CRIMES WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES - gpvec

Crimes Without ConsequenCes
Representative George E. Brown, Jr. of California, enacted in 1978, which expanded
coverage of the humane slaughter law to meat imported into the United States and
provided a more effective enforcement mechanism. 27 The Humane Methods of Slaughter
Act of 1978 gave federal inspectors the authority to stop slaughter operations to prevent
inhumane practices. Regulations promulgated by the USDA under the Act included
humane handling requirements, such as access to water and feed, adequate room for lying
down, a prohibition on the use of pipes and metal objects, and limits on the use of electric
prods to move animals. 28
The level of government enforcement of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act following
its passage in 1978 is not well-documented. In the late 1970s, a revolution was taking
place in the American slaughter industry. The largest companies, led by Iowa Beef
Processors (IBP), busted meatpacking unions by relocating plants from large cities, such
as Chicago and Omaha, to rural areas. They recruited immigrant workers from Mexico,
and slaughterhouse wages fell by as much as 50 percent. They also sharply increased
production to drive their competition out of business, and as a result, thousands of
small-sized plants closed shop (see discussion of numbers of U.S. slaughter plants in
Section 2.3). These changes—increased production, decreased worker qualifications and
increased political power in the hands of a few mega-companies—likely had a negative
effect on the welfare of animals in slaughter plants.
In the late 1980s, Gail Eisnitz, an investigator for HFA, heard stories about cattle being
skinned alive in a Florida slaughter plant. She took on a widespread investigation
of U.S. slaughter practices that lasted more than six years and culminated in the
publication of her book, Slaughterhouse. 29 At the same time that Eisnitz was amassing
worker testimonials on slaughter abuse, environmental and animal welfare activists
in London were battling the McDonald’s Corporation in court over, among other
things, the description of the fast food giant’s handling of animals at slaughter (the
case became commonly known as the “McLibel trial”). 30 Simultaneously, Dr. Temple
Grandin, an animal handling scientist at Colorado State University, was drafting animal
stunning and handling guidelines for AMI and designing humane handling systems for
some of the country’s largest slaughter plants. 31
The outcome of these three events—the Eisnitz investigation, the “McLibel” trial, and the
industry work of Grandin—set into motion a decade-long focus on the issue of humane
slaughter in the United States, not seen since the days of lobbying for the first humane
slaughter law in the 1950s. Following is a brief timeline of some of the benchmarks of
the past decade.
27 For a review of the history of humane slaughter laws, see Leavitt ES (with update by D Halverson), Humane
slaughter laws in Animals and Their Legal Rights, Animal Welfare Institute, 1990 (4 th ed), pp. 52-65.
28 Federal Register, Vol. 44, November 30, 1979, p. 68813.
29 Eisnitz G, Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S.
Meat Industry, Prometheus Books, 1997.
30 For information about the “McLibel” case, see http://www.mcspotlight.org.
31 For information about Dr. Grandin’s work, see http://www.grandin.com.
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