UFCW President Marc Perrone called the ruling a victory for meat plant workers. | video snapshot
MINNEAPOLIS In a big win in court for U.S. pork plant workers, a federal judge in Minneapolis has trumped former GOP Oval Office occupant Donald Trump’s Agriculture Department’s rule eliminating speed limits on pork plant processing lines.
Instead, senor District Judge Joan Ericksen bounced the issue back to USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service for 90 days to try again to write a line speed rule and to follow the law when it does so. Under Trump, Ericksen said, the agency didn’t.
Faster line speeds means more production
Erickson s ruling did not overturn the other key element of the New Swine Inspection System, which decreases the number of USDA inspectors looking for contamination or defects on pig carcasses on the cutting line.
Company employees now have responsibility for these inspections. Croston wrote in her email that Tyson Foods also will use vision systems and machine learning technology to inspect the meat.
Increasing line speeds allows companies like Tyson and JBS to kill and package more pigs in a given day, though how much they can produce depends on the size of their plants coolers. After killing the animals, the companies chill them for 24 hours.
Local 663 was one of the unions that initiated the lawsuit. Written By: Leah Ward | ×
Worthington s JBS pork processing plant, the community s largest employer with approximately 2,200 workers, is shown April 14, 2020. (Tim Middagh/The Globe)
MINNEAPOLIS The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) acted unlawfully when it eliminated maximum line speeds in meat processing plants, a federal district court in Minneapolis ruled Wednesday.
The USDA issued the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS) in October 2019, despite concerns from plant workers nationwide. Between the time the NSIS was proposed and the effective date, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) labor union appealed to the USDA not to make the change. After their plea was unsuccessful, UFCW representatives took their case to civil court.
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Unions Win Suit Against USDA Over Pork Plant Line Speeds
Law360 (April 1, 2021, 9:39 PM EDT) The U.S. Department of Agriculture acted arbitrarily and capriciously in violation of federal law when it eliminated limits on the speeds that pork processing plants set for their evisceration lines without considering the impact on workers safety, a Minnesota federal judge has ruled.
In her opinion Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Joan N. Ericksen found that the USDA s Food Safety and Inspection Service ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act when it adopted the New Swine Inspection System, which got rid of evisceration line speed limits. The judge vacated part of the 2019 rule that eliminated the limits, but stayed her judgment.
USDA photo by Preston Keres
A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Inspector shows Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue around the processing floor of the Triumph Foods pork processing facility April 28, 2017. The facility houses 2,800 employees in St. Joseph, Mo. USDA has 90 days to determine next steps in how to address courts’ criticisms of considering impact of worker safety.
The U.S. District Court of Minnesota issued a decision in
United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local No. 663 v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, requiring the new administration’s USDA to decide how to proceed on the 2019 rule to change line speeds on hog slaughter inspection lines.