Animal except Poultry Slaughtering · Iowa

Waterloo Pork Plant

Waterloo, IA · ~2,801 workers · 8 years of OSHA Injury Tracking Application data.

F
Failing Safety Record
12.0
Avg TCR
3.3
Industry avg
0
Fatalities

The verdict

Waterloo Pork Plant runs at 365% of its industry's injury rate - far more dangerous than the typical Animal except Poultry Slaughtering workplace, earning a grade F.

F
Failing Safety Record
12.0
avg TCR · per 100 workers
3.3
industry benchmark (BLS)
717
recordable injuries tracked

Grade compares Waterloo Pork Plant's OSHA Total Case Rate of 12.0 to the Animal except Poultry Slaughtering BLS benchmark of 3.3 (365% of benchmark) across 8 years of Form 300A filings (2016–2024). <a href="/methodology">See methodology</a> for reporting-limitation caveats.

Injury rate over time

Waterloo Pork Plant's yearly Total Case Rate, against the 3.3 industry benchmark.

0510152025 20172018201920202021202220232024 6.13.3 Industry benchmarkWaterloo Pork Plant TCR
Total Case Rate (recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers), OSHA ITA Form 300A. Industry benchmark: BLS IIF, NAICS 311611.

Where Waterloo Pork Plant falls in its industry

216 Animal except Poultry Slaughte establishments

Safer than 14% of graded establishments in this industry, whose median TCR is 5.3.

More dangerous than peersSafer than peers

Narrower to Iowa alone (the establishments it most directly competes with for workers and contracts): ranked #23 safest of 26 Animal except Poultry Slaughte employers in Iowa.

Trend analysis for Waterloo Pork Plant

Between 2017 and 2024, Waterloo Pork Plant's Total Case Rate improved from 13.0 to 6.1 recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers, a 53% decrease across 7 years of OSHA reporting.

The safest year on record was 2019, at a TCR of 5.0, while 2022 saw the highest rate, at 21.4, a spread of 16.4 points between the best and worst reporting years. That's a wide swing relative to the establishment's overall rate, worth checking the year-by-year table below for whether a single severe year is driving the average, rather than a sustained trend.

Summed across those 8 reporting years, Waterloo Pork Plant recorded 717 total injuries and illnesses, with no fatalities reported in any of those years. Readers comparing establishments should weigh the 8-year trend above alongside establishment size, since a larger workforce naturally accumulates more raw incidents even at a lower per-100-worker rate.

Verify This Employer with OSHA

The 717 injuries, 1,866 illnesses shown on this page for Waterloo Pork Plant are sourced from its own 8 years of mandatory OSHA Form 300A summaries. Cross-check the underlying establishment record directly against the federal source, name, NAICS classification, recordable case totals, and inspection history are all searchable on OSHA's Establishment-Specific Injury and Illness Data system.

Verify on OSHA Establishment Search

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Establishment-Specific Injury and Illness Data. NAICS 311611 - Animal except Poultry Slaughtering.

DART Rate, Transparent Calculation (2024)

What is the DART rate formula?

DART (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) is computed by OSHA as incidents × 200,000 ÷ hours worked. The 200,000-hour denominator equals roughly 100 full-time workers, which lets establishments of very different sizes be compared directly.

101 DART incidents × 200,000 ÷ 5,605,215 hours worked = 3.60 DART

Methodology: 29 CFR 1904, OSHA Form 300A recordkeeping

Cross-Validating Context, Establishment vs Industry vs State

Benchmark TCR Source
Waterloo Pork Plant (this establishment) 12.03 OSHA ITA Form 300A, 8-year avg
Beef produced in slaughtering plants industry avg 3.30 BLS IIF, NAICS 311611
Iowa state avg (all industries) 5.33 OSHA ITA, state-level rollup

Industry benchmarks: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities (IIF) program

Reportable Incident Timeline

Year-by-year reportable incidents (recordable injuries + illnesses + fatalities) submitted by Waterloo Pork Plant to OSHA's Injury Tracking Application. Each row anchors to OSHA's inspection records search where you can pull the underlying inspection case numbers and citations for that establishment-year.

Source: OSHA Inspection Information System (IMIS) - inspection case-number records

Year-by-Year Safety Data

Year TCR DART Injuries Illnesses Fatalities
2024 6.1 3.6 102 68 0
2023 9.2 6.6 108 135 0
2022 21.4 18.6 79 463 0
2021 20.6 19.2 88 490 0
2020 13.0 11.8 62 293 0
2019 5.0 4.0 79 62 0
2018 7.9 6.2 89 125 0
2017 13.0 11.5 110 230 0

What this grade means for you

Use this grade as a relative read on Waterloo Pork Plant's reported OSHA injury record versus its Animal except Poultry Slaughtering peers, not a verdict on whether any single site is safe today.

  • At 365% of the Animal except Poultry Slaughtering benchmark, Waterloo Pork Plant reports more injuries than typical peers, ask specifically how the employer is reducing them. Know your rights
  • Judge this record against the wider Animal except Poultry Slaughtering sector, where injury rates vary widely, before comparing it in isolation. See the industry
  • Grades reflect 2016–2024 filings; check the latest establishment record straight from OSHA, or look up a different employer. Look up another

Safety grades reflect employers' self-reported OSHA Form 300A filings from 2016 to 2024 and can lag current conditions. A grade is not a guarantee that any specific workplace is safe or unsafe today. See our methodology and disclaimer.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Waterloo Pork Plant's safety grade?
Waterloo Pork Plant has a safety grade of F (Failing Safety Record). This grade is based on their average Total Case Rate (TCR) of 12.0 compared to the BLS industry benchmark of 3.3 for Animal except Poultry Slaughtering.
How many injuries has Waterloo Pork Plant reported?
Waterloo Pork Plant has reported 717 total injuries and 0 fatalities across 8 years of OSHA data (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017). This data comes from mandatory OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA) reports.

Similar Employers

Matched by safety record across the industry, by workforce size within Iowa, and by nearby establishments in Waterloo - a different peer set than the category browse links below.

Similar TCR (~12.0)

Similar size (~2,801 workers)

Nearby in Waterloo

Data Source: OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA), mandatory establishment-level injury/illness reports. Grades compare employer Total Case Rate (TCR) to BLS IIF industry benchmarks. Data covers years reported by this establishment: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017. This is publicly available government data - not a legal determination of workplace conditions.

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.

Data sourced from official public datasets. See our methodology for details. Retrieved and formatted by PlainSafetyScore Editorial

Every figure and grade on PlainSafetyScore is computed directly from OSHA's published Injury Tracking Application data and BLS industry benchmarks, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these safety grades, or report a data error. Data current as of 2016-2024 OSHA ITA release.