Meat Industry Abuses

Below on this page is the "meat" of the story as presented by Katharine Mieszkowski.  I found her article on this Web site.  For the full story she wrote you can click on this link.

Extreme Acts of Animal Cruelty

The Humane Society investigator who spurred the biggest beef recall  in U.S. history speaks to Salon about his alarming undercover video.

UNITED STATES: U.S. District Court judge allows horse slaughter plant to temporarily slaughter horses while lawsuit is underway.

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) denounces a decision made on Friday, June 1, by the Honorable Frederick Kapala of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to allow a horse slaughter plant to temporarily evade prosecution under a newly-enacted Illinois law banning the slaughter of horses in the state for human consumption.

The measure, which was strongly supported by AWI's legislative arm, the Society for Animal Protective Legislation (SAPL), passed overwhelmingly in both chambers of the Illinois legislature and was signed into law by Governor Rod Blagojevich on May 24th. The next day, Cavel International Inc., the only horse slaughter plant in Illinois, filed suit seeking to invalidate the state law. Additionally, the plant requested injunctive relief, which was the subject of the June 1 hearing, according to a news release.

UNITED KINGDOM: Advertising Standards Authority ruling on anti-meat campaign condemned as "wrong and perverse."

An advertisement by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) that showed a photograph of an overweight child eating a burger and stated, “Feeding kids meat is child abuse FIGHT THE FAT GO VEG,” has been cleared by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority.

Now the ASA decision has caused a storm of protest among those who originally complained, and they have called for an independent review of the finding.

WORKER ABUSE ALLEGED - The meat processing industry counters claims that it mistreats and neglects employees.

The New York City, New York-headquartered Human Rights Watch claimed that workers in U.S. meat and poultry processing plants are exposed to dangerous conditions, suffer debilitating injuries, fear being fired, and don’t receive all of the compensation to which they are entitled.

“Workers in American beef, pork, and poultry slaughtering and processing plants perform dangerous jobs in difficult conditions,” Human Rights Watch said in its 175-page report, Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers’ Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants.  The report said the increasing volume and speed of processing lines coupled with close quarters, poor training, and insufficient safeguards have made meat and poultry work hazardous.  “On each work shift, workers make up to 30,000 hard-cutting motions with sharp knives, causing massive repetitive motion injuries and frequent lacerations,” Human Rights Watch said.  “Workers often do not receive compensation for workplace injuries because companies fail to report injuries, delay and deny claims, and take reprisals against workers who file them.”