Source: HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES, 2/25/20


A coalition including the Humane Society of the United States today sued the Trump administration for allowing chicken slaughterhouses to dial up the breakneck speeds at which they kill birds.

The increase, announced in 2018, allows slaughterhouses that receive a waiver from the administration to increase slaughter speed by 25 percent, to a rate of up to 175 birds per minute—that’s nearly three birds being killed per second. Slaughtering animals at this rate is not only inhumane, it makes working conditions even more dangerous for workers and compromises the safety of the food that Americans put on their table.

When the change was announced, federal regulations already allowed slaughterhouses to kill chickens as fast as 140 birds per minute. At such high speeds, workers struggling to keep up with the rapidly moving slaughter lines grab the birds and slam them into shackles, injuring the animals’ fragile legs. Some birds miss the throat-cutting blade and enter the scalder—a tank of extremely hot water—alive and fully conscious, resulting in a terrible, inhumane death. The fast speeds also jeopardize the food supply, as birds who are treated inhumanely are more likely to be badly bruised or die due to causes other than slaughter, which would make them unfit for consumption under current food safety regulations.

Conditions in slaughterhouses are also brutal for workers who are forced to toil extremely fast, shoulder-to-shoulder, performing repetitive motions in cold, slippery conditions and using dangerous equipment. According to Labor Department data, injury rates for poultry workers are 60 percent higher than the national average for all private industry, and illness rates are more than five times as high. In fact, a recent investigative report found that many of the plants the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is now allowing to run at faster line speeds have a history of serious accidents, including deaths. And just last month there were fatal worker accidents at two chicken slaughterhouses operating at increased speeds.

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