Oxfam’s “Women on the Line” and the Food Chain Workers’ Alliance’s “No Piece of the Pie” provide more evidence of the low wages, harsh conditions, and disrespect experienced by millions of workers in the U.S. food industry.
Food Safety & Nutrition
“Sharing happiness” is company motto, workers treated with “distrust rather than respect”
Poultry processing firm Allen Harim Foods’ slogan is “Improving the Quality of Life and Sharing Happiness.” It’s difficult for me to see how either is achieved with its mismanagement of work-related injuries and the hazards that cause them.
Yet another study tells us that poultry workers develop painful and disabling musculoskeletal injuries.
The story was about US immigration policy, but my-oh-my what it said about working conditions in poultry processing plants.
After more than a decade, OSHA used its “general duty clause” to issue citations to a poultry processing firm for ergonomic hazards.
Food Safety & Nutrition
Reality check on USDA’s claims about its plan to privatize poultry inspection
The wisdom of USDA’s plan to privatize poultry inspection is striking newspaper editors as an unwise move. USDA is rebutting the opinion pieces, but their assertions need a dose of reality.
Environmental Health
Will Tom Vilsack’s USDA keep its promise to poultry plant workers about their grueling, disabling work?
The USDA Secretary tells Congress that his agency still plans to implement a new poultry slaughter inspection system that will allow producers to drastically increase line speeds, while a disturbing new report on poultry workers in Alabama explain the harmful effects of the current working conditions.
Food Safety & Nutrition
How will USDA respond to environmental justice concerns for poultry plant workers?
I’m eager to see how USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack responds to the environmental justice concerns raised about the Food Safety Inspection Services’ proposed regulation on poultry plant inspections.
Food Safety & Nutrition
USDA’s focus should be food safety, not increasing profit for poultry industry
McClatchy Newspapers’ reporter Lindsay Wise reports in two new articles on a proposed USDA rule to allegedly “modernize” the poultry inspection process. USDA and the poultry industry are having a love fest over the proposal, but food safety and workers’ safety advocates oppose the rule. The White House will soon be deciding the rule’s fate.
Food Safety & Nutrition
Public health officials urge USDA to withdraw plan to “modernize” poultry inspection, worker and food safety will suffer
The Obama Administration’s quest to appease businesses’ claims about burdensome regulations awoke a giant in the form of the civil rights, public health and workers’ safety communities. From the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Council of LaRaza, to the American Public Health Association, the feedback on USDA’s proposal to “modernize” the poultry inspection process is loud and clear: scrap the idea because faster line speeds will take a grave toll on poultry plant workers.