Our Alabama Poultry Industry Association works closely with Southeastern Poultry & Egg Association and is in full agreement with the provisions as set forth in their testimony presented at this hearing.

On behalf of the poultry industry of Alabama, I want to express our genuine appreciation for the time allotted me to present this brief statement of their position on this important matter.

Mr. McINTIRE. Thank you very much for your fine statement. We are delighted to have you before the committee, and I appreciate your reference to the bill which I introduced which is very similar to the one which my colleague, Mr. Elliott, introduced.

I would like to explore with you just a little bit this matter of "knowingly." I think it is a serious point on which we, as committee members, have got to make some resolution.

There is an administrative area here which of course is involved in the problem, and going out and making sure you get the job done and still not go in and impose any undue processes of law on someone who is not intending any violation. Are the penalties set up in the provisions of this legislation a little too rough to take the word "knowingly" out, or is it basically the word "knowingly?" In other words, if the penalties were modified somewhat so that the impact of any action against a processor in which he was pleading, "Well, I didn't know anything about it," would be alleviated somewhat if these penalties were changed and still leave the word "knowingly" in there for its administrative help. Would you care to express an opinion on that? These penalties are quite rough.

Mr. WALSH. I think that the question that the chairman asked Mr. Abbitt this morning in regard to some of these birds going over the Ohio River might illustrate what we might bring out in regard to opposition on this point. Those birds could have been sold to some dealer who could have, in turn, taken them across the river and the processor would have, in turn been liable and he not knowing about it. În a situation like that, as you mentioned, where the help of the plant might sometime become antagonistic and might want to do something for a grudge against the owner and he, in turn, might not know about it until afterwards, we feel that in such instances as that he should be protected.

Mr. McINTIRE. That is a good point. On the other hand, in the poultry industry I am assuming, the same as there are in other cross sections of human endeavor, you have some folks who would hide behind this "knowingly" clause in the courts to avoid the prosecution they would be entitled to-I mean, they really ought to be brought under some prosecution, and they will hide behind this word.

Mr. WALSH. That is right.

Mr. McINTIRE. Where is the middle ground to get the effective. administration and still give the prosecutor the protection he desires? Personally, Mr. McIntire, I believe that can be worked out with somewhat of a compromise of maybe re-phrasing and getting something that wouldn't be so severe and I, for one, wouldn't object to having it changed under certain conditions like that.

Mr. McINTIRE. Thank you.

Mr. WATTS. Dr. Dixon?

Mr. DIXON. I refer now to the last paragraph on this first page, Mr. Walsh "we are especially in favor of the January 1, 1958, date

on which persons may apply for and receive Government inspection." Does that mean that you want to force them all to come under inspection by January 1958?

Mr. WALSH. No. We merely mean there that that should be a day when they would be eligible, provided they want to come in under there, instead of making it effective immediately on passage of the act. Mr. DIXON. I guess it would be impossible, wouldn't it, to set the organization up and require everyone to come in by that time?

Mr. WALSH. Absolutely.

Mr. DIXON. You have received evidence that that would be impossible?

Mr. WALSH. You are right.

Mr. DIXON. And you don't seem to have any particular wish as to where the Secretary places this inspection?

Mr. WALSH. We are willing to leave that entirely in his hands. Mr. DIXON. Has the voluntary inspection, as far as it has gone, been sufficiently satisfactory to justify you in extending that voluntary now to compulsory inspection?

Mr. WALSH. In our area, it has, sir.

Mr. DIXON. Thank you.

Mr. WATTS. Thank you, sir.

Mr. WALSH. Thank you.

Mr. WATTS. Mr. S. W. Barker.

Come around, Mr. Barker.

STATEMENT OF SHIRLEY W. BARKER, DIRECTOR OF THE POULTRY DEPARTMENT, AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS AND BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH AMERICA, AFL-CIO

Mr. WATTS. You may give your name and occupation. Mr. BARKER. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: My name is S. W. Barker. I am the director of the poultry department of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America (AFL-CIO).

The AMCBW is a labor union with 325,000 members organized in more than 500 local unions throughout the United States, in Canada and in Alaska. The AMCBW and its locals have contracts with thousands of employers in the meat, retail, poultry, egg, canning, leather, fish processing, and fur industries.

More than 30,000 of our members are employed in the poultry processing industry. It is because of them that our organization feels we have an important stake and role in that industry.

With the permission of the committee, I should like briefly to tell of my own relationship with the various phases of the poultry industry. I have been connected with some parts of the industry all of my life.

I was reared on a poultry farm in Oregon. My family raised poultry until last year. I began working in the poultry processing industry in 1923. In 1937, when I became a representative of local 231 of the AMCBW, my knowledge of the industry increased because I also became aware of the many problems of management.

Today, as director of the poultry department of the AMCBW, I am in daily contact with local unions which have nearly 700 agreements

with poultry processors all over the Nation. One of my jobs is to assist these local unions in their work with management. Thus, I am called upon to travel into all sections of the country. In fact, I am currently in the midst of a 2-month tour of our poultry locals. In short, Mr. Chairman, I believe I can testify with very practical knowledge of the poultry industry.

Our union began its campaign for compulsory poultry inspection in We did so because of the hazardous conditions which face poultry workers in many plants. We believe that if an effective and ineaningful compulsory poultry inspection program is put into effect, the health dangers ranging from bothersome skin rashes and infections to killing psittacosis, would be minimized. We also firmly believe that we have a responsibility to the consumer. We feel that the scandalous practices of some parts of the industry must be ended; that the consumer must be assured of a clean and wholesome product.

Our campaign swung into high gear about 311⁄2 years ago as it became increasingly apparent to us that compulsory inspection was the answer to the health problems of poultry workers. At first, we sought a close working relationship with the poultry processing industry and the Department of Agriculture to secure an inspection law. Unfortunately, at that time, many sections of the industry did not believe inspection was desirable and the Department of Agriculture believed its voluntary program was sufficient.

Therefore, we, together with public health organizations, women's groups, consumer organizations, and some farm groups and other labor unions went into the drive for compulsory poultry inspection on our own. We are very happy to see that all responsible parts of the poultry processing industry now favor the principle of compulsory poultry inspection. We also note with great satisfaction that the Department of Agriculture has in 1956 and today, spoken strongly and forcefully for this principle.

I want to emphasize our great concern about mandatory poultry inspection because we have found that in some quarters there is the very strong belief that this problem should be strictly the concern of the poultry processing industry. We have been considered to be bothersome outsiders who are sticking their noses into something which is not their business. Public health people have been thought of as nosey busybodies whose heads are in the clouds. And consumer groups have been considered as people who should be satisfied with platitudes and thankfully accept any bit of protection which is given them.

I am certain that this is not the view of the committee members. But I should like to discuss here briefly how unfortunate and dangerous is the opinion I have described.

Mandatory poultry inspection legislation is not marketing legislation. It has four major purposes: (1) to protect the health and purchases of consumer, (2) to protect the health of poultry workers, (3) to protect the reputable processors against the dangers to his business provided by the practices of the shady operators, and (4) to protect the poultry farmer's business. The latter two objectives necessarily depend upon the first and somewhat on the second.

Since this is the case, the consumer and poultry worker certainly have an important stake in poultry inspection and their views should

have some meaning. Further, since the standards for health and consumer protection will be dependent on medical and scientific knowledge and since the inspection will have to be enforced by medical and scientific men, the public health groups also have a great deal to offer in the consideration of this type of legislation.

In the 4 hearings so far held on compulsory poultry inspection legislation, consumer, public health, labor and some farm organizations have together supported 1 type of legislation; the group to be regulated has supported another. In such a situation, is it in the public interest that the views of the group to be regulated should be considered the dominant opinion, as some have suggested? If that had been the case at other times in legislative history, there would have been no Meat Inspection Act in 1906, and hundreds of important consumer-protective and health-saving laws would have been made impotent.

Industrial hazards: I do not want to take this committee's time with a presentation of the great deal of material we have accumulated to show the need for compulsory poultry inspection legislation. But I would like to bring to your attention some new material on the industrial hazards in the poultry industry. This will show how desperately many of our members need an effective poultry inspection program.

Poultry and small game dressing and packing has almost consistently been the third most hazardous industry in the United States according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics quarterly survey. Of the more than 130 manufacturing industries in the Bureau of Labor Statistics study, only sawmills and planing mills and logging operations showed a higher injury frequency rate. In 1955 and 1956, the poultry processing figure was more than three times the average rate for all manufacturing.

The injury frequency rate for poultry processing is nearly twice as high as that of meatpacking and custom slaughtering. This fact probably provides some indication of the difference in industrial injury caused by the lack of adequate inspection. Further, work generally considered dangerous, such as blast furnace and steel mill labor, steel foundry labor, and construction and mining machinery production have comparatively small manufacturing injury rates in relation to poultry and small game processing and packing.

In a table below, we provide some of these comparisons. We shall, with the committee's permission, submit the entirety of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest report on manufacturing injury frequency rates. And I submit it for the record, with the consent of the chair

man.

Mr. WATTS. Yes, sir.

time of the committee to note that the first figure The following 2 are the

Mr. BARKER. I am not going to take the read the figures, but I would like them to given is the average of all manufacturing. 2 industries which we mention as the 2 industries more hazardous than poultry and small game dressing and packing. Then follows the poultry and small game dressing in its appropriate place.

Figures represent injuries per million employee-hours worked.

Mr. BARKER. The injury rates are higher in 1956 than in 1955. A small part of the reason for this may be the three psittacosis epidemics from which poultry workers suffered last year. In such widely differing areas as Portland, Oreg., Houston, Tex., and Virginia, this dread illness struck 136 men and women killing 3 of them. An effective inspection program, which included ante mortem inspection, could have minimized these outbreaks.

Mr. WATTS. I have a question I would like to ask.

I see where you list the poultry as third in injuries. Do you have a breakdown on those figures as to which were caused by the disease and which were caused by cutting or occupational hazards?

Mr. BARKER. The figures which we quote are Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, and they do not show that. The overall figures which I submitted for the record are the complete report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Our survey in the various plants shows that there are some hazards from minor cuts and infections. They are of a nominal nature, however. It is largely the infections that are acquired from contact with the birds. As you see, the figures here only represent those injuries which involve loss of time from work. And the average of this industry as a whole is not normally considered from physical conduct a hazardous type of operation.

And I might say that in the testimony before this committee a year ago, when it was considering poultry inspection bills, we submitted a comprehensive document which is in the record. In that there is a statement, as an illustration of what we are saying here, by Mr. Vie Pringle, of the Rockingham Marketing Co-op, speaking before the American Institute of Poultry Industries fact-finding conference a few years ago in Kansas City. He gave a figure of the savings his firm obtained by merely adopting more sanitary processes and inspection. It was $12 million annually in workmen's compensation payments. Now, that is some indication, I believe, of the importance of the disease factor as it affects the workmen in the plant.

The authority of his figures was not given. But it is in the record which you already have available in last year's hearings.

Mr. WATTS. I would assume that also up-to-date inspection of the plants such as might be required under the compulsory inspection pro