Industrial Meat Processing
More and more, small meat processors are being replaced by large plants that can process up to 400 animals per hour on each line. This is incredible efficiency, providing profit to the packing industry, and, in theory, inexpensive meat for the consumer. But this efficiency comes at a price. One concern is the growing problem of contaminated meat. Even some in the cattle industry are saying that the beef industry is not giving the consumer a safe product (see Just Cook the Crud Out of It), primarily because of large packing plants. A second concern is the treatment of workers in large plants, many of whom are immigrants or illegal aliens. Meatpacking plants, at 26.7 per 100 employees, had the highest nonfatal-injury and illness incidence rates among industries in the year 2000. (Wall Street Journal, December 2000). The true rate is probably higher for reasons described in an article that we excerpt below by Eric Schlosser (author of “Fast Food Nation”). A final concern is the potential for inhumane treatment of animals.
We use a small local family run processor that does not have a “line speed” to maintain, but processes each animal individually in the presence of a USDA inspector. We’ve talked to some workers, many of whom have been there for years. They seem genuinely happy. This is a system we can feel good about supporting.
The consumer advocacy group, Public Citizen, in cooperation with the Government Accountability Project recently published a report titled “Jungle 2000,” outlining the serious health-threatening problems in the meat packing industry. You can read the executive summary below, or the entire report.
Public Citizen’s JUNGLE 2000
Executive Summary
“huge blocks of dingy meat factories, whose labyrinthine
defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them…rivers of hot blood, and carloads of moist flesh, and rendering vats and soap caldrons, glue factories and
fertilizer tanks that smelt like the craters of hell”
–The Jungle
Nearly a century ago, Upton Sinclair graphically described the filthy and dangerous conditions at slaughterhouses in The Jungle. The novel created a public scandal that resulted in the passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The law mandated that beef and pork be inspected continuously during slaughter and processing by government meat inspectors, who would rely on sight, touch and smell to check for animal diseases or fecal contamination.
However, in 1996 the meat inspection program was revamped by the Clinton administration with the introduction of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system. HACCP moves the responsibility for ensuring a safe meat supply from government inspectors to the meat industry. Its stated goal is to use a science driven risk-based system that would provide safe meat. Microbial testing was also implemented along with HACCP to ensure that meat-processing plants attain performance standards.
Unfortunately, evidence is mounting that the HACCP system has weakened the meat inspection system rather than strengthening it and that the microbial testing program is flawed. Because of the large amount of meat inspected in this nation, the problems identified with the meat inspection program are very troubling. In 1999, 155 million livestock (cattle, swine, sheep, goats, and horses) and 8.4 billion poultry carcasses were processed.
Now, the meat industry and its allies at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) want to move completely to a company self-inspection program at slaughterhouses. The USDA already has a pilot program in approximately 29 plants that use company “inspectors” to inspect meat, while the government inspectors spend most of their time inspecting company paperwork. Although a federal court has found this type of company self-inspection illegal, the meat industry is lobbying Congress to change the law and make privatization of meat inspection legal. The time is ripe for reviewing the meat inspection program and making recommendations about its future.
The Jungle 2000 provides an overview of the history of meat inspection in the United States, which sets the stage for an analysis of a survey of USDA meat inspectors who work in processing plants that have implemented HACCP. The surveyed meat inspectors disclose that the implementation of the HACCP program is threatening meat safety. The findings from a recent report by the USDA s Office of Inspector General (OIG) provide additional evidence that the meat inspection system is in turmoil. The OIG s report identifies many of the same problems with the new inspection system and the microbial testing program that were also found by the survey of meat inspectors.
The results from the survey and the comments of the USDA s OIG show that the conditions portrayed by Sinclair in slaughterhouses almost 100 years ago could reemerge if immediate action is not taken to address the problems with the current inspection program.
METHODOLOGY FOR SURVEY: In July 1999, a 14-page survey with 114 questions, designed by The Government Accountability Project (GAP), was sent to about 2,340 of the approximately 3,850 HACCP inspectors who were working in meat processing plants. The HACCP inspectors watched over 92 percent of the U.S. meat supply. Of those who received the survey, 451 HACCP inspectors responded. At the time of the survey, the respondents had spent an average of 18.5 years as federal meat and poultry inspectors.
SURVEY RESULTS
The surveys of meat inspectors reveal that the recent changes to the USDA s inspection of meat and poultry have decreased, rather than improved protections for consumers and must be reexamined. The meat inspectors who responded to the survey were responsible for ensuring the safety of a large percentage of the nation s meat supply, although the exact percentage is impossible to compute. Inspectors work in plants processing amounts of meat ranging from a half million pounds to a few thousand pounds per day.
The numbers of inspectors reporting problems is extremely significant because it indicates the sheer magnitude of the problems with the inspection program. These types of events should occur rarely, if ever. For instance, consumers would find it unacceptable for even one inspector to report that he/she regularly sees fecal contamination on meat, because the USDA claims to have a zero tolerance for fecal contamination of meat.
The numerous instances reported are very likely an underestimate of actual occurrences.
The surveys also provided opportunities for meat inspectors to share their opinions and experiences on the recent changes to meat inspection programs. Some representative excerpts from the comments of government inspectors are presented after the quantitative data in each section.
Americans Are Eating Dirty Meat
210 inspectors (out of 327 responding) indicated that since HACCP began at their plant, there have been instances when they have not taken direct action against contamination (feces, vomit, metal shards, etc.) that they observed and would have taken action against under the old system. Of those, 206 responded that this occurs daily or weekly.
197 inspectors (out of 391 responding) said that they were instructed to check further down the line to ensure that the system caught contamination they had already observed, but that they were prohibited from removing it when they first observed it.
56 inspectors (out of 281 responding) reported that they have been instructed not to document violations they observe while performing slaughter duties.
“I will not buy inspected product, only what I raise. I do not eat out, and I don’t allow my children to eat at school. We didn’t used to have to put warning labels on product for safe handling but we do now. This is just a politically correct way of saying cook good, this product may contain fecal matter and other poor sanitary handling bacterias (sic). I was told by a supervisor some time back that if you cook a piece of [feces] to 170 degrees you can eat it and it won’t hurt you. But I don’t really think the consumer is aware of the [feces] they are being fed.”
“I also feel that you can’t allow the company to do their own inspection on the kill floor. Companies are in business to make money. When you put them in charge of inspecting their own product, I think money becomes the determining factor.”
“I worked in poultry, swine, beef and without inspectors around. Many things go on especially things on the floor; they just pick it [contaminated meat] up and put it in for human consumption.”
Patsy McKee was a USDA inspector in southern California for 15 years. After new food-safety regulations were approved, giving meat-processing plants more power to conduct their own inspections, McKee says that some companies became more aggressive in challenging her authority. She says she was often harassed and was encouraged not to document sanitation problems. Ultimately, she was transferred away from her district in California to a night shift in Cherokee, Iowa. When she refused to go, the USDA fired her. She eventually filed a discrimination suit against the agency, which was settled out of court in 2001. Here, McKee discusses the intimidating environment in which she worked, as well as the sanitation conditions she documented.
The Chain Never Stops
American slaughterhouses are grinding out meat faster than ever — and the production line keeps moving, even when the workers are maimed by the machinery.
by Eric Schlosser July/August 2001 Mother Jones Magazine
Kenny Dobbins was hired by the Monfort Beef Company in 1979. He was 24 years old, and 6 foot 5, and had no fear of the hard work in a slaughterhouse. He seemed invincible. Over the next two decades he suffered injuries working for Monfort that would have crippled or killed lesser men. He was struck by a falling 90-pound box of meat and pinned against the steel lip of a conveyor belt. He blew out a disc and had back surgery. He inhaled too much chlorine while cleaning some blood tanks and spent a month in the hospital, his lungs burned, his body covered in blisters. He damaged the rotator cuff in his left shoulder when a 10,000-pound hammer-mill cover dropped too quickly and pulled his arm straight backward. He broke a leg after stepping into a hole in the slaughterhouse’s concrete floor. He got hit by a slow-moving train behind the plant, got bloodied and knocked right out of his boots, spent two weeks in the hospital, then returned to work. He shattered an ankle and had it mended with four steel pins. He got more bruises and cuts, muscle pulls and strains than he could remember. Despite all the injuries and the pain, the frequent trips to the hospital and the metal brace that now supported one leg, Dobbins felt intensely loyal to Monfort and Con-Agra, its parent company. He’d left home at the age of 13 and never learned to read; Monfort had given him a steady job, and he was willing to do whatever the company asked. He moved from Grand Island, Nebraska, to Greeley, Colorado, to help Monfort reopen its slaughterhouse there without a union. He became an outspoken member of a group formed to keep union organizers out. He saved the life of a fellow worker—and was given a framed certificate of appreciation. And then, in December 1995, Dobbins felt a sharp pain in his chest while working in the plant. He thought it was a heart attack. According to Dobbins, the company nurse told him it was a muscle pull and sent him home. It was a heart attack, and Dobbins nearly died. While awaiting compensation for his injuries, he was fired. The company later agreed to pay him a settlement of $35,000.
Today Kenny Dobbins is disabled, with a bad heart and scarred lungs. He lives entirely off Social Security payments. He has no pension and no health insurance. His recent shoulder surgery—stemming from an old injury at the plant and costing more than $10,000—was paid by Medicare. He now feels angry beyond words at ConAgra, misused, betrayed. He’s embarrassed to be receiving public assistance. “I’ve never had to ask for help before in my life,” Dobbins says. “I’ve always worked. I’ve worked since I was 14 years old.” In addition to the physical pain, the financial uncertainty, and the stress of finding enough money just to pay the rent each month, he feels humiliated.
What happened to Kenny Dobbins is now being repeated, in various forms, at slaughterhouses throughout the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meatpacking is the nation’s most dangerous occupation. In 1999, more than one-quarter of America’s nearly 150,000 meatpacking workers suffered a job-related injury or illness. The meatpacking industry not only has the highest injury rate, but also has by far the highest rate of serious injury—more than five times the national average, as measured in lost workdays. If you accept the official figures, about 40,000 meatpacking workers are injured on the job every year.
But the actual number is most likely higher. The meatpacking industry has a well-documented history of discouraging injury reports, falsifying injury data, and putting injured workers back on the job quickly to minimize the reporting of lost workdays. Over the past four years, I’ve met scores of meatpacking workers in Nebraska, Colorado, and Texas who tell stories of being injured and then discarded by their employers. Like Kenny Dobbins, many now rely on public assistance for their food, shelter, and medical care. Each new year throws more injured workers on the dole, forcing taxpayers to subsidize the meatpacking industry’s poor safety record. No government statistics can measure the true amount of pain and suffering in the nation’s meatpacking communities today. A list of accident reports filed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration gives a sense of the dangers that workers now confront in the nation’s meatpacking plants. The titles of these OSHA reports sound more like lurid tabloid headlines than the headings of sober government documents: Employee Severely Burned After Fuel From His Saw Is Ignited. Employee Hospitalized for Neck Laceration From Flying Blade. Employee’s Finger Amputated in Sausage Extruder. Employee’s Finger Amputated in Chitlin Machine. Employee’s Eye Injured When Struck by Hanging Hook. Employee’s Arm Amputated in Meat Auger. Employee’s Arm Amputated When Caught in Meat Tenderizer. Employee Burned in Tallow Fire. Employee Burned by Hot Solution in Tank. One Employee Killed, Eight Injured by Ammonia Spill. Employee Killed When Arm Caught in Meat Grinder. Employee Decapitated by Chain of Hide Puller Machine. Employee Killed When Head Crushed by Conveyor. Employee Killed When Head Crushed in Hide Fleshing Machine. Employee Killed by Stun Gun. Caught and Killed by Gut-Cooker Machine….
…In a relatively brief period of time, the meatpacking industry also became highly centralized and concentrated, giving enormous power to a few large agribusiness firms. In 1970, the top four meatpackers controlled just 21 percent of the beef market. Today the top four—IBP, ConAgra, Excel (a subsidiary of Cargill), and National Beef—control about 85 percent of the market. While the meatpackers have grown more powerful, the unions have grown much weaker. Only half of IBP’s workers belong to a union, allowing that company to set the industry standard for low wages and harsh working conditions. Given the industry’s high turnover rates, it is a challenge for a union simply to remain in a meatpacking plant, since every year it must gain the allegiance of a whole new set of workers.
In some American slaughterhouses, more than three-quarters of the workers are not native English speakers; many can’t read any language, and many are illegal immigrants. A new migrant industrial workforce now circulates through the meatpacking towns of the High Plains. A wage of $9.50 an hour seems incredible to men and women who come from rural areas in Mexico where the wages are $7 a day. These manual laborers, long accustomed to toiling in the fields, are good workers. They’re also unlikely to complain or challenge authority, to file lawsuits, organize unions, fight for their legal rights. They tend to be poor, vulnerable, and fearful. From the industry’s point of view, they are ideal workers: cheap, largely interchangeable, and disposable.
Food Safety: Setting and Enforcing Standards
by Laurian Unnevehr in Choices Magazine
In December 2001, the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas district court decision blocking the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from closing a beef processing plant that had failed a series of Salmonella tests. This court ruling is the latest development in the evolution of food safety policy for meats and poultry.
Food safety chief scolds inspectors
by Brendan O’Neill on 11/12/03 for Meatingplace
Garry McKee, administrator of the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, criticized federal meat inspectors for failing to intervene in the face of unsafe and cruel practices…Recently there have been revelations about USDA inspectors doing nothing while pathogens such as E. coli and listeria were found in meat plants.
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