It's not surprising that corporations that treats animals so cruelly also would try to cover up worker abuses.  Opponents of animal protection like to accuse animal advocates of not caring about human abuse but as this chicken plant story indicates, it's the animal abuse sympathizers that should be taking lessons in human empathy. Animal, human and environmental abuse is so often connected.  

These stories point to the need for green, labor, immigrant and animal activists to work together to combat factory farming and promote eating lower on the food chain.  Among the first campaigns should be getting more farm-to-school programs off the ground so beef and chicken from horrible meat packers like these don't get into children's school lunches.  

Thanks for this, Tom.  It is very well done that the Charlotte Observer reporter should be concentrating on working conditions, and management/labor relations, and leave the treatment of the poultry to another time.

AMC is absolutely right, and it is something that we should insist upon: people who are disturbed by abuse that affects one class of victim are certainly not insensitive to related abuse affecting others; we are natural allies.  The most thoughtful animal welfare organizations, such as Best Friends of Kanab, Utah -- which is the subject of a National Geographic series called "Dogtown," and also recently received attention from CNN's Anderson Cooper for taking in a large number of Michael Vick's pit bulls -- , make it clear that kindness to animals is indivisibly bound up with kindness and justice to human beings.

It was natural for John Edwards to shift his emphasis on ending poverty to protesting pig CAFOs in NC.  And I hope that he sees this article on House of Raeford, and, since he has some time on his hands, takes it upon himself to begin a reform of the industry.

Since many of the workers at House of Raeford are Latino, it would be interesting to know more about how immigration status affects their employment.  For one reason or another, the reporter chose not to pursue that matter; but it is well known that many undocumented workers dare never to complain or make requests or bring grievances against any superiors, because they have no more than minimal rights, and can be threatened with deportation at any time.

Note this grotesque bit of klutziness, reported in the Charlotte Observer article:

<<
House of Raeford says it looks out for the safety of workers and treats them with respect.

"We come to work with five fingers and toes," said company safety director Bill Lewis. "And we go home with the same thing we came in with."
>>

Of course most of us, when we came into the world, had a few more than five digits.

On another matter: As it happens, I put a link to the very same HSUS page, about downed cows, that you have linked to here, in the "Edible Media" thread, without knowing that you had already made it available.

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

Tom, I am glad that you wrote about this.

However, I think most people do not care about human nor animal crulty. - If we did, there would be less factory farming, there would be less starvation, there would be less deforestation... the list is endless.

I think we need to be realetic that majority of people really do not care about anything beyond themselves, their health, their houses and cars, and few other people in their network.  

For the few % of people that do care, a) they are meet with much anger, b) never really supported, c) overworked and under paid.

It feels like society rewards people for being mean and selfish! Where is the ethics in that?

Boycott chem meat and the sadistic corporate food industry.

Sure organic, free range chicken costs more, so just eat less.  Fill up on healthy organic beans and other high protein veggy products.

As far as re-regulating corporate agribizz, your choices are limited.  The time to make pols face issues like this is past, maybe the next election cycle?  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

   Great Post Tom!!  And thanks to the Charlotte Observer for these reports.  Please keep us informed as to how the reports are received, and if there is any governmental follow up.

   Dear JavaEarth,  I understand your feeling.  But consider that perhaps the vast majority of people who don't "care" are not really indifferent.  Rather they are so focused on survival and exhausted from the struggle, that there is nothing left for compassion.  Or maybe there is nothing left in them to make them think that their voices will be listened to.

        This is one of the reasons that the "gap" between the rich and the poor matters.  As the vast majority of people loses ground, it becomes harder to organize them to deal with the plight of others (at least in an America where collective action has been successfully demonized for over 50 years).

        Someday this sleeping giant may unite and waken.  We can only hope it is not too late.

patrick in Beijing  

I never thought of it like that, Patrick, but I see your point.

And JavaEarth definitely deserves to be affirmed for deploring the opposite phenomenon, the Stepfordization, I guess, of American society.

But I suspect that you and JavaEarth are talking about different sets of people.

Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.