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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:
November 21, 2013 Joseph Rendeiro
(202) 776-1566
jrendeiro@nclr.org
Proposed USDA rule would increase injury rates in poultry plants
WASHINGTON, D.C.—As millions of Americans sit down for Thanksgiving dinner this November, most don’t think about what it takes for a turkey to make it from the farm to the table. But consumers may want to take a closer look, particularly if a proposed regulation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) moves forward. The USDA rule change would pull government food inspectors out of poultry plants and allow companies to speed up production lines, threatening the safety of turkey products and the workers who process them—34% of whom are Latino. Today, NCLR (National Council of La Raza) held a telephonic press conference with Food & Water Watch, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, a turkey processing worker and a retired USDA inspector to urge Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to withdraw the harmful rule and pursue protective measures together with Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez.
"This Thanksgiving, as we give thanks for our food and the hands that prepared it, we should remember the injured hands and bodies of poultry workers who labor at dizzying speeds without basic health and safety protections," said Catherine Singley, Senior Policy Analyst for Economic Policy at NCLR. "NCLR urges Secretary Vilsack to not increase line speed and instead work with Secretary Perez to improve worker safety in poultry and meatpacking."
Last year, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service proposed a new regulation that would allow poultry processing plants to increase line speeds from 32 turkeys per minute to 55 turkeys per minute. Although the rule was designed to improve food safety by automating some aspects of the inspection process that are required to identify and dispose of contaminated poultry, the proposed changes do not account for the expected adverse impacts that a faster line speed will have on worker health and safety. Many consumer advocates are also concerned that the rule could worsen food safety.
“The recent GAO (U.S. Government Accountability Office) report on the proposed poultry rule raises uncomfortable questions about the rationale for the rule change," said Bill Lucy, President Emeritus of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.
The groups on the call were joined by Esmundo Juárez Carranza, a member of the Northwest Arkansas Workers’ Justice Center, who worked for a turkey plant in Arkansas for seven years. Mr. Juárez Carranza shared a firsthand account of the grueling work that laborers are required to endure, noting the potential impact that increasing line speeds could have.
“Current conditions in chicken and turkey plants make it impossible to work with dignity,” said Juárez Carranza. “If they increase the line speed even more, the workers won’t be able to do their jobs as well. There will be more contamination in the product and the companies will blame the workers.”
The rule would also remove government inspectors from the processing lines, allowing companies to hire their own inspectors. Ken Ward, a retired USDA meat and poultry inspector, believes that this type of regulation would ultimately be harmful for consumers.
"I worked 30 years as an inspector for USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service and I saw firsthand how badly the HACCP-Based Inspection Models Project (HIMP) has worked in poultry plants,” said Ward. “Expanding the pilot to all poultry plants will put consumers at risk by letting the companies self-regulate. USDA needs to allow government inspectors to do their jobs and protect consumers."
All of the groups on the call agreed that modernizing poultry processing plants should be an important goal for the USDA, but that this rule is at odds with important worker health and safety concerns.
"This proposed rule will not improve food safety. Based on the results of the pilot project that USDA has been operating since 1998 using this deregulated inspection model, Food & Water Watch and a number of other food safety consumer advocacy organizations have come to the conclusion that the rule should be withdrawn," said Tony Corbo, Senior Lobbyist for Food & Water Watch.
Organizations opposing this rule include Center for Progressive Reform, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Coalition of Poultry Workers, Food & Water Watch, NCLR, Nebraska Appleseed, Center for Law in the Public Interest, Northwest Arkansas Workers’ Justice Center, and Southern Poverty Law Center.
NCLR—the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States—works to improve opportunities for Hispanic Americans. For more information on NCLR, please visit www.nclr.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
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