Vol. 72/No. 16      April 21, 2008

His supervisor, Daniel Ugarte, has pled not guilty, and, according to an Associated Press report, “could be offered a plea bargain.”

No charges whatsoever have been filed against owner Steven Mendell.

One more example of the finest standards of U.S. justice? Yes, and something more too.

Under pressure to maintain production, Sánchez and Ugarte were caught in a video showing them forcing sick cows to their feet to “pass” a federal regulatory test.

The video was taped secretly by a member of the Humane Society of the United States. While working in the pens he filmed scenes of cows being forced to the slaughter chute with electric shocks, the blades of a forklift, and hoses used to simulate drowning. This took place despite the daily presence of five inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In response to the outcry the images produced, U.S. officials ordered the slaughterhouse to shut down February 4. On February 17 officials forced it to recall all meat it had produced in the last two years—a record 143 million pounds.

At least one inspector and one veterinarian were suspended by the USDA.

Westland/Hallmark specialized in buying old cows from local dairies, grinding them into hamburger, and selling the resulting less-than-stellar meat to the federal government.

It was, before suspending operations, the second largest supplier to a federal program that provides meat to more than 100,000 schools and child-care facilities as well as to the elderly and impoverished.

In theory there is a ban on using meat from cows too sick to walk. According to the USDA’s own reports, such cows have much a higher incidence of “mad cow” disease. They are also more susceptible to bacterial infections such as E. coli and salmonella.

The response of the ruling rich was summed up in an editorial in the New York Times February 21.

After a jab at the Republican administration of George Bush for “cutting budgets” and “filling top jobs with industry favorites,” the pro-Democratic Party Times offered three proposals to address meat safety: stronger inspections, bigger fines, and creation of a food-safety superagency.

But, as meat packers and other workers know, it’s not so simple.

The heart of the problem is not government regulation. It’s that under capitalism, bosses try to force us to do things that protect their profits at the expense of the safety of working people. The threat, spoken or unspoken, is that you do what you are told or you will suffer the consequences.

How can we respond these pressures?

In my view, we have to look for openings, no matter how small, to take the moral high ground against the bosses’ greed, to use it as a weapon against them.

Westland/Hallmark is a graphic example of employers’ lack of concern for anything that gets in the way of profits. But workers in packing plants and other workplaces across the country face countless smaller examples every day—from skipping a sanitary procedure to using meat everyone knows is questionable.

We can use these examples to explain the connection between defending our own health and safety on the job and defending other workers and their families who will be eating the meat we produce.

We can explain that both are part of building a stronger union. And that building a stronger union is a necessary step to gaining a political voice, to creating our own political party, to putting ourselves in a position to take on the bosses outside the factory as well—where the real decisions are made.

We can explain that Rafael Sánchez is not the real criminal here. We can explain that a working-class party, a labor party based on unions with some teeth, would fight the deportation of this fellow worker. It would demand his bosses be jailed instead.

Michael Baumann works on the line at Thumann’s in New Jersey and is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1245. Carole Lesnick, who also works at Thumann’s, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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