Meatpacking plants need more transparency
A bill that could deter whistleblowers and hinder the reporting of animal cruelty, health, safety, and other violations on factory farms and slaughterhouses is moving swiftly through the Texas Legislature. So-called Ag-Gag laws, similar to HB 1480, “gag” would-be whistleblowers and undercover activists by punishing them for exposing what goes on in animal agriculture. As currently drafted, certain provisions in HB 1480 are so vague that prosecutors could interpret them to punish whistleblowers who may take records from a facility that document wrongdoing, for example. Criminal laws can be struck down by courts for being too vague, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund has led coalitions across the country to strike down these dangerous laws.
We’ve been successful time and time again. Courts have already ruled that similar laws in Iowa, Idaho, Kansas and North Carolina are unconstitutional on free-speech grounds. These lawsuits aren’t cheap for states to defend, and both the costly litigation and subsequent legal fees are paid for with taxpayer dollars. That ag-gag bills continue to be introduced and enacted by state legislatures is a testament to the massive political power of animal agribusiness.
These enormous, multinational corporations are desperate to keep their cruelty — against humans and animals — hidden. Whistleblowers and undercover investigators have uncovered severe animal abuse on factory farms and slaughterhouses, including calves freezing to death,
turkeys’ throats slit while still conscious and able to feel pain and pigs being roasted alive. Animals aren’t the only ones suffering behind closed doors. Workers in slaughterhouses and factory farms earn low wages, without paid sick leave, to work in dangerous, dirty environments. They’re at high risk of amputation, repetitive stress injuries that leave them unable to use their hands, and even death.
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the risks that workers in animal agriculture face. Animal agriculture facilities across the United States are COVID-19 hotspots, spreading among workers and then to the larger community. In the spring of 2020, the largest outbreak in Texas wasn’t in a major metropolitan area but rural Moore County, where residents tested positive at a rate 10 times higher than in Texas’ biggest cities. Workers at an animal agriculture facility drove these skyrocketing infection rates. One of the country’s largest beef processing facilities, managed by JBS USA, a subsidiary of Brazil’s JBS, sits in Moore County.
According to the Food & Environment Reporting Project, almost 90,000 food system workers, including meatpacking, food processing and farmworkers, have been infected with COVID-19 nationwide. Nearly 400 workers have died. But instead of adopting common sense policies like paid sick leave, allowing for social distancing in processing lines, or providing personal protective equipment, the giant corporations that control our food system doubled down on secrecy — even refusing to provide information about sick workers to county health directors desperate to isolate workers and trace their contacts.
We aren’t talking about family farms. It’s corporations like JBS that would benefit most from any ag-gag law in Texas. The largest meat processor in the world, JBS
S.A., pulls in more than $50 billion in revenue annually with plants scattered across four continents. Together with Tyson Foods, Cargill and National Beef, they control 85 percent of the beef processing market. We have to rely on undercover investigations and whistleblowers to expose illegal and cruel practices on factory farms and slaughterhouses.
Texas is grappling with a budget crisis while also battling a pandemic and a failing energy infrastructure. Yet rather than focusing on these emergencies, some Texas legislators are instead trying to enact a law suppressing Texans’ access to critical information and then making them foot the bill to defend it in court. Protecting Big Ag shouldn’t be more important to legislators than protecting their constituents.