'Incredibly dangerous job': concerns safety is slipping at US meat plants This article features Government Accountability Project and Food Integrity Campaign and was originally published here. The safety of US meat plant workers is at risk, workers and campaigners believe, because of a triple whammy of increased line speeds, higher turnover and fewer workers due [...]
Notes from Underground: The Pipeline Pipeline (Part 1) While recent court decisions have stopped or slowed construction on major pipelines, the industry appears to have no intention of capitulating. In a collaborative four-part series between Government Accountability Project’s Environment, Energy & Climate Change (EE&CC) program and Food Integrity Campaign (FIC), we will look at the present and future of pipeline production in [...]
USDA Sued (Again) for Inhumane Handling of Poultry and Endangering Public Health This article features Government Accountability Project and was originally published here. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been sued for a third time in recent weeks over its poultry handling practices. On Thursday, Aug. 13, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) and Farm Sanctuary sued the [...]
Note: this article, featuring Government Accountability Project and the Food Integrity Campaign, was originally published here. NELP to USDA: Faster Poultry-Processing Line Speeds During COVID-19 Pandemic ‘Irresponsible and Reckless’ Washington — The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service in April approved 15 poultry processing plants’ requests to increase line speeds 25% – despite [...]
Note: this article, featuring Government Accountability Project and the Food Integrity Campaign, was originally published here. North Carolina ‘Anti-Sunshine’ Law Struck Down as Unconstitutional Wide-ranging coalition challenges law on first amendment, equal protection, and due process grounds. Late Friday, a federal judge struck down as unconstitutional a North Carolina law designed to inhibit undercover investigations [...]
Note: this article, featuring Government Accountability Project and the Food Integrity Campaign, was originally published here. North Carolina’s Property Protection Act Violates 1st Amendment North Carolina’s 5-year-old Property Protection Act, the first state law to use civil action rather than criminal law, to discourage undercover animal welfare investigations, contains unconstitutional elements. Chief Judge Thomas D. [...]
Empty Shelves, Culled Animals: COVID-19 Intersects with Decades of Industrialized Agriculture For decades, whistleblowers have told us that it is dangerous when Big Ag puts profits over people. Companies such as Tyson, JBS, and Smithfield, which have historically bulldozed independent businesses to gain control of our meat supply, have built fragile global supply chains in [...]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 8, 2020 Food Integrity Campaign Petition to Protect Meat Inspectors During COVID-19 Garners Thousands of Signatures Petition Launch Follows Thousands of COVID-19 cases in Meat Industry WASHINGTON – This week, the Government Accountability Project’s Food Integrity Campaign launched a petition to expand and strengthen protections for essential workers employed within the meat industry. Meat industry [...]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 30, 2020 Trump Administration Issues Executive Order Keeping Meat Plants Open Amidst Pandemic WASHINGTON – President Trump announced on Tuesday that he intended to order meat plants to stay open by declaring them essential infrastructure under the Defense Production Act. This order comes after more than 6,000 meat workers have tested positive and 20 have died of COVID-19. Across the country, plants have been closing in [...]
Note: this article, featuring Government Accountability Project and the Food Integrity Campaign, was originally published here. Kentucky Slaughterhouses Battle the Coronavirus’s Spread Amid Fears of Meat Shortage Major meat processors across the country have continued to battle coronavirus hotspots in their plants — including in Kentucky. Two Western Kentucky poultry plants, each the largest employer [...]