Profit Over Safety: Private Equity’s Leveraged Bet on Packers Sanitation

The report examines Packers Sanitation Services Inc (PSSI), a food sanitation company owned by the Blackstone Group, highlighting a pattern of severe workplace injuries and fatalities. It argues that private equity practices, specifically dividend recapitalizations that load companies with debt, create financial pressures that lead to safety shortcuts and the exploitation of vulnerable immigrant and formerly incarcerated workers.

• In July 2021, OSHA cited PSSI and three other companies following a nitrogen leak at a Georgia poultry plant that resulted in six deaths and nearly a dozen injuries. The investigation identified 17 serious and two repeat violations by PSSI.
• PSSI has a history of severe workplace accidents; since the Blackstone Group acquired the company in May 2018, OSHA has investigated at least three fatalities—including one decapitation—and four amputations.
• Analysis of OSHA data from 2015 to 2016 by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) indicated that PSSI had one of the highest numbers of serious injury reports relative to its employee count, with an amputation rate five times higher than the average for all manufacturing workers.
• Private equity owners, including Blackstone and Leonard Green/AlpInvest, used dividend recapitalizations to extract hundreds of millions of dollars from PSSI by adding debt to the company's balance sheet. Specifically, PSSI paid Leonard Green and Alpinvest $340 million in December 2017, and paid Blackstone $135 million in June 2019 and $297 million in November 2020.
• The report suggests a link between high leverage and safety risks, noting that debt pressures may lead employers to force workers to work faster. Evidence from PSSI includes 20 citations for failing to lock out equipment during cleaning and five citations for lacking machine guards.
• PSSI employs vulnerable populations, including undocumented immigrants and former felons, who are less likely to challenge safety violations or wage theft. The company may also use liability waivers to protect its clients, the plant owners, from litigation.

APA

Private Equity Stakeholder Project (2022). Profit Over Safety: Private Equity’s Leveraged Bet on Packers Sanitation. https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Packers-Sanitation-Blackstone-Leonard-Green-PESP-March-2022.pdf

Chicago

Private Equity Stakeholder Project. Profit Over Safety: Private Equity’s Leveraged Bet on Packers Sanitation. 2022. https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Packers-Sanitation-Blackstone-Leonard-Green-PESP-March-2022.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Private Equity Stakeholder Project |title=Profit Over Safety: Private Equity’s Leveraged Bet on Packers Sanitation |date=March 2022 |url=https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Packers-Sanitation-Blackstone-Leonard-Green-PESP-March-2022.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{privateequitystakeholderproject2022profit, author = {{Private Equity Stakeholder Project}}, title = {{Profit Over Safety: Private Equity’s Leveraged Bet on Packers Sanitation}}, institution = {Private Equity Stakeholder Project}, year = {2022}, month = mar, url = {https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Packers-Sanitation-Blackstone-Leonard-Green-PESP-March-2022.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }