.
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Fig. 25 A fisherman at the Dillingham harbor, almost full with boats ready to launch for the salmon season (Corinne Smith)
The divide between fishermen and processing workers can be quite clear-cut: Fishermen arrive
and recover jet boats from storage, make repairs and then head out for roughly four or five
straight weeks of commercial fishing. Processing workers arrive at one of two factories and
shared dorms, and prepare for the fish to arrive. Those workers may be brand new to Alaska and
the job - from around the United States or U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico or Guam, or
internationally such as Mexico, the Philippines, Central American or Eastern European countries.
Others are experienced with the seasonal job, coming from a winter “A season,” such as
processing pollock in Dutch Harbor.
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Fig. 26 Dillingham’s Main Street (Corinne Smith)
Alaska fisheries are a seasonal industry, and so require constant effort of hiring, recruitment and
training for the thousands of seasonal workers. Some fishing ports like Kodiak do have a resident
workforce, but the vast majority of processing workers are flown into Alaska based on the
fishing season. Non-residents of Alaska have made up 75 to 80 percent of the seafood processing
workforce for the last decade.
A large number of workers come as guest workers from outside the US on the H-2B guest
worker visa. They’re recruited from around the world through staffing companies contracted to
hire and coordinate visas for workers, including many from the Philippines, Mexico, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Ukraine and Serbia. Many are encouraged to return or continue with the company for
the duration of their three-year visas.
The visas are not issued to the workers themselves but rather to the company that hires them; if
H-2B workers quit or get fired, they cannot legally work for any other company. This
arrangement, advocates and workers say, gives the seafood processors an extraordinary level of
control that can discourage workers from raising safety concerns or put pressure on them to work
even when they are sick, exhausted, or otherwise prone to injury.
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“The loyalty is kind of like one-way, where the employee has to be loyal to the employer, but the
employers are not being respectful or loyal at all to the employee in this sense,” said Hardeep
Rekhi, a Seattle-based attorney with Rekhi & Wold, focused on employment rights. He’s
represented visa-holding and undocumented farmworkers, and while he hasn’t worked with
H-2B visa holders in Alaska, he has represented several cases brought by processing workers
against seafood companies for wage claims, discrimination, harassment and retaliation.
“Workers also often bear a lot more than they are required to, because it's a seasonal gig, and it
pays pretty well for the seasonal work,” he said.
Fig. 27 Some worker housing for OBI Seafoods’ Wood River plant (Corinne Smith)
Since the industrialization of Alaska fisheries beginning with the first canneries in the 1870s, the
processing industry has relied on immigrant labor, mainly Asian workers - first Chinese and
Japanese, and then increasingly after 1920, Filipinos. Volume of fish increased with bigger
commercial harvests and advances in processing technology into the 1980s and 1990s, and labor
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recruitment expanded to regions around the world, including Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Mexico and
east African countries.
Fig. 28 Cannery of Pacific American Fisheries, Excursion Inlet, Southeast Alaska. 1911 (John N Cobb via Wikimedia)
Fig. 29 The “Iron Chink” was a fish cutting machine, which mechanized a task previously done by Chinese cannery workers
(John N Cobb, 1917 via GetArchive)
In 2022, Alaska drew 20,650 workers for seafood processing jobs, who earned an estimated $545
million in wages, according to state economic reports. Many worked only for a single season, a
few months or even as short as several weeks.
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“Often the people that are doing that kind of work are people that need that paycheck for their
families and to make ends meet,” Rekhi said. “And they're willing to endure a lot. And I don't
think it's lost on the company that that's the situation.”
Today, the state of Alaska does not track how many seasonal seafood processing workers come
through the H2-B visa program, or countries of origin. In 2022, an estimated 80% of seafood
processors, or 16,708 were non-residents of Alaska. “Unfortunately we don’t have any
information for non-residents short of them not being Alaskan residents,” said an Alaska
Department of Labor research analyst by email. “So we don’t have numbers for visa guest
workers.”
Chapter Three: Overtime pay, short seasons draws workers to Alaska fisheries
Pay increased substantially during the COVID pandemic to recruit the essential seafood
processing workforce. Wages increased from just over $12 per hour in 2020, to over $18 per
hour in 2023, with overtime pay at $27 per hour. Companies also offer bonuses for returning
workers and hundreds of dollars for recruiting other employees. In a high-volume fishing period,
total take-home pay can now exceed $2,000 per week. Whether the paycheck is worthwhile
varies among workers.
“Well the pay was more than I thought [it’d be], to be quite frank,” a Californian worker said,
processing salmon in False Pass and Valdez. “I was able to pay off my car, pay off the bills, and
help my parents out. And I still went home with a good amount of money. So it was worth it.”
“If you're homeless, and you're out of options, (then) I absolutely would do seafood processing
again. But if I had options, I absolutely wouldn't do seafood processing,” said the worker who
quit after the ammonia scare, and who said he’s done with the industry. “The people who are
coming in, they're desperate. They don't want to be there. No one wants to be at a seafood
processing plant.”
Turnover each year is high, though the exact count is unknown. Workers interviewed for this
story reported that people quit due to reasons including the grueling nature of processing work,
sickness, injury, or unfair treatment when experiencing conflict with managers. Some quit after
witnessing others suffer serious accidents or being asked to perform hazardous tasks. To replace
these workers, companies continue to hire throughout the season.
An estimated 90 percent of the workforce staff shorebased plants, processing roughly half of all
Alaskan seafood. In 2023, the sector included about 147 shore-based processing plants, 44
catcher-processors, and 33 floating processors, according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing
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Institute. Those floating processors stay within fishing grounds, largely in the Bering Sea, where
workers spend weeks to months at sea.
This investigation focused on the labor conditions of shore-based processing plants, where the
majority of the workforce is located. Workers on at-sea processing vessels are more difficult to
locate and access, and at-sea labor conditions would be subject ripe for future reporting.
Fig. 30 Workers place Bristol Bay sockeye salmon in a tray for flash freezing (Photo by Jesse Sheldon, shared with permission)
Chapter Four: Workplace deaths rarely make the news
Seafood processing deaths rarely make the news like fishing crew tragedies. What’s more, the
total number of processing worker deaths in recent years in Alaska is unknown. That’s partly
because “workplace fatality” is narrowly defined by the federal Occupational Health and Safety
Administration (OSHA.) Deaths that occur on company property but are not directly related to a
job activity are considered a “non-occupational fatality” and are usually not investigated. The
majority of reported deaths over the past eight years, 2016-2023, fell into this category.
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Fig 31 Jonathon Goolsby, 37, a first time seasonal worker with UniSea, Inc was found dead in the Unalaska harbor on March 5,
2023. His death was ruled a drowning, but his family suspects foul play and wants further investigation (Photo shared with
permission of Goolsby family)
Months of public records requests for this investigation, and interviews with workers and family
members revealed at least 16 reported worker deaths in shore-based processing plants from 2016
to 2023.
Causes of worker deaths at seafood processing plants range from heart attacks, slip and fall
accidents, COVID-19 complications, suicide, and drowning under suspicious circumstances.
While every death must be reported to state authorities, not all incidents prompt an AKOSH
response or further investigation by law enforcement. Some workers who died in Alaska plants
are being named publicly here for the first time.
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32

Fig. 32 16 worker deaths in Alaska shore-based seafood processing, 2016-2023
At around noon on March 3, 2022, after her lunch break at Alyeska Seafoods in Dutch Harbor,
53-year-old Gloria Flores was returning from the plant’s cafeteria to the processing area when
she slipped and fell on the ice. She was taken to a local clinic, and sent back to the company
dormitory, where her condition deteriorated overnight, according to OSHA reports. She was
medevaced the next day more than 1,000 miles to an Anchorage hospital, where she died on
March 6.
Although her death was ruled non-work related, her fatal fall launched an AKOSH investigation
after “the initial response from the employer was not deemed satisfactory'' and a recent separate
amputation incident, according to public records. The company was required to fix additional fall
hazards in the plant, put up safety signage, and pay a $14,000 penalty.
Fig. 33 Outside UniSea worker housing in Dutch Harbor in January 2022 (Photo by Jonathon Goolsby, shared with permission of
the Goolsby family)
Alyeska Seafoods president Mark Johanson echoed the AKOSH finding that the death was the
result of a personal health issue, not the fall, but called the death unfortunate. “And obviously, it
amps up our awareness of clearing ice and making sure that there's proper walkways, but it was
unfortunate, and, you know, we're trying to get better on that. But obviously clearing snow and
ice in Alaska is a full time job.”
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While not required by law, Johanson said if a worker is hospitalized or dies while employed at
Alyeska or Westward, the company will still pay to transport the body home.
“If something happens like this, we will help the family either come on site to help the
individual, or pay for repatriation of the body or something like that,” he said. “It's not something
that's required, but by law. But we're responsible for people.In a way, we run a small village
there. We have housing and we take care of people's, you know, safety and health needs as much
as we can and as much as we're responsible for. So we take that seriously.”
A year after Flores’ death, 37-year-old Jonathan Goolsby of Loganville, GA was found dead
right across Dutch Harbor floating in a small boat harbor. A first-time employee of UniSea, Inc,
he sent panicked text messages the night before to his family back in Georgia, saying he was
afraid of being assaulted after an altercation with roommates. He feared he was fired, and needed
to leave the island. Unalaska police investigated, then closed the case calling it an accident and
death by drowning. But the Goolsby family believes there was foul play based on defense-like
wounds on his arms and a head wound, and they want further investigation.
Fig. 34 Goolsby’s mother called Unalaska PD who performed a welfare check, but within hours he was found dead (Photos shared by the
Goolsby family)
The Unalaska Police Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the
death investigation or reasons for closing the case in time for publication.
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Workers at plants from Dutch Harbor, to Naknek to Valdez say physical violence can be
commonplace, such as bar fights, fights over theft of personal property, or over womens’
attention. “Fights would always happen when people get drunk,” one worker said. “Most of the
fights were because of women. There's not many women in seafood processing…and there's a lot
of fighting about it… it's just like stupid, tiny stuff that gets built up over time. Because we're
working these terrible jobs and these terrible conditions. And like, we just want to punch
somebody.”
They say the isolation, long shifts, fatigue and alcohol use can cause personal conflict, bullying
and fighting, and that security or local law enforcement can be called to break it up.
Only one death was categorized as an official workplace fatality in recent years: Anthony Dozier.
In November 2016, 41-year-old Dozier was working the end of the season, employed with E.C.
Phillips & Son in Ketchikan. The almost 100 year old company runs three plants in Southeast
Alaska, primarily processing salmon. That day, Dozier was clearing out ice from an ice-making
machine, according to an OSHA report, when he was caught and crushed between the unit and a
building structure. The cause of death was reported as asphyxiation.
AKOSH was called in, and the company paid a $16,000 fine for the accident. It’s the only
seafood processing worker death deemed “occupationally-related,” and also publicly shown on
the Alaska Department of Labor’s website going back to 2001. E.C. Phillips & Son did not
respond to repeated requests for comment.
Fig. 35 Screenshot of online obituary by the New Tacoma Funeral Home, New University, WA
Attempts to contact Dozier’s family via Facebook were not returned.
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Also in 2016, an unidentified worker complaining of chest pain at the Trident Seafoods plant in
Sand Point collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack. Another unidentified worker died in
June at the North Pacific Seafoods in Togiak.
Four other deaths in recent years were ruled heart attacks. In January 2023, Mark Hodge, a
seafood processor at a Unisea, Inc plant in Dutch Harbor reportedly collapsed and was
pronounced dead shortly after of an apparent cardiac arrest. An unidentified worker also
collapsed and died in June 2023, in the middle of salmon season, at a Peter Pan Seafoods plant in
Valdez.
COVID also increased risks for processing workers. In 2021, three workers — Skang Tkel, Nelo
Moterang, and Alfredo Adviento — contracted the illness within weeks of each other while
working at a Trident Seafoods plant in Akutan and later died. Two were hospitalized where they
later died, AKOSH records show, and one died of a possible heart attack.
Trident Seafoods, North Pacific Seafoods, UniSea, Inc and attorneys for Peter Pan Seafoods did
not respond to requests for comment regarding workplace deaths.
The worker who quit Peter Pan Seafoods in King Cove in 2022 due to an alleged ammonia leak
said he witnessed a man who collapsed on the factory floor and died. “At first they were just like,
‘Alright, get back to work’ — after seeing the dude die!” he said. “But then, only after people
started threatening to call OSHA were they like, ‘Okay, let’s shut down the plant for a few
hours.’”
No public record of that death could be found. An AKOSH official handling records requests
said by email that they did not have all deceased workers names or employers. “When they are
closed/archived they are not broken down by industry,” he wrote.
Indeed, there is no official count of worker deaths in the seafood processing industry. The state
publishes a statewide count of workplace fatalities each year, but since 2016 it has not broken out
deaths in seafood processing. Instead, the industry is lumped into a catchall category of
“farming, fishing and forestry.” A research analyst with the Alaska Department of Labor
responded by email that not all incident details for fatalities are reported to the agency. Therefore
they publish workplace deaths by sector (“seafood processing and packaging”) - if publicly
reported.
If a worker is injured or killed, they are entitled to worker’s compensation. Alaska’s office of
Workers’ Compensation, housed in a separate division of the state’s Department of Labor, has
reportedly paid out death benefits for 16 seafood processing workers deaths since 2016,
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according to documents obtained through public records requests. A total of $2.1 million was
paid out to surviving spouses and children from 2016-2023.
One death benefits claim filed in 2021 topped $630,000. Accident reports and details on what
exactly happened are confidential due to state privacy laws, according to the state. The majority
of the claims are related to deaths in the Southwest region of Alaska, which includes the leading
fishing ports of Bristol Bay, Dutch Harbor and fishing communities throughout the Aleutian
Islands.
“My initial reaction to that (death count) was ‘Woah, really?” said AKOSH chief of enforcement
Williamson. “However, once you take into account COVID deaths, and even natural causes, then
that would kind of make sense.”
Williamson said seafood companies are required to report all deaths, and the agency determines
work-relatedness. “We've definitely had some phone calls that were, ‘Hey, we just want to let
you know, we went in to go get John out of his bunk but he wasn't moving. He died in his sleep.
He had been sick a day or so before.’ You know, what have you,” Williamson said. “So when
that happens, we take the information, we express our condolences. We close it, and then we
move on.”
Fig. 36 Worker dorms in Naknek, Bristol Bay (Corinne Smith)
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Chapter Five: Hazardous plants on AKOSH’s list
AKOSH conducts regular and surprise inspections of seafood processing plants, as one of
Alaska’s most hazardous industries. The goal of the program is to reduce workplace accidents
and injuries, which has shown steady improvement over the last decade.
The agency is limited by staff capacity and Alaska’s extensive geography, Williamson said, so
inspections are planned and grouped by location. The agency prioritizes inspections of the 147
onshore plants based on accident and injury records, called “300 logs,” that the industry is
required to file for incidents that go beyond basic first aid.
Fig. 37 Injuries and accidents at Peter Pan’s plant in King Cove include crushing, repetitive motion injuries, and eye and head
injuries (Screenshot from OSHA 300 logs)
In summer 2022, a worker at a plant in the port of Valdez, then owned by Peter Pan Seafoods
(now in receivership), was cleaning a conveyor belt and his glove got stuck in a sprocket and
pulled his arm in, breaking it. The resulting AKOSH investigation found 13 other safety
violations.
The report obtained through a public records request was heavily redacted, meaning details of
the incident and how the company addressed the safety hazards are unknown. But the report
included worker complaints of lack of safety training, sexual harassment, and fear of being fired
for reporting being sick with COVID.
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Fig. 38 Partial statement from a worker at Peter Pan Seafoods Valdez plant to an AKOSH inspector in 2022
The report describes other injuries from that summer season in Valdez, including amputated
fingers, a fall from a bunk bed where a worker broke their arm, and worker injuries related to
being crushed by equipment. Peter Pan was required to work with AKOSH inspectors through a
process called “abatement” to remedy hazards and update safety training. The company initially
faced a penalty of more than $250,000 but negotiated it down to $72,500.
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Fig. 39 Peter Pan’s Valdez plant was acquired by Silver Bay Seafoods in 2024, and some dorms cleared out ahead of the season
(Corinne Smith)
The perils of seafood processing have put many of the industry’s plants on the state’s High
Hazards Target list, which compiles Alaska’s most dangerous workplaces. That’s calculated by
lost days at work due to injury or accidents, per 100 workers. Those rates make the list if they
exceed 90 percent of lost time rates for all of Alaska. From 2016-2019, seafood processing plants
made up the majority of the list.
AKOSH officials said there has been no updated list since 2019, and have not responded to
repeated requests for an explanation.
In those four years, seafood companies whose plants topped the high hazard list were Silver Bay
Seafoods, Icicle Seafoods (now OBI Seafoods), and North Pacific Seafoods.
Requests for comment from these seafood companies regarding their historically high injury
rates, worker safety protocols and training were not returned.
AKOSH also provides regular safety training and visits to improve fish processing systems.
Williamson described the engagement with companies as necessary, and a priority for his
department. “The majority of the people that we run into want to do the right thing. They just
40

don't always know what the right thing is,” he said. “I would much rather engage with the
employers as we're out doing our employee protection activity, and give them pointers and tips.
If we see something that's not a problem right now, but we think it might be a problem, where we
can kind of talk to them, coach them, guide them, give them some options and better ways to
adhere to the standards.”
Fig. 40 Annual AKOSH enforcement inspections
Beyond injury counts, AKOSH is also limited to enforcing federal and state laws, so workplace
issues like violence, sexual harassment, and retaliation are more difficult to regulate.
“We have one statute for retaliation,” said Williamson. “It does happen, absolutely. And
retaliation can take on many different forms. Most people, their minds go automatically to
termination. And that does happen, but it can be a reduction in hours, it can be transferred to a
less desirable job duty.”
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Chapter Six: COVID pandemic hit processing, but prompted some improvements
The COVID-19 pandemic upended the Alaska seafood industry like so many others. But it
produced a new emphasis on workers' health and safety, according to some workers and health
researchers, that improved some workplaces. The seafood industry spent an estimated $70
million in 2020 to bring back the seasonal summer workforce, including quarantines, testing,
facility modifications, increased transportation, cleaning and personal protective equipment.
Workers interviewed for this story expressed mixed feelings about how companies handled
COVID and workplace safety. Some said it was worth the paycheck especially during the height
of the pandemic lockdown, or when COVID relief checks ran out. But some said they didn’t
know what they were getting into, with harsh conditions and closed factory campuses increasing
isolation, and in the worst cases lawsuits were filed for false imprisonment and quarantining
workers without pay. Major COVID outbreaks infected dozens of workers and shut down
processing plants in Seward, Akutan and Dutch Harbor.
But getting sick was a constant worry. Many said masks, testing, and social distancing were
effective when enforced, sometimes by security guards. Later, COVID vaccines were required
for hiring, which also helped keep the virus at bay.
Fig. 41 UniSea shut down at the start of 2021 when a COVID outbreak infected at least 54 workers (Photo by Hope McKenney, shared with
permission)
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Workers said sometimes there was separate quarantine housing, if available, but that they were
sometimes forced to stay in the same rooms with those who had tested positive and mask. “So it
seemed very like every man for yourself,” a worker from the Pacific Northwest said in a phone
interview. She started in 2020 in Naknek for a paycheck during the pandemic, and returned for
several years. “The attitude was like we're all bound to get it right? So you were just super
thankful when you didn't get it. Like I don't think I ever got it there, I don't remember getting
sick. So I was like, thank god, because it felt inevitable,” the worker said.
She described the workplace culture as one where workers should “tough it out,” and as with
many workplace concerns, protocols were pushed to the side when the high volume fishing
season was underway.
By 2022, many workers described a halt to routine COVID testing and other mitigation
protocols. One worker at Peter Pan Seafoods in Valdez described the pressure to keep working.
“If you had COVID, or if you had a flu all of a sudden, then they recommended you stay inside.
But they would definitely scold you or belittle you because they would want people to work,”
she said. “Because they just thought they are just a wasted body in a bed, when they could be
getting like, getting work out of them, kind of thing.”
And yet, some workers have said they feel health issues have been taken more seriously since the
pandemic, and that medical care is more accessible. They describe some plants providing on-site
nurses for first aid needs, or assistance with protective equipment, and more developed human
resources departments that could respond to workplace needs. But those resources are at the
discretion of management.
43

Fig. 42 OBI workers line up to enter the local Petersburg grocery store in summer 2020. Technically off campus, they had one hour to shop there
each week. (Corinne Smith)
Uncertain future for workers and seafood processing plants
Processing work is highly uncertain and grueling, but the jobs are as reliable as Alaska’s
productive commercial harvest - so long as each summer tens of millions of salmon continue to
return like clockwork, so do the processing jobs.
“Safety wise, there's always room for improvement,” said Mark-Anthony Vizcocho, president of
the Filipino American Association of Kodiak, who’s membership includes many processing
workers and year-round community members. “From what I'm seeing now, they have security
cams, they do safety videos and training.” He said when he started in the 1990s workers would
learn on the job, and now companies have employee orientation and specific jobs training, as
well as gear provided like boots and gloves.
Vizcocho said it’s in the interest of the seafood companies to ensure workers don’t quit, and want
to return for future seasons. “If you want people to come back, if you want people to do seven
days a week, if you want people to do 18 hours a day, this is what we have to do.”
Workers and the medical personnel who treat them emphasized the need for sick or rest days, so
that they can recover safely without the threat of firing. “They do not come to the clinic unless
they have to,” said Carol Austerman, who runs the Kodiak Community Health Center, a
sliding-scale clinic which treats processing workers. “So they will wait until they are very sick,
44

or they are very far behind like in their chronic treatment before they actually will make an
appointment and come in because they do not want to lose that income.”
Austerman said family members of her patients have been so worried that they have “begged”
her to call the company “to try to convince their boss to let them take time off,” she said. “So if
there was anything that I would love to see changed about this whole process, it would be that
they have to give them some kind of sick leave.”
Fig. 43 Workers walk between dorms and the cafeteria at around 6am in Valdez (Corinne Smith)
The change is unlikely to happen this year, at a time when the industry is undergoing a major
contraction. Last year, Alaska commercial fishing crews saw historic low prices for fish, due to
multiplying economic factors of declining consumer demand, global competition and currency
markets, among others. Over the winter, seafood companies sold off plants, or closed entirely,
leaving fishing communities like King Cove facing economic hardship. Workers and advocates
say plants under financial pressure or new management are unlikely to make improvements in
safety protocols and training, leading workers to face higher risks.
“I’d like to see a better, safe work environment, where they have actual proper equipment, like
PPE equipment and better training,” a 20-something worker from Montana said in a phone
interview.
She did one season processing at Peter Pan Seafoods in Valdez at the recommendation of
coworkers, to pay for tuition while pursuing a pharmacy technician degree. While she was
45

promised $10,000 that summer, she said she came away that season with $8,000 after about two
months of processing work, a much needed paycheck. But in that short time she saw an alarming
array of safety scares, workplace injuries like broken bones, favoritism and retaliation for getting
sick, sexual harassment, and disregard from managers.
“I did think about quitting a couple of times,” she said, but her roommates and other workers
helped her persevere. “It was the small group of friends that I made, they were just really sweet
gems. And I figured if they're willing to stay, despite all of it, I feel comfortable and confident
enough to stay with them and just ride this out as long as I can.”
Looking back, she describes an intense mix of emotions around whether it was worth it. The
paycheck was a necessity, but she says she would never do seafood processing again.
“When I got back home… I was so livid,” she said, angry with her former coworkers who
recommended the job. “I wouldn't recommend it to anybody, unless they’re desperate.”
46

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52

Abstract (if available)

Abstract It takes hard work and many hands to cut, handle, and process the millions of pounds of fish and crab harvested in Alaska each year, including roughly half of the world’s wild salmon. The work is done by more than 20,000 people, flying in from around the United States and internationally each year, to remote Alaska fishing ports to do these essential, yet largely invisible seafood processing jobs. The Alaska seafood industry is one of the largest in the state known as “The Last Frontier,” and generates over $6 billion annually. Workers come for the promise of overtime pay, working up to 20 hour shifts in peak seasons, with housing and airfare included. But the human cost can be high: the work is grueling, with cold, wet, hazardous conditions - from risks of chemical exposures, to broken bones, a general lack of safety training, fear of retaliation for reporting concerns, and even death. In a year-long investigation, interviewing dozens of workers - from across companies, plants and fisheries throughout Alaska - OSHA officials, seafood executives, labor attorneys, occupational safety researchers and healthcare professionals, analyzing accident and injury data and extensive public records requests, this project aims to provide a comprehensive and current statewide picture of labor conditions of the Alaska seafood processing industry.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Smith, Corinne (author)

Core Title Dangerous and essential: Workers in Alaska’s seafood processing industry face high injuries and severe conditions

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism

Degree Conferral Date 2024-08

Publication Date 10/08/2024

Defense Date 10/02/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Alaska workers,labor,OAI-PMH Harvest,OSHA,Salmon,seafood processing plants,seafood processing workers,workers' safety,workplace hazards

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Kahn, Gabriel (committee chair), Cohn, Gary (committee member), Tolan, Sandy (committee member)

Creator Email cgsmith@usc.edu,corinnesmithAK@gmail.com

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