Worker Rights and Animal Welfare Groups Join Forces for Humane Slaughter |
 |
March 9, 2006
 |
| ©2005 |
Compassion Over Killing
|
The daily cruelties of modern-day industrial poultry farming and slaughter extend beyond the animals slaughtered for food—the conditions also impact human welfare. Every year in the United States, billions of birds are shackled by their legs, hung upside-down, cut with mechanical blades, and immersed in scalding water, some while they're fully conscious. And each day, 200,000 slaughterhouse workers earn their living in dirty, dimly lit rooms across the country, forcing live, panicking chickens, turkeys, and other birds onto the slaughter line.
On March 9, the Equal Justice Center (EJC) and Western North Carolina Workers' Center (WNCWC)—two organizations dedicated to improving worker safety and rights in the agricultural industry—took a monumental step to improve these workers' lives. EJC and WNCWC joined The HSUS's lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) exclusion of chickens, turkeys, and other birds killed for human consumption from the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
"Current slaughter methods are inherently dangerous and take a devastating emotional toll on the workers who are forced to witness and participate in these cruelties," said Francisco Risso, Director of the Western North Carolina Workers' Center. "The Department of Agriculture's refusal to apply the federal humane slaughter law to poultry slaughterhouses is having a huge impact on the day to day lives of thousands of workers that are doing some of the most difficult and thankless work in our society."
WNCWC assists workers in union organizing and petitioning for better working conditions within the plant, facilitating support from the broader community, educating workers on their rights, and referring workers to legal representatives.
Inhumane Slaughter: Common Ground for Concern
If workers' rights and animal welfare seem like strange bedfellows, consider that inhumane slaughter practices are abusive to both the workers and the animals.
The slaughter line moves at a merciless pace: processing as many as 50 birds a minute. In a frantic race to keep the line moving, workers fight to load the chickens onto the line, and the desperate birds fight back—scratching, clawing, and pecking—leaving workers with scratches, bruises, inflamed knuckles, and aching backs. Dust and dirt from the birds' flapping wings fill the air and irritate workers' respiratory tracts and eyes. The terrified birds defecate on workers, who must hang the birds even if they are bleeding, suffering, or have broken legs or wings. Workers—many of whom are undocumented immigrants—are frequently unaware of their rights or powerless to change the conditions around them.
This miserable atmosphere, where profit rules over the welfare of animals and workers alike, reduces live, suffering animals into mere "production units" and dehumanizes those who work at the slaughter facility.
Last fall, the USDA issued a public notice informing poultry slaughter facilities that they need not comply with the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, which requires that animals be "rendered insensible to pain" before being processed for slaughter. This policy allows processors to inhumanely slaughter more than nine billion birds each year.
Humane and Worker-Friendly Slaughter Methods
There are alternatives. The HSUS asked the court to require more humane slaughter methods. One alternative method, called "controlled atmosphere killing" or CAK, painlessly gases birds in their transport cases. Workers then lift the dead—and motionless—birds onto the slaughter line. Using this method, workers would no longer have to contend with frightened, thrashing birds, or have to witness the suffering and cruelty experienced by live birds who are processed without humane slaughter protections.
In joining with The HSUS on the lawsuit, EJC and WNCWC hope to see the more humane, worker-friendly alternatives replace current practices.
"Slaughterhouse workers must struggle to hang terrified, bloody birds upside down at incredible speeds. As a result, they suffer serious injuries such as lacerations, broken bones, repetitive motion injuries, and respiratory problems from inhaling dust, dirt, and feces," explained Anita Grabowski, Coordinator of EJC's Poultry Worker Project. EJC's Poultry Worker Project assists minority and immigrant poultry workers by providing workers' rights education, including Spanish and English language classes focused on workers' rights and cross racial solidarity, technical assistance to labor unions, and a Workplace Injury Project educating workers about workplace risks, and linking injured workers with doctors, lawyers, and translators.
"These incredibly abusive and undignified workplace practices could be eliminated if more humane slaughter methods were adopted," said Grabowski.
See the Video
USDA Poultry Slaughter Policy
Electric Stunning
Related Links
Still a Jungle Out There: The HSUS Takes USDA to Court to Ensure a Humane End for Birds
