EU Story: USDA speedup rule hurts workers

Charlie Fabian & Megan Small

The Trump Administration continues its attacks on workers, this time by acceding to decades long demands by the owners of meat packing conglomerates to speed up the work on slaughterhouse lines in chicken and pork processing plants. It is at these slaughterhouse lines where workers process already dead animals into commercial cuts of meat. Work in these meat factories have had a long reputation for being one of the most dangerous jobs to have.

In the short term, the United States Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) will allow a few dozen chicken and pork processing plants that already have temporary waivers to operate slaughter lines faster to continue to do so. But the agency’s longer-term plan is much more consequential: enacting a rule that will allow all pig and chicken slaughterhouses to increase slaughter line speeds. Of course, this repeats efforts Trump tried in his first term in office.