Source:  Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 10/15/10

USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service will soon finalize how processors compensate USDA inspectors for time spent “donning and doffing” protective gear.

The agency estimated the annual overtime cost due to the rule change will be about $4,345 per online inspector at fiscal 2011 rates, for poultry and livestock slaughter facilities that want to run 8-hour line shifts. That amounts to about 15 minutes of overtime per inspector shift.

Meatingplace spoke with Dennis Johnson, principal at Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Bode Matz PC, a Washington, D.C. law firm, on the practical implications for most processors, and what companies should consider doing differently in order to comply with the law. Hint: The best solution may not have anything to do with payroll.

FSIS says the average cost will exceed $4,300 a year per company, but that’s just a representative number. 

How should processors calculate the impact on their facilities?

USDA estimated the annual cost [of inspector overtime] to the entire industry at around $12 million. But that was based on 2,911 inspection personnel working in slaughter establishments. The Supreme Court ruled, and USDA agreed in their union negotiations that donning and doffing is part of the inspected activity and so [that time] would have to fall into the 8-hour tour of duty.

An establishment would be liable, then, only if they have a full 8-hour production time. The inspector then has to have time to dress and walk to his workstation.

The time it takes to put on the protective clothing and required equipment is about 30 seconds to a minute. Then in slaughter inspection, line inspectors have to walk to the line they inspect. In a very large slaughter plant … it might take 5 to 10 minutes to get to that place, and that’s where it starts adding up. Those plants are responsible for the time it takes to dress, walk, walk back and undress, twice a day, because they’re entitled to a 30 minute break at lunch.

Let’s say it’s a 7.5-minute walk; that’s half an hour a day.
In a processing facility, inspectors don’t have a specific place to be, so for [further] processing there’s no way they’ll be affected because there is no workstation the inspector has to walk to. If an inspector spends 30 seconds to don and doff, that’s just two minutes a day, and that’s not billable.

Also, if I’m running a 7-hour operation, [the new rule] would never affect me. But if you’re running an 8-hour production shift … especially if you’re running two shifts … you know you’re going to have start-up times.
FSIS expects the revision would affect only about 70 large beef and pork slaughter plants, and 10 to 20 poultry slaughter plants. It’s gotten a lot of [coverage] when in reality the effect is fairly narrow. But a lot of people are very concerned about this because it isn’t just inspectors who have to don and doff. A lot of plants out there are going to have an issue with their own workers.

What can processors do to account for the rule change, besides just adjust their budgets accordingly?
We have to talk about the size of some of the slaughter establishments. Some are humongous: It would take quite a few minutes to walk from the inspector’s office [to the workstation]. One option the USDA said it would take into consideration is the location where [inspectors] don and doff their gear The trip from the office to right outside the slaughter line --- you don’t need the protective equipment for that. If a processors moves a dedicated donning and doffing area to right next to the line, the costs can be minimized that way.

What potential pitfalls do you see in the process of accommodating this change?
Well, how long does it take to get from point A to point B? I can walk from here to the metro stop in 10 minutes, but my wife would take 15. USDA has a formula that they use: How many steps are there? How many feet to travel? They crunch all those things into a program.

But I can see employees initially thinking, 'I don’t care how long a computer tells me it should take; I know how long it takes me to get to my workstation.’

What steps should processors take to begin incorporating this 'new reality’ into their everyday operations?
Start looking at the overall operation. If there’s a location where [inspectors and employees] can don and doff closer to the line, move it there. For $18,000 a year, it’s worth putting something in that’s only a minute away from the line.

When should processors begin working on this?
Well, don’t wait for the final rule. And start measuring the time now. An inspector has to have 7.5 minutes of overtime before a processor is billed for the quarter-hour. Where an inspector takes three minutes to walk to his workstation and a minute to put on the gear, that time allotment is in a gray zone, and that’s where it’s going to become interesting. The application [of the new rule] will be case-specific.

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