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Last week, the US Department of Agriculture proposed a strikingly cruel policy, even for this administration: speeding up the kill lines at America’s chicken, turkey, and pig slaughterhouses. The plan will make one of the country’s most dangerous jobs — working in a meat processing plant — even more unsafe, labor advocates argue.
Under the proposal, most slaughterhouses could move even faster than they already do. Chicken slaughterhouses would be able to increase kill line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175, and turkeys would go from 55 to 60. Pig slaughterhouses currently have a maximum line speed limit of 1,106 pigs per hour, but under the new rule, there will be no speed limit. The USDA has also proposed ending the requirement for these facilities to publish annual reports on worker safety.
If finalized, these rules would apply to the vast majority of animals slaughtered in the US and would affect nearly half a million workers, many of them immigrants. Advocates warn this will raise injury rates in an industry that already ranks among the most dangerous, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The link to the story is in the comments below.
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