Civil-rights leaders object to USDA plan to speed up poultry-plant lines and have fewer inspectors

The battle over faster poultry processing lines has reached Congress. At stake is a Department of Agriculture proposal to speed up lines by 25 percent, which critics would increase danger for workers and open the door for weaker inspections, since the proposal also calls for 40 percent fewer inspectors. That would leave the poultry industry responsible for self-monitoring to reduce food-borne pathogens. Critics have also turned the issue into a civil-rights case, saying 39 percent of workers are Hispanic, 16.3 percent are African American, and 7.8 percent are Asian. (Congressional Black Caucus photo: Hilary O. Shelton of the NAACP said conditions at poultry plants are a civil-rights concern)

Both sides are pushing for their voices to be heard, led by the National Chicken Council, which in the last three years has been "spending an average of more than $500,000 annually lobbying Congress, according to lobbying records, five times the group’s average spending in the years before the USDA began working in earnest on the proposed plan in 2011," Kimberly Kindy reports for The Washington Post. "Opponents of the proposed ­changes are trying to play catch-up with the efforts of the poultry industry. The latest push came Thursday when civil rights and worker-safety groups arranged for poultry workers to meet with lawmakers and administration officials to warn against the proposed acceleration of processing-line speeds and to share their accounts of injuries being caused at current speeds."

Workers say increasing the rate from 140 birds a minute to 175 has led to more injuries, led by carpal tunnel syndrome, Kindy writes. The industry counters that injury rates have steadily declined over the past 30 years, and "has also been citing the latest worker-injury data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing that [rates of] poultry-worker injuries are in the single digits."

USDA said it hopes to finalize a plan by April, and the Obama administration appears to be ready to support it, Kindy writes. The president’s budget, due for release next week, expects "to reflect government cost-savings arising from reduced inspections, according to several lobbyists and Hill staffers who have been briefed on the issue." (Read more)