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Animal rights activists continue to fight for ballots. In early October, Direct Action Everywhere, a network of animal rights activists, released hidden camera footage captured this summer at Superior. The video shows what the activists describe as potential legal and ethical violations: a conscious lamb appearing alive after slaughter; another lamb sent to slaughter with an untreated umbilical cord; and employees engaging in abusive behavior, such as throwing, slapping, and mimicking sexual positions with machines on the slaughter line.
“These images clearly depict animal cruelty that is prohibited by state laws and violations of the federal Humane Slaughter Act,” said Chris Carraway, an animal rights expert from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, after the footage was released.
Superior contests this claim. Mariano told Civil Eats, “There’s no evidence of excessive violence, animal cruelty, or halal violations in the footage we saw. This is another example of the misunderstanding or misrepresentation of standard and lawful slaughter processes as proponents of the slaughterhouse ban try to influence cities and change the election.”
Denver voters will need to decide whether they want such slaughter to take place in their city, even if it is legal.
Benefits of Working at Superior
In August at the Superior facility, 28-year-old Keyri Reyes was shivering in a puffer jacket. The slaughter room wasn’t operating that day, but in the fast-moving assembly line, dozens of Black and brown workers were breaking down large cuts of meat into chops, ribs, and other cuts. At the end of the line, Reyes was preparing the next batch of lamb steaks, garnished with rosemary and garlic, to be packed into plastic bags. The pre-seasoned cuts were soon to be sold nationwide at Walmart stores.
Despite their fast-paced work, Reyes felt cold; the factory floor resembled a freezer, a far cry from the temperate climate of her native Honduras. “Poverty forces people to leave their country,” she told Civil Eats. Reyes has dark, vibrant eyes and animated hands while she speaks. Yet she hasn’t necessarily escaped poverty; she earns $19.30 an hour—just a dollar above Denver’s minimum wage. Denver is among the most expensive cities in the country to live, and even with this relatively high wage, Reyes has to share a house with five others.
To offset the low pay, Superior offers an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), which the company promotes as a rare privilege. Frank Sabedra, who has worked in the care field at Superior since 2022, describes the ESOP and the company’s 401K matching, saying it makes Superior a much better place than his previous employers, Amazon and FedEx. “I plan to work here for the rest of my life,” he said.
Currently, according to Mariano, less than one-third of workers in Denver participate in the ESOP (employees qualify after three years). Reyes, who has been at Superior since 2021, is uncertain about whether she will ever become an employee-owner. Part of the uncertainty stems from her hiring through an agency: she only became a direct Superior employee two years ago. Still, with her limited English, a seven-year-old child, and a mother to support, her options are limited.
Reyes’s situation is not uncommon among employees at Superior. Nola Miguel, who works with the GES Coalition to improve housing and health equity, said, “For many, this might be one of the first jobs they get when they move to the community.”
If the ban passes, Austin Frerick worries that it could make a smaller, independent player like Superior less competitive in an already consolidated industry and could even lead to lower wages due to labor scarcity. He also speculates that issues associated with industrial farming could be pushed into even more rural areas with less oversight. However, Pro-Animal Future claims that Superior is not compliant with regulations.
Records obtained by Civil Eats through a Freedom of Information Act request show that since 2019, there have been over 600 documented cases of non-compliance with USDA standards at Superior’s Denver facility. Inspectors noted that unsanctioned slaughter practices were labeled as halal, and products were observed to be dated more than a week old.
Other violations included contamination of carcasses with feces, inadequate ventilation, and sightings of flies in various areas of the facility, which threaten the spread of bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella. (Superior claims compliance with USDA regulations is 98.31%, nearly equivalent to the industry average of 98.9% for 2024.)
OSHA has also documented numerous accidents and safety violations at Superior, including cases of thumb amputations in 2022. Adan Hernandez, who worked at Superior from 2006 to 2021, stated that he was forced to perform multiple jobs when the line lacked adequate staffing. “Sometimes I was cutting off limbs while simultaneously slaughtering a sheep,” he said. “These are things a person needs to pay attention to.” Experts saw the practice of “dangerously fast” cutting along with the doubling of duties as a risk for accidents.
Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fined Superior $119,200 for violating chemical safety standards. Hernandez mentioned that ammonia leaks were common in the facility, as well as clogged drains leading to internal flooding. “Water would reach up to our knees,” he said. “Urine would surface, along with blood—everything.”
[ad_2]Source: Tarım Haberleri
John Peterson graduated with a degree in Agricultural Sciences from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His specialization is in sustainable crop production and soil health management. John is passionate about integrating modern technology with traditional farming methods to enhance productivity while preserving the environment. He currently works as a consultant, helping farmers adopt sustainable practices.