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New Poultry Rule Would Remove Food Inspectors from Assembly Line
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 Apr. 24, 2013 | WORKPLACE SAFETY | (Note: Teamsters Local 355 represents poultry workers on Maryland's Eastern Shore.) A new food inspection rule proposed by the US Dept. of Agriculture would let poultry plants conduct their own inspection, removing federal food inspectors from the assembly line. At a House appropriations oversight hearing [in March], Food Safety and Inspection Service administrators argued the move would save taxpayers money and allow the department to focus on testing for pathogens like e.coli and salmonella…The rule would let plants speed up the production line to 175 birds per minute from 140, giving inspectors a third of a second to check each chicken for contamination. Not only does speeding up production make it impossible to screen contaminated chickens on the assembly line, it also endangers workers. [The agency plans to implement the new rules by September 2014.] Read the full story here. Related: USDA ruffles feathers with new poultry inspection policy. The USDA is sticking it to poultry workers.
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