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Chicken......The Competition

Mike

Well-known member
Nov 21, 2006 4:47 am US/Pacific

Salmonella On The Rise In Chicken Meat
(AP) WASHINGTON A type of salmonella found in eggs is turning up more often in chicken meat and needs to be reduced, according to the Agriculture Department.

From 2000 through 2005, there was a fourfold increase in positive test results for salmonella enteritidis on chicken carcasses.

"It still continues to rise, even though the overall incidence of salmonella in general has fallen," said Richard Raymond, the Agriculture Department undersecretary for food safety. "It's one that we still don't have all the scientific evidence we need to know how best to attack it."

Salmonella sickens at least 40,000 people and kills about 600 every year in the United States.

Many different salmonella bacteria make people sick, but salmonella enteritidis is one of the most common. It causes fever, stomach cramps and diarrhea, and in vulnerable people, infection can turn deadly by spreading beyond the intestine to the bloodstream.

It used to be that eggs got contaminated with salmonella on the outside, from contact with fecal bacteria. But in recent years, the salmonella enteritidis strain has been found inside intact, disinfected, grade A eggs. This type of germ contaminates eggs inside a hen's ovaries, before shells are even formed.

Now the germ is turning up in broiler chickens, the kind used for meat, according to research by the Agriculture Department published in the December issue of the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The research found:

_Positive tests for salmonella enteritidis increased fourfold from 2000 through 2005.

_The proportion of plants with positive tests for salmonella enteritidis increased threefold during that time.

_The number of states with positive tests for salmonella enteritidis rose from 14 to 24.

The research was done before the Agriculture Department started a new program to reduce positive tests for salmonella.

Since then, the incidence of salmonella has fallen from 18 percent in 2005 to 10 percent today, Raymond said.

"Even though that particular bug is going up, the overall incidence of food-borne illness from salmonella is declining, and the amount of salmonella positives have shown a dramatic drop," Raymond said.

Cooking poultry to 165 degrees will kill the salmonella germ. The government also strongly recommends that people use food thermometers and follow basic rules for kitchen safety: wash hands often, keep raw poultry and meat separate from cooked food, and refrigerate or freeze food right away.

However, a recent CDC study on food poisoning from salmonella noted that the risk of illness from salmonella enteritidis increased the less people ate at home.

"This measure may, in fact, be considered to be a proxy for eating a larger number of commercially prepared meals," the CDC found.

That study said that while overall infections from salmonella were lower than in the mid-1990s, infections from salmonella enteritidis were 25 percent higher.

While salmonella is commonly found in poultry, it is found in many other products, from pork and beef to raw fruits and vegetables and dairy products.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
OR FISH,Cancer-causing fish slip through food safety supervision net

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November 22, 2006
Cancer-causing fish slip through food safety supervision net

Source of Article: http://english.people.com.cn/200611/22/eng20061122_324106.html

The sales ban on turbot in Beijing and other cities reflects loopholes in food safety monitoring, according to Lei Jilin, the man who introduced the flatfish to China, and other experts.

"There is no quality control before the fish enter the market, even though government departments are supposed to do that," said Lei, member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a researcher with the Yellow Sea Fishery Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences.

In fact, China has watchdogs for every step in fish farming, from the production of fish feed, the use of drugs, breeding, right through to sales, according to Lei. However, some local watchdogs are either doing their jobs poorly or not doing their jobs at all.

Taiyuan followed Beijing in introducing the ban on Monday, after Shanghai announced Friday it had detected carcinogens in the fish. Shanghai and cities in Zhejiang Province have started quality inspections.

The case is the latest in a series of food safety problems. Recent cases include parasite-infested snails in Beijing, steroid-tainted pork, and ducks and hens that were fed cancer-causing Sudan dye to make their yolks red.

Wang Yongqiang, deputy director of the Seawater Fishery Institute in Shandong, told Xinhua there are no strict market access rules for turbot so even fish containing carcinogens are not banned.

Shandong accounts for 80 percent of turbot production in China. The carcinogen-containing fish found in Shanghai were from the eastern province.

Wang said individuals were raising more turbots than enterprises and are more likely to use substandard drugs.

Due to their low resistance to disease, the fish, introduced by Lei Jilin from Europe in 1992, are sometimes fed large quantities of medicinal supplements, which leave harmful, cancer-causing residues in their flesh.

"Some individual farmers only care about the temporary profits and ignore the long-term sustainable development of the whole industry," Lei Jilin said.

Lei said turbot farming is a profitable business and there are now about 110,000 farmers in Shandong, only 14 years after the fish was introduced into China.

Lei was worried that the recent case might totally ruined the turbot farming industry.

One kg turbot sold at more than 60 yuan (7.5 U.S. dollars) in Shanghai before carcinogens were found and now sell sluggishly at less than 10 yuan (1.25 dollars).

Meanwhile, restaurants in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou and other cities have stopped providing the once popular delicacy, according to media reports.

The State Food and Drug Administration has ordered local offices and authorities in coastal areas including Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Liaoning, and Tianjin to closely monitor the case.

An inspection team from the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Food and Drug Administration has investigated fish farms in Weihai, Shandong. However, details will not be released until the tests are completed.

Source: Xinhua
 

Econ101

Well-known member
China has become one of the most polluted countries that we do a lot of trade with.

If you just go off of price and have no measures of quality or no measures of the affects of the pollution on the food they sell us we are only cheating ourselves. The USDA has not opted to protect the food supply and have food safety as a priority---which is one of their main duties of regulation. This policy has failed to keep our food supply safe and instead, we are going for the lowest price regardless of the quality/safety. The Chinese are basically undercutting us on price with polluted goods and the USDA et al seem to be incompetent on stopping it.

Can't we get a government that actually works instead of one that rolls over to big money every time?
 

PORKER

Well-known member
Honeybaked Food Company's Ham & Turkey Recall
Submitted by Julie on Sun, 2006-11-26 14:13.
Only a day after Thanksgiving, Honeybaked Food Company issued a recall affecting over 47,000 pounds of their ham and turkey products. The company said that the meat may be contaminated with listeria, a bacteria that could be deadly to those with weakened immune systems, the eldery, and infants.

The products being recalled include 6 to 11 pound packages of sliced and glazed fully-cooked half hams, and 12 to 16 pound packages of whole hams. Also being recalled are the 3lb. packages of sliced and glazed turkey breast, and also the smoked turkey variety.

Products included in the recall were produced sometime between September 5th and November 13th. If you have further questions, feel free to contact Honeybaked Food Company at 1-800-461-3998.
 

ocm

Well-known member
Econ101 said:
China has become one of the most polluted countries that we do a lot of trade with.

If you just go off of price and have no measures of quality or no measures of the affects of the pollution on the food they sell us we are only cheating ourselves. The USDA has not opted to protect the food supply and have food safety as a priority---which is one of their main duties of regulation. This policy has failed to keep our food supply safe and instead, we are going for the lowest price regardless of the quality/safety. The Chinese are basically undercutting us on price with polluted goods and the USDA et al seem to be incompetent on stopping it.

Can't we get a government that actually works instead of one that rolls over to big money every time?

And if the USDA and Tyson have their way, we will be importing chicken from China. Suppose their inspection system is equivalent to ours?
 

Econ101

Well-known member
ocm said:
Econ101 said:
China has become one of the most polluted countries that we do a lot of trade with.

If you just go off of price and have no measures of quality or no measures of the affects of the pollution on the food they sell us we are only cheating ourselves. The USDA has not opted to protect the food supply and have food safety as a priority---which is one of their main duties of regulation. This policy has failed to keep our food supply safe and instead, we are going for the lowest price regardless of the quality/safety. The Chinese are basically undercutting us on price with polluted goods and the USDA et al seem to be incompetent on stopping it.

Can't we get a government that actually works instead of one that rolls over to big money every time?

And if the USDA and Tyson have their way, we will be importing chicken from China. Suppose their inspection system is equivalent to ours?

They don't have one and the USDA doesn't have the capability to inspect all the shipments even if they had to.

The big packers want us to just "trust" that their producers overseas are trustworthy. The USDA, if not changed, will go along with it.

Chicken has a lot of contamination issues. They drop those chickens in a common vat for cooling (it is actually a cold water bath the line goes through for efficiency purposes). If one has it, they all have it. The self inspection system allows them to okay this process for themselves.

They hang their hat and possible liability on their cooking instructions.

Food safety responsibility is thus transferred to the consumer.

I don't know if you can grow and process a chicken without some of these pathogens on them the way they are raised and processed.
 

Jason

Well-known member
Try to keep up with the times e con.

Chicken is now air chilled in new plants.

Inspectors always were checking the old water vat system and the water had to be changed on a regular basis. It could contaminate about 10 birds according to a CFIA inspector I talked to on the weekend, still not great.

These evil companies that will kill their consumers for a buck have developed an air chilling system that actually is drying out the birds and making them lose weight. I guess food safety is more important to them than making a buck.
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Jason said:
Try to keep up with the times e con.

Chicken is now air chilled in new plants.

Inspectors always were checking the old water vat system and the water had to be changed on a regular basis. It could contaminate about 10 birds according to a CFIA inspector I talked to on the weekend, still not great.

These evil companies that will kill their consumers for a buck have developed an air chilling system that actually is drying out the birds and making them lose weight. I guess food safety is more important to them than making a buck.

Keep up with the facts, Jason. Air cooled is a relatively new process in the U.S. and is about as common as the grass fed industry in cattle.

Inspectors were not always checking the old water vat systems in the U.S. although I do not know what goes on in Canada.

The line speed of chickens in the U.S. is much higher than what you quoted and the U.S. and Canada are much different industries. Your source of information is limited. Do not extrapolate.

On Chicken's Front Line

By Lena H. Sun and Gabriel Escobar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 28, 1999; Page A1

First of four articles

HARBESON, Del. – Walt Frazier has almost always been in live hang. The term, like most things in a modern-day chicken slaughterhouse, is vivid and precise: Chickens, fresh from the farm, are hung by their feet in metal shackles and carried off to the kill room. Ask most workers about live hang and they shake their heads. Gutting, deboning or any of the other methodical tasks crucial to getting a chicken to the supermarket are far better than wrestling, in the near dark, with an often agitated bird.

In a chicken plant, all tasks are calibrated to the second, and each worker, in effect, is a part of the machine. Frazier was a great live hanger and an efficient machine in his own right. He could grab a reluctant chicken off a conveyor belt and hoist it overhead at a pace of one bird every two seconds, real talent in a world defined almost exclusively by time and volume. Live hang's first shift runs from 5:48 a.m. to 2:18 p.m. at the Allen Family Foods plant here, and by shift's end, Frazier alone could feed about 10,000 birds into the Delmarva peninsula's $1.6 billion-a-year chicken industry.
POULTRY'S PRICE
photo
Walt Frazier, left, hopes his granddaughter, Tyaisha Renee, held by his wife, Shirley, will find a career outside the chicken industry.
(By Frank Johnston – The Washington Post)
Graphics:
• Inside a Processing Plant
• Map of Slaughterhouse Locations

Sunday
• On Chicken's Front Line
• Eating Chicken Dust
• Photo Gallery

Monday
• Immigration Transforms a Community
• Photo Gallery

Tuesday
• Workers Answer to Multiple Names
• Photo Gallery

Wednesday
• Chicken Plant Jobs Open U.S. Doors for Koreans
• Photo Gallery
Environmental Impact

August 1:
• An Unsavory Byproduct: Runoff and Pollution

August 2:
• Permitting a Pattern of Pollution
• Inside the Modern Poultry Plant
• Waste Trucked to Maryland

August 3:
• Who Pays for What's Thrown Away?
• From Farm to Slaughterhouse

Photo Gallery:
• The Poultry Industry

Map:
• Delmarva's Chicken Industry

Graphics:
• How Excess Nutrients Reach Bay
• How Nutrients Affect the Bay

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Sixty million pounds of chicken are processed every week at a dozen slaughterhouses in Delaware and the eastern shores of Maryland and Virginia. Driven by consumer demand for cheap chicken with no bones, production has more than doubled in the last three decades. Companies have added extra shifts, extra processing lines and extra work days as they muster the army of workers that labors round-the-clock in plants not far from the beaches of Rehoboth and Ocean City.

The industry now sets the pace and contours of small towns throughout Delmarva.

The chickens raised and processed there produce more than 750,000 tons of manure a year, making the industry the primary source of pollution reaching key portions of the Chesapeake and coastal bays. At the same time, poultry companies have delivered decent-paying jobs in such quantity that every shift change can be calculated by the pickup in traffic along main roads.

As many as 10,000 people work inside the slaughterhouses. But turnover is high, leading some companies to recruit foreign workers. Latinos now hold about one-third of the chicken jobs, filling spots once held mostly by African Americans, a change that is dramatically altering the region's demographics.

Newcomers and veterans work side by side in a process that begins with live hang and ends with chicken cut, packed and labeled. And while slaughterhouses may differ in some ways, their bottom line is the same: The profit for chicken averages 2.5 to 3.5 cents per pound. That means the amount earned is determined, to a great extent, by the volume and speed of the plant and by how well the workers adjust to both.

Few places are more dangerous than a chicken plant: The U.S. Labor Department says one of every six poultry workers suffers a work-related injury or illness every year. Crowding has even given rise to a special injury, "neighbor cuts," when workers inadvertently cut the person next to them.

Frazier, after two decades in what amounts to the front line of the chicken industry, can trace his career with his scars. Chicken claws have cut so deep and so often that his right forearm is a patchwork of curved lines. The black skin on his knuckles has been rubbed so raw that it has been discolored to permanent pink. Grabbing and lifting chickens has, over time, torn the lining of his wrists, resulting in two operations.

"Look at these scars here," the 41-year-old Frazier, a Pentecostal preacher, said. "They are not going anywhere."

The plants where Frazier has worked are now technological marvels. Where Frazier once ripped a chicken's windpipe with his bare hands, a machine now deftly removes the organs, 16 birds at a clip.

At the same time, plants retain the vestiges, even the same tools, of the back-room butcher. Consumers want processed chicken, boneless and skinless, cut and molded, and technology has found no better alternative to the precision and efficiency of human hands. This places an extraordinary demand on the workers, the repetitive nature of cutting and moving chicken over time taxing hands, wrists, arms and shoulders.

The slaughterhouse challenges the senses. The plant smells like wet feathers. Temperatures range from below freezing – in what is known as the 28-degree-room, where packages await shipping – to 120 degrees by the scalder, which loosens feathers. In the summer, live hang becomes so unbearably hot that chickens can suffocate in less than a minute.

The din is such that yearly hearing tests are necessary. Water from high-pressure hoses soaks the concrete floor. Fat turns surfaces slick. Blood drips from gutted chickens.

For Frazier, every day in live hang ended the same way. He removed his orange overalls, streaked with dirt, feathers and chicken excrement. He took off his gloves, torn by countless claws. Off came the back brace. At home, in Bridgeville, Del., he soaked his hands in hot water, alcohol and salt, hands so sore it hurts to hold the telephone for long. "All the time, the numbness be there."

A career in chicken and a lifetime on the Eastern Shore made him invaluable to the chicken industry but expendable elsewhere – the only jobs he could get when he went looking after surgery were as a part-timer. So he set aside warnings from his doctor and returned to live hang, to the $355.50-a-week job, including a $40 bonus for good attendance. To lifting thousands of birds, 4½ to six pounds each.

He stuck with it until this fall, when new hand troubles forced a third surgery and reassignment to lighter work. All along the way, he relied on faith and the Bible. "There are days I don't feel like working. I say a prayer to God to put me through."

Keeping Pace

The modern chicken industry was born on Delmarva in 1923. Today the region is the country's fifth-largest poultry producer, selling primarily in the Northeast yet also as far away as Russia and Asia. (Washington area grocers such as Giant and Safeway buy most of their chicken from the South, the top-ranking poultry region, because it's cheaper.)

Tyson Foods owns two plants on Delmarva. Perdue Farms Inc., based in Salisbury, Md., has five processing plants in the area. Less well-known are Mountaire Farms, Allen Family Foods, and Townsends Inc.

Inside the plants the work has been broken down, for peak efficiency, to specific jobs: puller, shoulder cutter, basket stacker. The sole task of a backup killer is to slice the throats of birds the automated blade misses. The jobs require little skill but maximum endurance. A shoulder cutter on a breast deboning line slices a knife into meat and bone 27 times a minute, about 1,600 an hour.

Plants rank themselves based on pounds of chicken produced each week, and conveyor lines are cranked to run at 91 chickens a minute, twice as fast as two decades ago.

"What you're dealing with is cost per pound per man-hour, boiled down to a thousandth of a cent," said Jerry Birl, a business agent for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents six of the peninsula's 12 plants.

The line stops only when equipment breaks, accidents occur or food safety inspectors order a halt. At Perdue's Milford, Del., plant, each minute the line is down costs the company between $50 and $100, according to complex manager Keith Moore.

Line speed is regulated only by the Department of Agriculture, which monitors speed for reasons of food safety, not worker strain. Limits are set to give inspectors time to check birds for disease or contamination.

In 1997, Perdue's Georgetown, Del., plant violated the limit at least 22 times, all but one on the night shift, according to Agriculture Department records. No line speed violations have been documented since, Agriculture officials said.

There is a widely held belief among Latino workers, many of whom work nights because they have less seniority, that the line speeds up then. "You feel it," said Raymond Tames, who has worked day and night shifts.

A Perdue spokeswoman said the line does not run faster at night. She said the company was aware of only one line speed violation in 1997 at its Georgetown plant. Company records show it was the only such violation in the last four years, she said.

The kill line at Frazier's plant runs at 210 birds a minute, faster than the plant as a whole because it feeds three evisceration lines, each running at 70 birds. Workers must grab and hang between 21 to 23 chickens a minute. When workers don't show up, often the case on Mondays, "you have a gap in the line, empty shackles, and then they'll turn it up," Frazier said.



Frazier's efficiency – "I do 26 a minute," he said proudly – had its rewards. When the plant was short on help, he often was put at the head of the line to set the pace, sometimes for two hours straight. When that happened, he said, "you have to work a bit harder to try to make the line stay full."

Wear and Tear

When his shift is over, Frazier pulls into the trailer park in Bridgeville. Pictures of Jesus adorn the walls of his home. On weekends, vocation takes him and his wife, Shirley, also a minister, to nursing homes. His daughter Alisa, 24, and her toddler, Tyaisha Renee, share the three-bedroom, comfortably furnished trailer.

Like many of the African American workers who have traditionally filled the chicken plants, Frazier was born on the peninsula. Except for two years doing odd jobs, he has worked in chickens since high school. Frazier's father was a chicken-catcher, corralling live chickens for slaughter. His uncle still works as a catcher. At one point, his mother and two brothers were line workers. For Frazier, the cost of a lifetime in chicken has been high. "The pain is there all the time," he says, resting his hands on his knees.

The hurt started four years ago, before he heard about "repetitive stress" or knew the lining of his wrist bones could rupture from overuse, prompting fluid to leak and cause painful cysts. The nurse at the chicken plant told him not to worry, even as the lump on his right wrist swelled. Finally, a doctor told him he needed surgery to remove a cyst. That was two summers ago.

When he went back to work the first time, he said, he told plant managers that doctors had ordered "light duty." A company official, testifying later at a hearing to determine Frazier's workers compensation benefits, said managers were never informed he needed light duty. Frazier returned to live hang. Over time, his left wrist began to hurt. A second operation was needed, and now he has identical scars. He returned to live hang again in May. "The bills and everything, things got tight," said Shirley Frazier.

Poultry workers earn less than others in manufacturing – and are injured at twice the rate. Fatal injuries, while rare, do occur. In October, a Tyson worker in Berlin, Md., was killed while cleaning a metal vat, known as the chiller, where paddles churn gutted chickens in ice-cold water. The empty chiller was on. Charles Sheppard, 44, fell in. The paddles crushed his head. He died immediately, according to Worcester County, Md., investigators.

Maryland's occupational safety and health office cited Tyson for five violations and fined it $22,400, all of which Tyson is contesting.

Elsewhere in the country, four other Tyson employees and two men catching chickens in Tyson chicken houses have died since April. The spate of deaths prompted the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to review the cases. The company, the country's largest chicken producer, welcomes the review, said a Tyson spokesman.

Much more common are afflictions like Frazier's. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that poultry work has the third-highest incidence of cumulative trauma disorder, after meat-packing and auto assembly. The condition is caused mostly by repetitive motion.

Poultry workers are almost three times as likely as employees in private industry to miss a day of regular work because of illness or injury. An OSHA survey released this year found that half of injuries and illnesses suffered by poultry workers were directly attributable to ergonomically related hazards.

Last Monday, OSHA unveiled proposed regulations that would require employers to correct workplace conditions that involve repetitive motion, overexertion or awkward postures. The proposal, opposed for almost eight years by business and some members of Congress, could cover an estimated 27 million workers, including those in chicken.

On Delmarva, about two-thirds of the plants, including the Allen plant where Frazier works, reported illness and injury rates below the industry average, according to partial data provided by all five companies to The Washington Post. The remaining one-third recorded rates considerably higher than the industry average.

Allen, Mountaire Farms and Perdue – which has widely varying rates at its Delmarva plants – credit lower rates to treating minor problems quickly and rotating workers among different jobs to prevent muscle fatigue. At Mountaire's huge plant in Selbyville, the company has also redesigned equipment, for example, moving the live hang line closer to workers to reduce their reach.

At plants with above average injury rates – Perdue's Salisbury plant, Tyson's Temperanceville, Va., plant and Townsends' Millsboro, Del., facility – company officials said the higher rates reflected better reporting, even of minor problems. "We have been extremely honest and above board," said Ben Mackey, corporate safety director at Townsends, which was fined $45,000 in 1992 by the federal OSHA for a series of problems, including failing to record injuries.

All the companies have safety and health programs, and a few are experimenting with special tools, such as pneumatic scissors that reduce strain. But these remedies are costly. Pneumatic shears cost $2,000 a pair and require more upkeep, compared with less than $20 for ordinary scissors.

Labor unions and government agencies monitor the companies' efforts. But only about 40 percent of the processing line workers in Delmarva are represented by a union, and Buddy Mays, president of Local 27 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, acknowledged that it is out of touch with the fastest-growing group of chicken workers: Latinos.

Three years ago, as Latinos were about to stage a walkout at Mountaire to protest a firing, the union had no Spanish-speaking shop stewards. After the incident, the union opened an additional office to serve Hispanic workers and hired more Spanish-speakers. Still, "not many people know about the union," said Maria Martinez, a shop steward.

OSHA faces a massive gap between its available resources and its task. In Delaware, for example, OSHA has four inspectors to cover 22,000 workplaces. Against those odds, they conduct about 200 inspections a year.

Inspections take place only when a fatality or serious accident happens, an employee or union signs a formal complaint, or an industry is targeted because of high injury rates. According to records reviewed by The Washington Post, inspections frequently result in a negotiated settlement rather than a citation, with fines substantially reduced based on a plant's previous safety record and pledge to fix problems quickly.

At the Allen plant where Frazier works, Juan Villagomez slipped into an uncovered ice auger two years ago. The auger runs parallel to the floor, and crushes ice with slow-moving blades. The auger slowly crushed his right foot. He tried to pull his leg out, but could not. "I was screaming and looking for something to turn the machine off," said Villagomez, 31. No switch was ever found. Eventually, the machine tore his leg off, freeing Villagomez enough so he drag himself to the plant floor.

No one notified OSHA, which had inspected the plant a month earlier. Despite local media reports about the accident, the federal agency did not learn of it until The Washington Post called two years later as part of this report.

"If somebody would have called me, I probably would have sent somebody there," said Lacey Sutton, director of the Delaware OSHA office.

In recent years, Jim Lewis, an Episcopal priest based in Sussex County, Del., has taken on the industry. Lewis, 64, helped found the Delmarva Poultry Justice Alliance, a coalition of farmers, catchers, line workers, environmentalists, the union and churches.

Their goal is to raise awareness about issues from pollution to pay rates to plant conditions. Lewis favors the dramatic gesture and when he preaches about the industry tosses pieces of chicken to the congregations to get across his point.

People have a responsibility to know where their food comes from, he said, to "never forget what's in front of them, their chicken dinner, and the fingerprints on that chicken."

A Shifting Work Force

After his second surgery, Frazier filed a workers compensation claim seeking medical expenses and lost wages for the seven months he said he was too hurt to work.

The Delaware workers compensation board ruled in June that "the strenuous, repetitive work" caused his injuries. The board awarded Frazier medical expenses and three weeks of total disability benefits, or $711. It agreed with the company's contention that he should have tried harder to find light-duty assignments and said he was not motivated to return to work sooner because he was getting union disability checks.

Back at work, the pain in his wrists continued. He had a third operation in October for "trigger thumb" on his right hand, common when fingers cannot flex or extend because of swollen tendons. He went back to less strenuous work in early November, bagging gizzards, and is pursuing additional disability benefits.

For many others, workers compensation payments are often not an option. Injured workers say it's common for companies to keep them at the plant, paying them to sit in the cafeteria, doing little or no work. The companies say the practice lets workers collect a full day's pay rather than a lower disability check. But lawyers who represent workers say it's cheaper to give full wages for a short while rather than foot long-term medical bills under workers compensation. "Repetitive stress injuries can stretch on for years," said Ed Gill, a Delaware lawyer who handles such cases.

Some injured workers complain the company's medical procedure discourages prompt treatment, especially by a doctor of their choosing. Most companies say they rely on nurses to treat workers initially. Often, the workers receive pain killers, or have their hands bandaged or braced, then are sent back to the line. In Frazier's case, the company doctor who first treated him told him his cysts were most likely unrelated to work, according to the doctor's testimony before the compensation board.

Frazier is hoping to use his disability check to quit chicken and open a restaurant, or better yet, a television repair shop. That work would also be hard on his hands, but "once you're your own boss," he said, "things would be different."

For now, Frazier sees no alternative to plant work. But he hopes to be the last member of his family to make it a career. His daughter Alisa is working at the same plant, in large part because she knows poultry pays best among unskilled jobs. But she says once she saves enough, she will go to college and learn about computers. "I'm planning on coming out of there," she said.

For the poultry industry, Alisa Frazier's is the lost generation. With unemployment at record lows, younger African Americans have more opportunities than their parents, and chicken companies have suffered in the competition.

The worker shortage is "getting a little worse every year," said Pilcher, of Allen Family Foods, which operates Harbeson and two other slaughterhouses.

Plant managers say the first impression of their operations are shocking but not long-lasting. Still, industry executives say they have a hard sell. Strict food safety regulations guarantee, for example, that plants will be cold and wet no matter what.

"The business is what it is," said Chuck Dix, manager of the Townsends Inc. plant in Millsboro.

Many people do make a career out of poultry. Plant newsletters routinely chronicle people who have spent decades on the line. But though many plants have a core of longtime workers, companies may have to replace 20 percent of their employees every few months. "It's what drives plant managers bananas," Pilcher said, "because every day, the company still has the same number of birds that have to be processed."

Companies are constantly devising incentives to attract and hold workers. The companies say they pay a fair wage – about $7.80 an hour after one year. Firms now also award bonuses up to $1,000 for promptness, attendance and referrals. A year ago, Mountaire redesigned its cafeteria, installing 10 televisions so workers can watch their favorite show, "The Price Is Right." In September, the company gave a new $12,000 Mercury Tracer to someone who worked the whole summer.

Even with those enticements, the industry comes up short.

Two companies called a military base in New Jersey to ask whether refugees arriving from Kosovo would like plant jobs. Allen recruits in Puerto Rico. Mountaire relies on labor recruiters in Texas and delivers a free set of housewares to new arrivals, now almost all Latinos.

They are drawn by the wages, low by U.S. standards, but considerable for Mexicans and Guatemalans. A typical worker in Mexico may make $4 a day.

Money is the reason Gerardo Cortes, a short Mexican man with rough hands, walked into a recruiting office in McAllen, Tex., in June and signed up for one of 50 jobs open at Mountaire Farms. It would be his second stint in Delmarva, and Cortes, 42, did not look forward to it.

Experience had taught him some valuable lessons. He believed workers who do not speak English are assigned the nastiest tasks. On his journey from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to the Eastern Shore of Maryland – a 52-hour marathon trip by bus – he prepared as best he could. He memorized important English phrases, written on a small piece of paper, meticulously folded in his wallet:

How long until the break?

I need rubber boots.

This work is too hard.

Metro staff researcher B

From the article:

No one regulates line speed in live hang, and Frazier said he has seen supervisors increase it to 215 birds a minute. Mike Pilcher, vice president at Allen, acknowledged the kill line sometimes runs faster when not enough chickens are being taken in for processing. But he said the increase lasts only a few minutes.

At 215 per minute, they would have to check the water 21.5 times per minute to contaminate only 10. I know that 215 is fast and not average, but if it were only a fraction of that, there would still be a problem.

Again, Jason, you don't know what the heck you are talking about. You should limit your statements to your knowledge not your knowledge to your statements.
 

Econ101

Well-known member
After reading the above article, you have to wonder if the republicans are really the law and order party. That is just what they want you to believe while they take political bribes to provide no oversight.
 

Jason

Well-known member
Let's just pretend there is 1 water tank for all birds and they never take any out either...talk about an idiot. :roll:
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Jason said:
Let's just pretend there is 1 water tank for all birds and they never take any out either...talk about an idiot. :roll:


You are the idiot, Jason. Have you ever seen a production line or are you just gossiping with some inspector and coming up with your nonsense?

The whole line gets dipped. The water is constantly being filtered. It still doesn't change the results.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Jason, "These evil companies that will kill their consumers for a buck have developed an air chilling system that actually is drying out the birds and making them lose weight. I guess food safety is more important to them than making a buck."

Are you telling us air-chilled chickens sell for the same price as the dipped?
 

Econ101

Well-known member
The air chilling systems came from Europe, France to be exact. They do create a dryer bird but one not dumped in a communal bath. The communal bath does cause chickens to rehydrate and gain weight.

They do cost more. They are considered a premium product.
 

Jason

Well-known member
Air chilled birds are being sold to consumers that have the water chilled option as well. For a company to get a premium they need to market the difference and consumers need to agree with it. Again consumers are the real boss.
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Jason said:
Air chilled birds are being sold to consumers that have the water chilled option as well. For a company to get a premium they need to market the difference and consumers need to agree with it. Again consumers are the real boss.

Jason, is the obvious so elusive to you that you have to state it when you realize it?
 

Jason

Well-known member
You and sandbeenie were the ones whining about consumers eating water soaked chickens.

Sometimes saying back to you the simplest things is the only way you understand.
 

Econ101

Well-known member
Jason said:
You and sandbeenie were the ones whining about consumers eating water soaked chickens.

Sometimes saying back to you the simplest things is the only way you understand.

Consumers are eating chickens that are water soaked in a communal bath that the line goes through. Any contamination on one will get it on the others. If you don't understand the point of the statement, you don't have to take from something you heard from an inspector in Canada and extrapolate it into nonsense about the U.S. poultry industry.
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Jason said:
You and sandbeenie were the ones whining about consumers eating water soaked chickens.

Sometimes saying back to you the simplest things is the only way you understand.

Sandbeenie? Are you adopting SH's juvinile style because you find it persuasive?
 
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