U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack mentioned poultry processors whose line pace waivers are set to run out on the finish of March can count on to get an extension.
Vilsack addressed the problem when questioned by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, at a February 28 Senate Agriculture Committee assembly.
Tuberville mentioned that after studying that extensions have been granted earlier within the week regarding pork plant line speeds, he was questioning if the state of affairs can be the identical for poultry processors.
“We are going to see an extension of this as a result of we need to make positive we get the fitting details about whether or not or not line speeds really do relate to elevated employee damage or employee security,” Vilsack mentioned.
A 3rd-party examine, which was mentioned throughout a latest Home Agriculture Committee assembly, is presently being performed to evaluate these questions regarding security.
“That’s the entire goal of that is to attempt to discover out what the information are,” Vilsack informed the committee. “We have to construction these research in a method that provides us the data and I’m not involved in making choices on this till I’ve all of the information. I don’t have all of the information but.”
Whereas Tuberville and his colleagues didn’t query the examine itself, throughout the Home listening to, Rep. David Rouzer, R-North Carolina, questioned whether or not the examine was needed and expressed issues that the individuals conducting the examine have a bias in opposition to poultry processors.
“No member of the examine crew is from a land grant establishment with information of the hen trade, however as an alternative are associates of the College of California system. Now, a member of that examine crew testified in entrance of OSHA in opposition to an organization taking part within the examine, and has vocally critiqued quite a few different vegetation. Contemplating the work of different crew members and the data requested earlier than every plant go to that far exceeds the scope of the examine, there’s a transparent bias in opposition to the trade, and leads any goal observer to the conclusion that this can be a gotcha operation,” Rozer mentioned on the time.
The waivers presently enable sure poultry vegetation to function at line speeds of as much as 175 birds per minute.
