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" 'They Die Piece by Piece' - The Washington Post" Slaughterhouse - the Landmark Book | Interview with Gail Eisnitz Video Grabs from IBP Investigation HFA's Petition to Washington State | HFA's Petition to the USDA HFA's Advocacy Ad in the New York Times
The following is an abridged copy of HFA's landmark petition to the USDA. We are asking all HFA members to please contact Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns so that the abuses documented herein can be stopped. Thank you. I. INTRODUCTION This petition presents the United States Department of Agriculture (hereinafter USDA or "the Department") with extensive documentary evidence of widespread mistreatment of animals in federally inspected slaughter establishments across the United States. Recent news reports, revelations by slaughterhouse employees and USDA inspection program personnel, and additional information uncovered by the staff of the Humane Farming Association (HFA) and other petitioning organizations provide unequivocal proof of widespread non-enforcement of federal laws and regulations that are intended to protect animals from inhumane treatment. This evidence shows that in federally inspected slaughterhouses throughout the country, animals are routinely dragged, trampled, skinned, dismembered, and scalded while alive and fully conscious. In slaughterhouses that petitioners have investigated, as many as 20 percent of all slaughter animals are conscious - exhibiting righting reflexes, kicking, blinking, looking around, and vocalizing - when their skin is removed. Many animals also remain conscious as they are immersed in scalding tanks or as plant employees remove their legs, tails, and other body parts. These practices are objectionable because they are illegal and because they inflict intense and needless suffering upon animals. In addition, such practices also subject slaughterhouse workers to grave risks of injury. Further, when meat is produced in this manner, the end product is more likely to become contaminated with fecal matter, filth, and other adulterants. The evidence that follows demonstrates that these disturbing, dangerous, and illegal practices are not only common, but also long-standing. More than 40 years ago, Congress sought to prevent the needless suffering of slaughter animals by enacting the Humane Slaughter Act (hereinafter HSA or "the Act"). As amended in 1978, the Act prohibits methods of handling and slaughter that cause pain to animals. Extensive regulations promulgated by USDA set forth exacting requirements that must be met by slaughterhouse operators in order to assure humane handling and slaughter. However, the Department is not enforcing the regulations. In the absence of government enforcement, the industry disregards USDA's regulations with virtual impunity. Non-enforcement of and non-compliance with the pertinent laws and regulations are so prevalent that they amount to a complete and profound failure of the regulatory system. II. REQUEST FOR ACTION Pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act and USDA regulations, petitioners request that the Department take the following three actions in order to improve both USDA enforcement of, and meat industry compliance with, the Humane Slaughter Act:
The bases for these requests are explained more fully below. III. FEDERAL LAW REQUIRES "HUMANE" SLAUGHTER Congress enacted and President Eisenhower signed the Humane Slaughter Act "in response to intense and broadly based public concern about cruelty to livestock in meatpacking plants...." Distilled to its essence, the HSA mandates that: "No method of slaughtering or handling in connection with slaughtering shall be deemed to comply with the public policy of the United States unless it is humane." and "[A]ll animals [must be] rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical, or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast, or cut." The intent of this law is clear. Any instance of a conscious animal being dragged, beaten, or excessively prodded or of an animal exhibiting signs of consciousness during the shackling, hoisting, bleeding, or butchering processes represents a violation of the law. While the Department's responsibility to enforce the HSA was somewhat vague at the time of its enactment, it was strengthened and clarified in 1978 by amendments to the Federal Meat Inspection Act (hereinafter FMIA). These amendments granted HSA enforcement authority to the USDA and further provided the USDA with authority to suspend all food inspection activities at plants when violations occurred. IV. ILLEGAL SLAUGHTER PRACTICES COMMON IN USDA-INSPECTED SLAUGHTERHOUSES In the last fifteen years, more than 2,000 small to mid-sized slaughterhouses - one-third of the nation's packing houses - have been displaced by a small number of large, high-speed facilities, each with the capacity to kill several million animals a year. In 1998, more than half of the nation's cattle were slaughtered in 14 plants and more than half the nation's hogs were slaughtered in only 10 plants. With fewer slaughterhouses killing a growing number of animals, slaughterhouses have instituted dramatic increases in their production "line speeds." In these high-speed operations, a minute of "down time" can spell a loss of hundreds of dollars. Individual line workers, struggling to kill as many as 1,100 animals per hour - or one animal every three seconds - know that they will be disciplined or fired for impeding production. In order to keep their jobs, they often resort to brutality to keep the production line running uninterrupted. In many of the plants that petitioners visited, workers were routinely instructed by management to violate HSA regulations to keep the production process running quickly. The following describes the sequence in which cattle and hogs are handled and killed at most USDA-inspected slaughterhouses. First the animals are unloaded from transport vehicles, driven through a series of driveways, and penned. Animals that are suspected of being unhealthy are segregated in "suspect" pens. When the time comes for slaughter, cattle are driven from holding pens into either a "knocking box" or up to a "conveyor/restrainer" which transports them to the "stun operator." The stun operator or "knocker" shoots each animal in the forehead with an air- or cartridge-activated device that drives a steel bolt into the animal's skull. If the device is properly powered, maintained, and applied, the knocking gun will render the cow unconscious and ultimately kill the animal. After being stunned, the cow collapses, is shackled by a hind leg, hoisted up onto a moving conveyor, and sent to the "sticker" - the worker who cuts the animal's throat. The cow then proceeds along the bleed rail and is subsequently skinned, dismembered, and eviscerated. Pigs are transported up to the stun operator in a conveyor/restrainer and are generally stunned or killed with the application of electricity from a wand. After the electricity is applied, they are shackled, hoisted, and stuck. Next, they travel down a bleed rail and are immersed into and dragged through a scalding tank to loosen their bristles. They are dehaired and ultimately eviscerated. Petitioners' investigations have documented serious violations of federal humane slaughter regulations during all phases of handling and slaughter. A. Improper Handling Of Animals Before Slaughter As previously noted, federal law and regulations require that slaughter animals be treated humanely during both handling and slaughter. Among many pre-slaughter handling requirements, USDA regulations specify that animals be moved "with a minimum of excitement and discomfort;" that animals not be forced to move faster than a normal walking pace; that animals not be excessively prodded or dragged; that facilities be maintained in good repair so as not to cause injury to animals; and that disabled and nonambulatory animals be segregated from healthy animals and provided protection from inclement weather. In addition, FSIS Directive 6900.1 expands inspectors' law enforcement authority by allowing inspectors to board transport vehicles to examine disabled animals. Once inspected, disabled animals can be rendered unconscious and offloaded. "Once a vehicle has entered an official slaughter establishment's premises," reads the directive, "it is considered to be part of that establishment's premises.... Inspection program personnel should and can require that disabled livestock be humanely handled while on the transport vehicle at the slaughter establishment." Systematic Abuse of Disabled Animals Petitioners' investigations have revealed abusive treatment of disabled animals, including dragging of conscious animals causing limb fractures, wounds, and strangulation; trampling and beating to death of disabled animals; smashing of nonambulatory animals into concrete barriers to force them into front end loaders; and the routine use of chains to rip live, frozen animals from metal walls of transport vehicles in winter months. Likewise, petitioners' videotape evidence depicts, among other things, downed cattle being trampled by other cattle, hogs that have frozen to death being chain sawed for rendering, and a disabled cow having an electric prod inserted into its mouth. Numerous statements and affidavits provided to petitioners by slaughterhouse employees and USDA inspectors describe pre-slaughter handling violations. The following are five among scores of similar statements: USDA INSPECTOR: Dragging cattle with a chain and a forklift is standard practice at the plant. And that's even after the forklift operator rolled over and crushed the head of one downer while dragging another. WORKER: The preferred method of handling a cripple is to beat it to death with a lead pipe before he gets into the chute. It's called piping.... When I worked as a hog driver, I would kill up to 11 hogs a day by beating them to death with a lead pipe. WORKER: [If a cow is unable to walk] they put a big long chain around her neck then drag her all the way up to where we are. Usually she's dead by then. Strangled. Sometimes a steer would get its head stuck in the restrainer. You couldn't stun it at that point so you'd end up cutting its head off while the beef was still alive. WORKER: When [workers] are in a hurry, they scoop [disabled hogs] up on a dead run with the bobcat.... If the hog stays in the bucket, he stays in. If he falls out, he falls out. Or you run him over with the bobcat, if he's able to run some more.... Pin him up against the wall. Finish busting the rest of his legs so he can't run any further. USDA INSPECTOR: Sometimes [cattle] fall through the bottom of that restrainer and they're still alive. And the workers have to get them up anyway they can. So they wrap a chain around it, lift it up, bust something. If it's a leg, they'll break the leg. If it's the head, they'll break the neck. It usually breaks, whatever they hook on to. You can hear the bones cracking a lot of times. Workers and inspectors report that thousands of animals arrive disabled at slaughter establishments after transport in extreme weather. HSA regulations require that disabled animals at plants be protected from adverse climatic conditions while awaiting disposition. Despite this, live animals that are unfit for human consumption rarely receive the protections to which they are entitled under the Act. WORKER: In the winter, some hogs come in all froze to the sides of the trucks. They tie a chain around them and jerk them off the walls of the truck, leave a chunk of hide and flesh behind. They might have a little bit of life left in them, but workers throw them on piles of dead ones. They'll die sooner or later because there's nothing left to them. WORKER: In the winter...they always got 10 to 15 dead, frozen hogs laying around. Sometimes there's a pile of hogs laying there when I go to work, and when I get off at 5 pm that same pile is still lying there. A lot of times there's live ones in there....You could see them still lifting their heads up, looking around. Excessive Prodding Federal regulations specify that electric and other animal prods be used to a minimum and that the use of pipes, sharp objects, and other dangerous devices for the driving of livestock is strictly prohibited. Despite this, according to a 1999 survey, 24 percent of 17 cattle plants observed for electric prod use were rated as unacceptable or as having serious problems; 21 percent of the 19 hog plants surveyed for electric prod use "had definite problems which severely compromised animal welfare." These observations were made during announced humane handling inspections at plants. Statements made by whistleblowing slaughterhouse employees further support these statistics: WORKER: If you get a stubborn hog that doesn't want to go, [workers are] going to beat that hog until he does. They use a shackle, a pipe, anything they can get their hands on. If the government's not around - which they're not - employees can get to beating that hog all they want to. WORKER: I've seen them take those prods and stick them in the [cows'] ears, their eyes, down their throat. They've prodded animals so much that they've gone down and wouldn't get back up. Then they've had to shoot them or drag them with a chain. Or they stick them up the cow's rectum and they just hold it there. WORKER: I've seen hogs beaten, whipped and everything else....I've seen hogs get kicked in the head by drivers who were attempting to get them up to the restrainer. One night I saw a guy get so angry at a hog he broke its back with a piece of board. I've seen hog drivers take their prod and shove it up the hog's ass to get them to move. WORKER: [The foreman will] kick them, fork them, use anything he can get his hands on. He's already broken three pitchforks so far this year, just jabbing them. He doesn't care if he hits [the cow's] eyes, head, butt. He jabs them so hard he busts the wooden handles. And he clubs them over the back. B. Ineffective Stunning The HSA and its implementing regulations require that stun operators be able to apply stunning apparatus to animals with such precision that animals will be rendered unconscious immediately and with a single application. Dramatic increases in line speeds - which prevent workers from taking the time necessary to execute the exacting procedure - and inadequately maintained and/or malfunctioning equipment often prevent stun operators from rendering animals unconscious with a single application of a stunning device. Inaccurate Stunning In the spring of 2000, nearly two dozen employees at a major slaughterhouse - IBP, Inc. in Wallula, Washington (hereinafter IBP-Wallula) - submitted affidavits to state law enforcement authorities about the violations they had committed. They explained that, due largely to dramatic increases in line speed, plant stun operators or "knockers" did not have sufficient time for proper placement of the stunning device. This prevented stun operators from rendering cattle unconscious before the animals proceeded down the line. Workers at that plant reported: WORKER: The problem in the knocking box is that you have to work real fast because the chain is too fast and the animals that come into the box are jumping everywhere. And sometimes...you don't shoot the cow really right. And you let him go like that. WORKER: There's a problem for me with knocking the cows. The chain goes too fast, more than 300 cows an hour....If I can't get the animal knocked right, it keeps going. The chain doesn't stop....The supervisors say, 'Keep knocking, knocking!' You end up knocking the cow in the ear - not very good. The supervisors say, 'It's okay. Go, go, go, go!' WORKER: The knocker really only can hit the cows once....And sometimes the cow is moving and they don't do it in the right spot. Sometimes even if they miss, they just hang them and send them out like that because they don't have time. Repeated Stunning Because inadequately maintained or malfunctioning equipment seriously compromises stunning efficacy, HSA regulations specify no fewer than eight times that stunning apparatus must be adequately powered and carefully serviced. Despite this, a survey conducted for USDA demonstrates that "[t]he most common cause of low efficacy scores for use of captive-bolt stunning in the USDA survey was poor maintenance of the captive-bolt stunner." Both improper placement of stunning equipment and the use of substandard apparatus often lead to repeated, unsuccessful stunning. Workers and inspectors at many plants report this frequently: WORKER: Sometimes they shoot the cows maybe five times before they die. They'll [stun] it once and it will keep moving like it wants to get up and then they do it again and again. USDA INSPECTOR: I've seen them put twenty to twenty-five holes in a hog's head trying to knock her and she was still on her feet. Her head looked like Swiss cheese....Sometimes they'll use a twenty-two and shoot the hog through its eye. Or you might have to hit both eyes on the same hog. USDA INSPECTOR: Two knocks is normal, three is not uncommon. And here, I've seen as many as nine. I see a lot of knocking wounds on the top of the head and on the side of the head. USDA INSPECTOR: They hit cows repeatedly every day. Every single day. They hit them four, five, ten times. Depending on, well, they've got to finally get that thing unconscious. At least 100 times a day. Maybe more. WORKER: Outside of the weak ones, just about every cow I stunned had to be hit between three and five times just to get it to go down. There were plenty of times you'd have to make a big hole in their head, shooting them eight or nine times. And they'd still be alive. I remember one time I saw the other knocker at the plant shoot a bull twelve times, and still it wouldn't go down. C. Animals are Skinned, Dismembered, and Scalded While Alive and Fully Conscious Whether successfully stunned or not, animals are shackled, hoisted, and bled or "stuck." "Sticking" requires that the major blood vessels issuing from the heart be completely cut. Unfortunately, when conscious animals arrive at the sticker's station, they are often struggling frantically, making the sticker's job extremely difficult and hazardous. Stickers interviewed by petitioners reported incurring stab wounds and/or contusions to the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, neck, arms, and hands, and losing teeth when they attempted to stick conscious animals. As a result of such dangers and fast line speeds, "bad-sticks" often occur in which animals are not properly stuck - the major blood vessels are not incised - and the animals bleed to death very slowly. In some plants, line speeds are so fast that stickers are unable to bleed animals at all before the animals proceed to skinning and dismembering stations. Whether effectively stuck or not - and in many plants, provided virtually no time to bleed to death - animals proceed down the production line. Workers begin skinning heads, bellies, and legs within seconds of sticking and long before animals have lost consciousness from blood loss. It is all too common for animals to be struggling, attempting to right themselves, and vocalizing as their skin and legs are removed or as they are immersed into scalding tanks. This has been documented in audiotaped interviews, on videotape, and in affidavits and statements by workers and inspectors at slaughterhouses across the country: WORKER: All the workers can open the legs, the stomach, the neck, cut off the feet while the cow is breathing. It makes noise....And the cattle go down the line for many minutes and they're still alive. They cut the legs and everything. The cattle move their eyes and their nose. They're looking around. I would estimate that one out of ten cows is still alive when it's bled and skinned. WORKER: It takes about four minutes for the cow to go from the knocker to the second legger.... I think the cows are still alive because they move the head and the eyes and the legs like the cow wants to walk. And the cow makes noises. Also, if you put a knife into the cow, it's going to make noise. It says, 'Moo!' USDA INSPECTOR: I've found [cattle] alive clear over to the rump stand. It takes them about ten minutes to get to the rump stand....They've been completely legged and run through an electrical shock system too. They're up there sucking in air and bellowing. Their eyes [are] bugging out. WORKER: I'd estimate that about 10 to 12 hogs an hour go into the scalding tank conscious. These hogs get up to the scalding tank, hit the water, and just start screaming and kicking. Sometimes they thrash so much they kick water out of the tank. WORKER: When workers open the cows' skin and grab their legs, the cows try to kick us but we've already spread their legs open. And they're looking at us and they're sticking out their tongues. They make a "mmmmrrrrrr" noise. It's a look like, "Don't do this to me...." You know, "You're cutting me alive!" They blink their eyes and they stare up at us like, "Help me!" WORKER: I've seen beef still alive at the flankers, more often at the ears and horns. That's a long way. I've seen them over where they take the hide off with the down-puller. I've heard them moo when people with air knives were trying to take the hide off. I think it's cruel for the animal to be dying little by little while everybody's doing their various jobs on it. WORKER: When a cow arrives at the first hind-legger, usually the legger tries to make a cut to start skinning out the leg. But it's hard to do that when the cow is kicking violently. A lot of times the leggers'll take their clippers and cut off the cow's leg right below the knee - the skinny part. The cow'll continue to kick, but it doesn't have that long of a reach. WORKER: I have seen thousands and thousands of cows go through the slaughter process alive since I have been at the plant. I've been up to the side-puller where they are alive. [The legs are gone and] all the hide is stripped out down to the neck there. If I see a live animal, I cannot stop the line. Because the supervisor has told us that you can work on a cow that's alive. V. USDA ENFORCEMENT IS ESSENTIALLY NON-EXISTENT On paper, USDA has the rudiments of an effective program to assure meat industry compliance with the HSA. These include: 1) statutes with clear goals, 2) a workable enforcement mechanism, 3) regulations that prescribe stringent standards of compliance by slaughterhouse operators, and 4) internal enforcement guidance requiring that violations be dealt with severely. Despite this impressive regulatory regime, the reality is that USDA does not enforce the HSA in any meaningful way. The Department recently revealed that it has taken a total of only three HSA enforcement actions against slaughterhouse operators over the past two and one-half years. USDA's decision not to enforce the Act is reflected in its policies, its culture, and in the manner in which it allocates resources. Listed below are the five principal ways in which the Department allows rampant industry non-compliance with the HSA:
A. No Inspectors In Handling Or Slaughter Areas USDA has turned a blind eye to its enforcement duties under the HSA. This is demonstrated by the fact that USDA inspection personnel are not stationed in the areas of the plants where live animals are handled and slaughtered and where HSA violations occur. As noted, USDA food inspectors are charged with enforcing both the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Humane Slaughter Act. The FMIA and its implementing regulations require that all animals slaughtered for human consumption must be inspected while alive in their pens on the day of slaughter (antemortem inspection) and that a fraction of these animals must be observed in motion. This is generally accomplished by a cursory look by a food inspector or USDA veterinarian. FMIA regulations also require that the carcasses and body parts of all animals must be inspected for wholesomeness after slaughter has taken place (postmortem inspection). Thus, the bulk of the meat inspection activity in slaughter plants revolves around postmortem inspection. Handling Because inspection personnel need make only a superficial inspection of live animals in pens and in motion, inspectors are not generally stationed in plant unloading areas, pens, and handling areas. While large plants have a USDA veterinarian present who may conduct antemortem and suspect exams, this individual spends the vast majority of his/her time inside the plant looking at pathology in body parts long after animals have been slaughtered, executing paperwork, certifying exports, and even filling in for inspectors on the slaughter line and in processing. Some large plants may have a USDA "floor" inspector present to conduct food safety tasks, however, due to staffing shortages, floor inspectors generally spend their time working the postmortem line inside the plant. The reality is that food inspectors, as a rule, are stationed inside the plant where they examine body parts and carcasses for wholesomeness long after the animals have been slaughtered. As set forth above, petitioners' investigations have revealed disabled animals commonly being beaten with pipes, boards, re-bar, shackles, and prods, dragged with meat hooks inserted in mouths and anuses, strangled, blow-torched, ripped from truck walls, run over by front end loaders, trampled, and left to freeze to death in piles. Despite these routine abuses, inspectors state that it is virtually impossible for them to observe or report pre-slaughter handling violations: USDA INSPECTOR: We don't see 95 percent of what's going on. For example, an employee recently told me about a cow who got her leg stuck when the floor of a truck collapsed. How'd you get her out alive, I asked the guy. "We just went underneath the truck and cut her leg off." If somebody tells you this, you know there's a lot of things nobody's telling you. USDA INSPECTOR: We don't monitor unloading. I'd say the veterinarian goes out there once every three months. The commonness of pre-slaughter handling violations shows that USDA has not done enough by merely promulgating procedures governing humane handling of animals at slaughterhouses and on transport vehicles. Compliance will never be achieved until the Department permanently stations inspectors in unloading/handling areas. Slaughter With regard to the actual stunning process, there are no fewer than 30 regulations on the books stipulating facilities and procedures - e.g., powering mechanisms, operator responsibilities, administration of stunning apparatus - intended to ensure effective, humane stunning. Again, however, regulations alone are not enough to ensure compliance. As noted above, postmortem inspectors are stationed inside the plant far down the production line, after evisceration has occurred, where they examine heads, viscera, and carcasses for wholesomeness. In most large slaughter operations, visual barriers - walls and/or machinery - separate the inspectors' stations from the stunning, bleeding, and skinning/scalding areas. While inspectors generally have little opportunity to divert their focus from the carcasses and body parts that move past them in a matter of seconds, the fact is, were they able to do so, their view of stunning and slaughter areas would most likely be obstructed. Were inspectors to step away from their stations for a moment to observe slaughter and enforce HSA regulations, they would be subject to disciplinary action and possible termination for abandoning their inspection duties. As a result, USDA inspectors report that it is not possible for them to observe humane slaughter violations: USDA INSPECTOR: The way plants are physically laid out, meat inspection is way down the line. A lot of times, inspectors can't even see the slaughter area from their stations. It's virtually impossible for [inspectors] to monitor the slaughter area when they're trying to detect diseases and abnormalities in carcasses that are whizzing by....Inspectors are tied to the line. USDA INSPECTOR: The way the plants are set up, we aren't in a position to see what's going on. In a lot of plants, the slaughter area is walled off from the rest of the kill floor. How can you monitor something if you're not allowed to leave your station to see what's going on? In plants where inspectors were able to view the bleeding/skinning areas from their inspection stations, USDA has permitted establishments to erect walls that block the inspectors' line-of-sight into these areas of the plant. At IBP-Wallula, USDA inspectors posted at the government's head station - where inspectors examine the heads of cattle - previously observed the slaughter area and halted production when they noticed cattle being skinned alive. According to USDA itself, shortly after one such incident in the mid-to-late 1990s, USDA permitted plant management to erect a metal wall. This wall effectively seals off the slaughter area from inspector oversight. According to IBP workers: WORKER: Before, USDA had more possibility of seeing what was going on, because they were able to see from the inspection station. Now they can't, because IBP took a piece of metal and put up a metal wall. I think that they put the piece of metal there for the inspectors so they couldn't see so USDA won't be stopping the chain. WORKER: A long time ago, as soon as [the head inspectors] saw the cow alive at the stickers, they'd stop the chain. The company used to have a lot of problems with that so, about two years ago, they decided to put a metal wall so the inspectors can't see what's happening. In sum, USDA's regulations are not sufficient, by themselves, to assure compliance with the HSA. These rules are meaningless unless USDA stations inspectors at the point of compliance on a full-time basis. Twenty years of industry noncompliance with the HSA proves that there will never be compliance in the absence of full-time, on-site enforcement. B. Lack of USDA Management Support Enforcement Actions In those cases where USDA inspectors have had the opportunity to observe HSA violations, they frequently report that, due to pressure not to interfere with plant production, they do not have the support of their immediate supervisors to bring enforcement actions. In the words of the inspectors themselves: USDA INSPECTOR: When I see live cows [hanging from the rail], there's virtually nothing I can do about it. Because we're not supposed to go out of our area because we'll get in trouble from the company and from our supervisor or the circuit supervisor. You're only going to get your hand slapped so many times before you quit trying to enforce certain regulations. USDA INSPECTOR: If you stop a mass-production line where you have 60, 70, 100 employees standing around, the USDA veterinarian in the plant is going to make your life hell. He feels he's got to answer to the company for lost production. USDA INSPECTOR: I can't conceive of an inspector stopping the line for humane violations because he would be at the mercy of his supervisor. He would be subject to disciplinary action. Because even though the HSA may be in the regulations, there's very little emphasis put on it. USDA INSPECTOR: There have been times when I've been outside and I could see something [inhumane] was going to happen. I knew I wouldn't get the support from my supervisor so I'd walk back inside because I didn't want to see it. Not that I turned my back on it. I just couldn't do anything about it. C. Lack of Follow-Up in Problem Plants Even when inspection personnel have been able to observe and document HSA violations, little if any follow-up action is taken by supervisors to ensure that compliance is achieved and sustained. In April 1998, in response to the publication of the meat industry exposé Slaughterhouse, the USDA stated that the Department had temporarily suspended operations at four plants for HSA violations. At Longmont Packing in Longmont, Colorado - one of the four plants named by USDA - USDA supervisors had allowed the immersion of conscious hogs into the plant's scalding tank to continue from June 1989 until January 1998. USDA supervisors also observed hogs at the facility being kicked, stomped on, hit with boards, and having electric prods inserted into their mouths. USDA supervisors characterized the matter as a "repetitive problem" and a "repetitive failure," threatened punitive action as early as 1989, yet failed to take meaningful punitive or corrective action for nearly a decade, during which time the violations were allowed to persist. At Foremost Packing in East Moline, Illinois - a hog plant named by USDA as an example of the Department's strong enforcement record - the Department stated that it ordered a three-month withdrawal of inspection for HSA violations. Prior to resuming operations, Foremost management was required to sign a Consent Order that stipulated, among other things, improved humane procedures. Two months after USDA allowed operations to resume, a USDA supervisor again observed workers pummeling hogs to death with an ineffective captive bolt gun. At the time, the stun operator asked the USDA supervisor for assistance in getting the stunning device fixed, as, the worker explained, it had been defective since operations had resumed. Repetitive failures like these could be readily addressed if inspection personnel were stationed in the stunning/bleeding area on a fulltime basis. D. Lack Of Inspector Training So little emphasis has been placed on humane slaughter issues at USDA that inspection personnel are generally unaware of proper handling and slaughter techniques or of their own law enforcement authority and duties. USDA INSPECTOR: The last four inspectors that we've hired probably don't even know the Humane Slaughter Act exists. USDA didn't give us any formal training on humane slaughter. We had to read the Humane Slaughter Act, but as far as what a live animal test is, I was never taught that at USDA. INSPECTORS' UNION OFFICIAL: Ask the inspectors at any plant, "What do you know about humane handling and slaughter at this establishment and tell me how it's being done." They'll tell you that animals are being stunned with a captive bolt or with electrical current. But aside from that, they don't know anything. If one out of ten inspectors knows about [humane] requirements, I will eat the HSA. At Longmont Packing, where USDA inspectors allowed hogs to be immersed into the scalding tank alive for nearly a decade, inspectors were unaware of their HSA enforcement responsibilities. There, inspectors observed hogs being submerged in the plant's scalding tank, thrashing and splashing water out of the tank. They also observed stun operators "placing the probes of the stun wand...anywhere he happened to hit around the head area;" workers stomping on and kicking hogs; and a worker beating hogs in the head with a board. USDA INSPECTOR: I noted these incidents on my calendar...for dunking hogs while alive, and...for stunning, bleeding, and scalding problems. I didn't write [reports] on the incidents...as I wasn't aware that I should. USDA VETERINARIAN: We have not always written the plant up when these incidents occurred, because we've tried to get them to solve the problem without formal notification. Lack of clarity with regard to regulatory enforcement authority further impedes inspectors' ability to enforce the regulations. USDA INSPECTOR: Any time an inspector makes a stand, he gets subjected to our own people. Is he right or wrong? The regulations are kind of vague, subject to interpretation. There's people who'll say it all depends on how you read it. It's easy to ignore things. Nor are inspectors clear about their authority to stop the line. HSA regulations require inspectors who observe violations to notify plant management of violations. Only if plant management fails to take corrective action are inspectors authorized to stop the slaughter process. At the same time, FSIS Directive 6900.1 directs inspectors unequivocally to stop slaughter operations "whenever they observe a violation of the humane handling or slaughter regulations by an establishment employee." Confusion about inspectors' authority would be alleviated and enforcement would be enhanced if HSA regulations governing enforcement actions were made consistent with Directive 6900.1 and inspectors were required to stop production whenever they observed violations. Finally, company employees do not receive adequate training about humane handling and slaughter of animals. Lack of employee training coupled with high worker turnover contribute significantly to the problems petitioners have documented. Workers describe training as follows: WORKER: As sticker, they told me what I was going to do, but they never trained me. One day they just showed me how to do the job, and then I was just doing it. I didn't have any training about how to handle or treat the animals or to make sure they were dead. WORKER: Training for that job consists of someone telling the stunner, "You put the stunner on the hog." End of training. WORKER: They asked me who showed me how to re-knock [cattle], and I said I learned on my own from watching the other guys. E. HACCP Eliminates Humane Handling and Slaughter Inspection Tasks While lack of inspector presence, lack of USDA management support for enforcement actions, and lack of inspector training have rendered USDA's humane slaughter enforcement program ineffectual since its inception in 1978, these deficiencies were further entrenched into the regulatory status quo when the Department implemented Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP), its new food inspection system. In fact, had the USDA not already abdicated its regulatory responsibilities in the aforementioned ways, fall-out from HACCP would have single-handedly rendered USDA's humane slaughter enforcement program essentially nonexistent. In 1998, the USDA began implementing HACCP, which formally replaced USDA's direct oversight with an industry-implemented inspection system based on performance standards. HACCP transferred many federal food inspection duties from USDA inspectors to corporate quality control personnel. By reducing the authority of inspectors in the plant, by giving plant operators more influence over where inspection activities are conducted, and, ultimately, by "redeploying" inspectors to reviewing corporate HACCP data, HACCP has dramatically reduced inspector oversight in USDA establishments. Although HACCP is strictly a food safety program, its implementation has had a profound and deleterious effect on the Department's humane handling and slaughter activities. Under USDA's Performance Based Inspection System (hereinafter PBIS), a computer database program analyzes compliance information and, using inspection codes, assigns inspectors with tasks to be performed in specific plants. Prior to HACCP, PBIS had specific task codes for four different tasks relating to the monitoring of humane handling and slaughter: three tasks requiring inspectors to observe plant handling and slaughter practices and one task requiring inspectors to review company paperwork. Under HACCP, however, PBIS no longer has a single task code relating to humane handling and slaughter. Without task codes, inspectors cannot receive assignments to monitor humane handling and slaughter. Without task codes, there is no way for the PBIS computer database program to analyze compliance information. Under HACCP's food safety regulations, inspectors have largely been redeployed to reviewing corporate paperwork to verify compliance with meat safety regulations. With regard to humane slaughter, however, even the task code directing inspectors to review corporate paperwork to determine if companies are performing their own humane slaughter enforcement has been eliminated. Thus, USDA has, without the knowledge or consent of Congress, effectively eliminated humane slaughter oversight altogether. Slaughter workers at IBP-Wallula - although unfamiliar with the term "HACCP" or its provisions - could not mistake the reduced inspector presence that coincided with the plant's HACCP implementation: WORKER: The USDA used to come, but the USDA doesn't come to see us now. They never, never get to the slaughter area. We don't see the USDA. WORKER: I'd estimate that USDA inspectors come back [to slaughter] to look around about once a month. WORKER: USDA used to go in and inspect the lines and things. The company is supposed to be supervised by the USDA so everything can go right. But, the USDA and the company kind of made a contract with each other. Before, the USDA would inspect, but now USDA has left it up to IBP.... WORKER: The USDA is never in the area....And even though workers gave reports to the USDA...about how we have to skin the cows alive, still the USDA does not come to the kill area to observe what goes on. These statements are supported in a memo from USDA's Salem, Oregon District Office to the Washington State Attorney General's Office. According to that memo, USDA personnel at IBP-Wallula were instructed to monitor the plant's stunning area on a monthly basis only. That would equate to a brief inspection of the stunning area approximately once every 50,000 cattle. Implementation of HACCP has effectively eliminated humane handling and slaughter tasks as responsibilities of USDA. In short, implementation of HACCP has meant a quiet death to the already meager enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act. VI. Meat Industry Whistleblowers Are Afforded No Protections Whistleblower protection is a recognized tool for encouraging workers to report regulatory violations committed by their employers. Several federal laws extend whistleblower protection to federal employees who identify legal violations, and at least one federal agency extends similar protections to private sector workers. Providing whistleblower protection to slaughter workers is a prerequisite to effective regulation of the meat industry. This is so for two reasons. First, humane slaughter violations are uniquely difficult to verify and document. Generally, evidence of a violation lies in an animal's behavior (struggling, vocalizing, etc.), which is inherently intangible and temporally transitory. When the animal is inevitably killed during the slaughter process, evidence of specific abuse disappears at the same moment. Second, meat industry workers suffer from a great imbalance of power relative to corporate management and are thus highly vulnerable to coercion. Such workers are typically paid little more than minimum wage, are frequently not unionized, are largely uneducated, and often speak little or no English. The culture is intolerant of workers who stand up for themselves or for others, not to mention those who advocate regulatory compliance. At IBP-Wallula, for instance, where 23 workers courageously submitted sworn affidavits to authorities about HSA violations in an effort to gain corrective action, employees have been threatened, interrogated, and suspended following their revelations. To empower and encourage line workers to make disclosures on behalf of themselves, animals, and consumers, petitioners request that USDA amend its HSA and FMIA regulations to directly protect whistleblowing slaughterhouse employees. This provision would permit workers to publicly disclose evidence of violations without being subject to retaliation by management. It would also permit workers to refuse to engage in activities that would be illegal or would pose safety risks to themselves or to others, such as the skinning or dismembering of conscious animals. Conclusion Every day, hundreds of thousands of cattle, pigs, and other large animals are slaughtered in federally inspected slaughter plants. The evidence summarized above demonstrates that many of these animals endure unimaginable suffering during their last hours. Action Requested: HFA and a coalition of animal protection, consumer, and labor organizations have submitted this petition to US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.
Please write today to Suggested Language Below: Dear Secretary Johanns: Count me among the many thousands of people writing in support of the Humane Farming Association's (HFA) petition to your agency which documents widespread slaughterhouse abuses. I urge you to take immediate action to enforce the Humane Slaughter Act and to stop the well-documented slaughterhouse atrocities taking place in slaughterhouses across the country. The USDA's non-enforcement of federal law is a violation of public trust and is condemning millions of animals to suffer torturous deaths. Please use your authority to implement the reforms demanded in Petition No. 01-05. Please help HFA stop the suffering now! go to top
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