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MODERN MEAT: BRUTAL HARVEST -- The Gail
Eisnitz Interview
"The United States Department of Agriculture isn't
simply relinquishing its humane-slaughtering oversight to the meat
industry, but is, without the knowledge and consent of Congress --
abandoning the function altogether."
-- Gail
Eisnitz
 In April of last year Gail Eisnitz from the
Humane Farming Association in America headed a major expose through
the prestigious Washington Post newspaper. It was based on the
unspeakable and gut-wrenching torture and death that goes on behind
closed doors in modern day slaughterhouses.
If ever there was an excellent reason why animal rightists have
maintained that welfarism (old and new) doesn't work, can't work and
won't work this interview will leave the reader in no doubt
whatsoever as to the facts of the matter.
If ever there was a time where animal rightists are fed up to the
back teeth with the empty rhetoric of welfare reform (old and new),
now is that time.
What you are about to read is chilling and a testimony to why
welfarism does not work. The Animal Rights Movement has waited some
25 years for welfarism to yield to a Rights way of thinking -- and
this has simply not happened, nor will it. It is wrong to think that
welfarism is working parallel to animal rightists. The fact is they
are diametrically opposed to each other. All attempts to eradicate
institionalised exploitation of animals through welfarism have thus
failed.
Gail Eisnitz is one of the heroes of the animal rights movement.
As an undercover worker there is nothing that she has not seen done
to animals on the kill floor of a slaughterhouse. Fortunately for us
she has documented it. Skinning and dismembering animals while they
are fully conscious, ripping these animals apart into unrecognisable
pieces. When will it end?
It was only through Eisnitz's considerable efforts in the first
place that this story was brought to light and it's still having
repercussions ranging right back to the mighty halls of U.S.
Congress. People are talking about the treatment of farm animals for
once -- and we have one woman to thank for that. Here is what she
had to say.
Interviewed by Claudette Vaughan
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Claudette: You have recently had a huge expose in
the Washington Post on inhumane and cruel slaughtering
practices in modern-day slaughterhouses. How did that come
about Gail?
Gail: It was very complicated how it came about. In
fact I had been begging the Washington Post for several years
to do this story. When we finally exposed the violations at
the IBT Plant in Washington State I went back and asked again.
Interestingly the individual who had helped us with the case
on television used to work with the reporter from the
Washington Post that I had been asking to do this piece. When
it did transpire that they knew each other I made the person
at the Washington State TV station ring the reporter and tell
him that if he missed this story he would miss the story of a
lifetime.
So it was all very fortuitous the way it worked out.
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Claudette: We are interested to know what has been
happening since then?
Gail: Actually a lot has been happening. The story
itself was somewhat watered down because the Washington Post
was afraid it was going to be too graphic for the public. As
it happened the public's response was one of the highest
reader response stories that they have ever done. Thousands
and thousands of letters, e-mails and phone calls flooded in
expressing gratitude and outrage -- so in this sense it was a
successful story. A lot has happened in conjunction with this
story. One thing is that this story has had a tremendous
impact on U.S. Congress and as a direct result of the story
members of Congress and U.S. Senators were horrified with the
information. That then enabled us to go to them and they
introduced resolutions in the U.S. Congress demanding upgraded
enforcements of the Humane Slaughter Act.
The second thing that happened was I worked very closely
with the Federal Union that represents all 7000 meat
inspectors and as the Washington Post was preparing its story
I was writing a petition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) to enforce the Humane Slaughter Act -- a very involved
document, over 100 pages and it clearly documents their
failure to enforce the law. It also gives specific language as
to how they could enforce the law. The Union representing all
7000 inspectors got up at the Press Conference at the National
Press Club in Washington D.C. with me, and denounced their own
agency for not allowing them to enforce their own Act because
of industry deregulation and other reasons.
That was really a terrific thing to have the very people
who are suppose to enforce the Act, then with me and other
animal groups that had signed on to the Petition (representing
13 million animal activists and consumers) being very out
spoken about the problem.
Once we filed that petition with the USDA we ran a
full-page ad in the NY Times International issue. This issue
goes to readers all around the world. We used the petition as
a news hook to get attention to the issue that thousands and
thousands of people were outraged with the treatment of these
animals in slaughterhouses around the country.
Then the next thing that happened -- truly unprecedented --
was Senator Robert Byrd (who is third in line in succession to
the Presidency and one of most powerful Senators in the
country today) took the information from the Washington Post
and stood on the Senate floor and spoke an impassioned speech
on behalf of farm animals. People were talking about it like
it was one of the most important things that have ever
happened to farm animals -- because nobody has ever really
talked about them before. To have a US Senator of that
prominence think about them is truly amazing. Before he
finished his speech he said he was including an extra one
million dollars in the budget to enforce the Humane Slaughter
Act.
So all these things went together to result in some pretty
astounding actions. Now we have an extra one million dollars
go into enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act and we have
the power of the Meat Inspectors behind us.
I complained to everyone -- I said, "Lookit,
they're skinning live cows there," Walker said. Always it
was the same answer: "We know it's true. But there's nothing
we can do about it."
-- A worker at a Plant speaking to
the Washington Post. |
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Claudette: What, in your view, is the fate of the
modern abattoir?
Gail: As far as I'm concerned nothing has changed --
absolutely nothing. Right now the USDA is running for cover,
struggling to cover-up basically. As I said we have petitioned
them and given them edits from Congress demanding that the law
be enforced. They have absolutely no commitment to improving
conditions for slaughter-bound animals. Things inside
slaughterhouses are as bad as they have always been as far as
I'm concerned and that is due to one thing. |
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Claudette: What is that?
Gail: The USDA refuses to take any action about the
outlandish speeds that we have in this country. To think that
it is virtually not possible to ensure that animals can be
humanely slaughtered at the line speeds that are running here.
We run at 400 cattle an hour, 1,100 pigs an hour. That is
totally unacceptable. We certainly can if we wanted to ensure
humane slaughter ethos to occur. |
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Claudette: In the Washington Post expose a worker in
your American slaughterhouse said that it takes 25 minutes to
turn a live steer into a steak. He says that on bad days he
sees dozens of animals clearly alive and conscious by the time
they get to him. This means that these animals have survived
the tail-cutter, the belly-ripper and the hide-puller. He went
on to say that these animals are dying "piece by piece". In
all your experience Gail what is the solution? In over-taxed
meat works the humane treatment of animals is often lost but
still, that is no excuse.
Gail: The solution is extremely simple. There are
two solutions in fact. In our Petition for the very, very
minimum we asked that meat inspectors be actually stationed in
that Plant where they can observe animals being handled and
slaughtered.
Certainly under new deregulatory policies meat inspectors
are nowhere in the area of the places where animals are. They
are nowhere near them! I mean to say how can meat inspectors
enforce the Humane Slaughter Act and not be anywhere near live
animals is just ludicrous. That was our first request. There
were a couple of other ones as well. As far as I am concerned
line speeds must be reduced. If you are not going to station
inspectors in the area where they can actually enforce the
regulations, line speeds absolutely must be reduced. There is
no two ways about that.
Hogs, unlike cattle, are dunked in tanks of
hot water after they are stunned to soften the hides for
skinning. As a result, a botched slaughter condemns some
hogs to being scalded and drowned. Secret videotape from an
Iowa plant shows hogs squealing and kicking as they are
being lowered into the water.
--Washington Post
expose |
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Claudette: The US Department of Agriculture oversees
the treatment of animals in meat plants, but enforcement of
the law varies dramatically from place to place. Are you aware
of any noticeable differences/improvements for animals since
the publication of your own book "Slaughterhouse?"
Gail: I've seen a lot of activity on the Industry
level. Everybody is scurrying around to make it look as if
they are doing something but the fact is they are not. They
are running around setting up new programmes and new voluntary
programmes. Everything they do is a voluntary programme.
Nothing is mandated by USDA. No, I see everybody scurrying but
that is only because they are in damage control mode.
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Claudette: You are in the front-line of exposing
shoddy and downright cruel and dangerous practices of how
modern meat is produced. What has the reaction been like? I
believe you have received hate mail in the process. Is that
true?
Gail: Personally I have received very little
response from Industry or the USDA. The way they handled the
publication of my book and my subsequent revelations in the
last two years in exposing the largest meat packer in the
world, has been by them remaining silent about it all. They
have been extremely non-responsive. On the other hand animal
activists and the general public who up until this time had
been unaware of these atrocities are just outraged. I mean the
response from the general public has been truly amazing. Many
people are now learning about things that they have never
thought about before. The way Industry deals with it is they
act as if they haven't even heard of it before. |
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Claudette: Again, in the Washington Post expose meat
workers talk about the practice of skinning animals alive and
they mention the Texas meat company that was cited 22 times in
1998 for violations that included chopping hooves off live
cattle. You, however, have always been very careful in not
placing the blame on individual workers but on a morally
corrupt system whose prime motive is profits over sentient
creatures. Is this fair to say?
Gail: That's correct. The workers that I have been
working with these past two years are mostly Hispanic and they
are truly some of the bravest people in the world.
They come out and they don't care what happens to them.
They have gone full-faced on television and they have spoken
at Press Conferences to expose what's going on. In short, what
they have been required to do in the name of profits for their
plant. These poor people, you know a lot of them are maimed
and suffer repetitive motion illnesses for life. Companies
couldn't care less about their workers. They chew them up and
spit them out. It is the same thing what these companies
expect of them with the animals that they are slaughtering.
The workers know if they do anything that slows down
production they will be fired. In the case of the largest Meat
Producer in the world that we exposed, two dozen workers there
come forward and signed affidavits, went on camera and helped
us obtain a video of violence that was occurring there. I just
think they are incredibly courageous. When they were doing the
interviews they would say "We knew this was wrong, but we
didn't know it was illegal and as soon as Gail told us what
law we were breaking we were so happy to know about it that we
are not going to take this anymore."
"The live cows cause a lot of injuries," said
Martin Fuentes, an IBP worker whose arm was kicked and
shattered by a dying cow. "The line is never stopped simply
because an animal is alive."
--Washington
Post |
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Claudette: According to meat industry estimates,
fear and pain cause animals to secrete a large amount of
hormones that damage meat and cost companies tens of millions
of dollars a year in discarded product. Is this a strong
enough argument to hold them to abide to the American Meat
Institute's Good Management Practice for Animal Handling and
Stunning? I mean, it hasn't been up until now.
Gail: Absolutely not. It is not a good enough reason
because the hormones that damage the meat occur for a variety
of reasons and is not limited to animals being skinned and
dismembered alive. Weather conditions, crowding and transport
conditions are all events that cause animals to become
"damaged". This is just an excuse that Industry uses to say
that we couldn't possibly be doing this because we would
suffer catastrophic loses. That is certainly not a reasonable
excuse. They certainly like to use it though. |
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Claudette: One of America's leading experts on
slaughterhouse practices, Temple Grandin found in a
USDA-funded survey in 1996 that there was a high failure rate
among beef plants that used stunning devices (i.e. Captive
bolt guns) and that only 36% earned a rating of "acceptable".
Although McDonald's and the American Meat Institute pay her
she maintains that in the past 4 years there has been
"dramatic improvements" because of the pressure that
McDonald's have brought to bear on the industry. For example,
industry auditors apparently check dozens of plants each year
where this wasn't the case before.
Gail: Nothing could be further from the truth in my
experience. The bottom line is that workers stage inspections
for plant visitors. Inspections are scheduled ahead of -- most
of them are basically worthless. Illegal shocking devices and
prodding devices are put away. Line speeds are reduced,
violations are temporarily curtailed. It's virtually
impossible to see what's going on inside a plant even if you
arrive unannounced because individuals generally have to
announce their presence to the plant's guard shack to enter
operations. The supervisors in the plants use radios, code
words and whistles -- all sorts of things to alert employees
that inspectors are coming in. After the surprise visitor has
signed the book, met with officials, been given a hard hat and
white smock, boots etc -- all of this takes a good half an
hour -- then there's a cover-up. We know this for a fact.
These programmes are essentially meaningless. Let me give
you a better idea of how it works. In the plant that we
recently exposed in Washington State we had nearly two dozen
workers signing affidavits saying for years they had been
required to skin and chop off the legs of hundreds of
thousands of fully conscious animals. We have videotapes shot
at that plant depicting fully conscious cattle, opened up and
dangling from their bleed rails. It was concluded that
criminal activity had occurred and auditors from McDonald's
visited the plant at the height of the abuses -- and in spite
of the atrocities witnessed -- they gave the plant a "Pass"
grade. The Meat Industry then used these audits from that
plant and others to say there has been a "dramatic improvement
in US slaughter practices". I think that says it all.
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Claudette: In your opinion has McDonald's become a
positive force in pressing to improve conditions for animals
on death row or if the animal rights movement endorses this
are we sleeping with the enemy? I mean some of us over here
don't want anything to do with McDonald's, Burger King or any
other fast-food chain for we see it for the farce that it is.
What do you think?
Gail: Here in the US I am constantly being told of
how wonderful McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's are for
implementing these programmes. I think that it is a farce also
and I think McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's are all aware
of what an enormous amount of favourable publicity -- a
veritable BONANZA, they have received from this. You can't
imagine the amount of publicity they are getting from this. I
mean, AP {wire service} runs a story saying, "Thanks to
McDonald's, animal welfare says things are better than what
they have ever been". It is extraordinarily frustrating. There
is just so much positive press about McDonald's over here,
it's extremely difficult to get the truth out.
When the video we obtained from IBP was finally exposed on
television McDonald's simply slapped the company on the hand
and then its back to business as usual. Under what
circumstances I'd like to know would McDonald's take
meaningful action? |
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Claudette: In your Washington Post piece it says of
McDonald's: Bloodied in past scrapes with animal rights
groups, McDonald's has positioned itself in recent years as an
ardent defender of farm animals... The words "positioned
themselves" bothers me. McDonald's are well aware that their
sickly sweet "family" image has taken a battering in regard to
their treatment of farm animals. All of this is empty
rhetoric, going into damage control on their part.
Gail: Yes, absolutely. That's how I perceive it and
nothing I have seen would show me otherwise. |
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Claudette: You have said that the meat industry's
self-inspections are meaningless and that they are designed to
lull Americans into a false sense of security about what goes
on inside slaughterhouses. Since the Washington Post expose is
there anything that has happened that would change your
opinion on this?
Gail: No. After spending a decade inspecting the
Meat Packing Industry and interviewing workers and inspectors
who have spent nearly three million hours on the kill floor, I
find it impossible to buy into any assurances that the meat
industry tries to buy the public. It is important to keep in
mind that this is the same industry that recruits thousands of
illegal and underage immigrants. The meat industry has the
highest rate of worker's injuries in the country. This
industry has incurred the highest rate of Occupational
Industry fines in history for subjecting their employees to
horrendous working conditions. Industry is so obsessed with
maximizing line speeds, that its own workers are often forced
to urinate on the line where they are working. The Industry
knows it is permanently crippling its employees, firing them
and then obstructing their efforts to claim Workers
Compensation. In light of the Industry's high disregard for
the workers it is hardly surprising to also see this
widespread abuse of animals. Concern over the suffering of
animals doesn't even show up on this Industry's radar screen
. |
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Claudette: Finally Gail, I'd like to thank you for
writing "Slaughterhouse". It was received warmly on this side
of the world and the images that you described in it of
blatant cruelty remain emblazoned in our memories. We are
better activists because of it. Do you have any last words for
Australian and New Zealand activists?
Gail: I'm just thrilled to know that Australian
activists are aware and interested and vigilant and
conscientious about this issue. That's very gratifying to me
that people are reading my book over there. I'm particularly
thrilled to know that activists in your part of the world are
more sensitive to how the meat industry attempts to hoodwink
the general public, like it's doing here in the US.
One final word: I'm delighted to have this opportunity to
express my gratitude to Australian activists for all of your
kind words of support and encouragement over the years. You
have been incredibly supportive of my efforts, and for that I
am especially grateful. One thing we want you to know is that
HFA and I -- and the 13 million activists that are now helping
us in this fight -- intend to keep the pressure on USDA and
Industry, and we look forward to reporting more successes to
you in the days ahead. |
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Website: Humane Farming Association |
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