AFGE endorsed a bill introduced by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., that would promote food safety by hiring additional food safety inspectors and preventing dangerously high line speeds in food inspection.
The Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act would establish a pilot program to train and hire more part-time inspectors for small processing plants. It would also prevent slaughterhouses from inspecting their own programs and ensure operators aren’t using inhumane methods, among other things.
“We’ve seen multiple recent crises that have shined a light on the threat that corporate meat producers and their web of factory farms represent to workers, animals, the environment, and rural communities. Built by agribusinesses, the industrial livestock and poultry system is designed to maximize production– while externalizing risk and liability– to ensure corporate profits even when the system fails,” said Sen. Booker. “The Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act would place the liability for disasters where it belongs–on the corporations and industrial operators who profit the most from factory farming and ensure farmed animals are not subjugated to cruel and inhumane practices.”
AFGE, which represents more than 6,500 federal food inspectors nationwide, has been outspoken against dangerous line speeds and the slaughterhouses’ self-inspection programs that replace federal inspectors with their own employees.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has determined that management at Federal Correctional Institution Dublin in California violated OSHA standards by exposing staff and inmates to asbestos, validating a complaint filed by AFGE.
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AFGE District 10 was recently recognized for having the highest number of net increase of 2,839 new members in one year between Oct. 2022 and Oct. 2023.
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Holding signs that read “Dignity, Fairness, Respect”, a group of workers Nov. 21 stood in the rain in front of the Cincinnati VA hospital calling for better working conditions and fair treatment of the VA staff.
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