does, that there is integrity in most places of business, and let that one go along without creating any big problem.

I know of farmers who raise up to 5,000 turkeys and do all of their own work. This is a good-sized operation.

There are also other people who do not do so much, but they raise 100 or 200. We had one in New York, where people went and bought the birds after they were dressed. They bought them right at the plant. This is the kind of thing I am talking about. And if they bought one bad bird, they would not buy another one.

Mr. MAYNE. And this has resulted in the small businessman still being able to operate, to continue to do so?

Mr. GRAHAM. Right.

Mr. MAYNE. Then it would be consistent with the view of your organization that, as expressed previously, you are not trying to keep them out of operation, the small agriculturist as well as the small businessman.

Mr. GRAHAM. That is, basically, what we are trying to say. I did not say it very well, apparently.

Mr. MAYNE. Thank you.

Mr. PURCELL. If there are no further questions, thank you very much, Mr. Graham.

Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you.

Mr. PURCELL. We will next call Mr. Arnold Mayer, legislative representative of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workmen of North America-AFL-CIO.

We will be pleased to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF ARNOLD MAYER, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS & BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH AMERICA (AFL-CIO)

Mr. MAYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the subcommittee.

My name is Arnold Mayer. I am the legislative representative of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workmen of North America-AFL-CIO.

The AMCBW is a labor union with 400,000 members organized in about 500 local unions throughout the United States and Canada. The AMCBW and its local unions have contracts with thousands of employers in the meat, retail, poultry, egg, fish, canning, leather, and fur industries.

Some 30,000 of our members are employed in the poultry and egg industry. We are, therefore, directly affected and concerned with poultry inspection legislation.

In fact, it was our union which initiated the campaign for Federal compulsory poultry inspection which resulted in the enactment of the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957. In the late 1940's, the AMCBW began calling attention to the fact that poultry, unlike red meat, was not inspected for wholesomeness and cleanliness on a mandatory basis. Only a voluntary program, hired and paid for by processors, existed. We called for legislation similar to the thenexisting meat inspection.

In the early and mid-1950's, the effort was accelerated when our union published two booklets which pointed to conditions existing in some parts of the industry and urged the enactment of Federal mandatory inspection legislation. In 1954, resolutions for a congressional investigation of health conditions in parts of the poultry industry were introduced at our request, but the resolutions got nowhere.

In early 1956, legislation was introduced in the House to provide mandatory Federal inspection-especially a strong bill by Representative Leonor K. Sullivan of Missouri. The legislative battle

was on.

Our union led a coalition of consumer organizations, labor unions, and civic groups in support of provisions which would offer the maximum amount of consumer protection. The work of the coalition not only helped to bring about mandatory poultry inspection, but it was a factor in strengthening specific parts of the bill.

When, in 1957, compromise legislation was enacted, our union began working on behalf of consumer-protective regulations and for adequate appropriations. We continue in these efforts because we believe that we have a responsibility--as a union of food industry workers— to aid consumers. Also, we have a self-interest goal: Our members working in poultry plants are protected from illness if the plant is clean and the product is wholesome. Federal inspectors can assure this protective cleanliness and absence of disease far better than can the union grievance machinery.

We are proud of our work on behalf of this law, which has greatly benefited consumers, the industry, and poultry workers. However, the Poultry Products Inspection Act needs revision if it is to fully do the job for which it was intended.

The poultry inspection law necessarily was based on the then-existing Meat Inspection Act. It, therefore, has many of the problems of the old meat law, including the limitation of coverage to plants selling across State lines.

The effort to get any sort of mandatory Federal inspection of poultry was difficult enough. Inclusion of intrastate inspection-although perfectly constitutional-was legislatively impossible and would have probably prevented enactment of any legislation at all.

That was in 1955-57.

Attempting to increase the authority of the Federal inspection program concerning other areas would have had the same unfortunate results.

The Poultry Products Inspection Act was a great step forward in consumer protection, but it was a legislative compromise. Now, 10 years after it was enacted and 9 years after it went into compulsory effect, Congress and the industry have had adequate experience with poultry inspection, so that the consumer and worker protection can be increased.

The Poultry Products Inspection Act covers some 87 percent of all poultry slaughtered, eviscerated, and processed in the United States. That means more than 1 billion pounds of poultry processed and sold to consumers each year are outside this protective framework.

Most of the poultry which is not federally checked is not inspected at all. Only four States California, North Carolina, Illinois, and

Wyoming-have an active mandatory program in effect. But even these programs are not adequate. All have large categories of exemptions. California uses plant employees, including plant managers, as inspectors. And because of limitations on personnel, California, North Carolina, and Illinois do not always meet the requirement of their laws that each carcass be inspected.

Uninspected poultry is a danger to the health of consumers and poultry workers. In the early 1950's, when mandatory inspection was a controversial issue, much veterinary literature was written on the diseases which can be transmitted from poultry to man. Here are a few examples:

Dr. W. L. Ingalls, a noted poultry pathologist, said in a paper presented to the 87th Annual Meeting of American Veterinary Medical Association, August 21-24, 1950:

Twenty-six diseases reported as occurring in poultry and which also occur in human beings have been considered. Some of the diseases are of interest only from an academic standpoint; whereas others, such as salmonellosis, erysipelas, psittacosis, and possibly Newcastle disease—avien pneumoencephalitis-present a definite public health problem . . . it is quite apparent that a sufficient number of transmissible diseases can and do occur in poultry to make poultry meat inspection desirable and imperative.

These diseases from poultry pose greater dangers to man than those from other mammals, according to an article by Dr. C. A. Brandly of the Department of Veterinary Science and Agricultural Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin. In his Poultry Diseases as Public Health Problems, Public Health Reports, May 25, 1951, he concluded:

Full scale efforts to discourage marketing of questionable or sick fowl, by rigid ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection, must precede and accompany ́ well-planned and persistent programs to eradicate the avian reservoirs of infection.

"Fowls are by far the main animal reservoir of organisms affecting man," researchers have found, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture poultry pathologist, Dr. P. J. Brandly. Writing in the January 1948 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, he also said that as early as 1939, another scientist found that "poultry constituted the greatest reservoir of paratyphoid infection among domestic animals in the United States."

The carcasses of dressed birds often contain myriads of pathogenic organisms which are introduced into the kitchen with the carcasses; and knives, sinks, pans, hands, towels, et cetera, are contaminated by these disease germs. In preparing chicken salad, cold chicken sandwiches, et cetera, these organisms may again be introduced into the edible product, and cases of food poisoning or infection are the result. Frequent cases of food poisoning from turkey dinners are due to the introduction of these pathogenic organisms from the birds into the dressing.

The poultry worker is especially exposed to disease transmitted from poultry. Two of the more common diseases are Newcastle disease, an infection of the eyes, and psittacosis-parrot fever-an influenza-like illness. Before mandatory inspection, the former was fairly prevalent among poultry workers. And the latter occurred cyclically and sometimes had deadly results.

In early 1956, for example, psittacosis swept through three poultry plants, a rendering plant, and two farms near Portland, Oreg., and

left death and serious illness in its wake. Two persons died after being in contact with psittacosis-bearing fowls. Of 62 other persons who were taken ill, 24 required hospitalization.

The disease hit two flocks of breeding turkeys, totaling 10,000 birds. It first spread to humans on the turkey farms. From there, the turkeys carried it to the rendering plant and the processing plants. Many of the workers taken ill were members of our union.

Federal inspection has cut down the outbreaks. But we suspect that some still do occur in some uninspected plants. We do not have hard information since we have not kept a strict watch on reports of illness, as we used to, and most of our members work in inspected plants. There are three types of poultry inspection bills before the subcommittee. They are:

(a) H.R. 14741, by Representative Rogers C. B. Morton; and an identical measure by Representative William V. Roth, Jr.

A companion bill was first introduced by Senator Williams of Delaware.

(b) H.R. 15146, by Representatives Graham Purcell, Neal Smith, Thomas S. Foley, and John G. Dow; an identical bill by Joseph P. Vigorito; and an almost identical measure by Representative Leonor K. Sullivan; and

(c) H.R. 15154, by Representative W. R. Poage.

H.R. 15154 is an inadequate bill, in our opinion. It is based on the original House-passed meat inspection bill and has all the problems which that measure contained. It would provide funds for State inspection, but would not require such programs or set adequate standards for them.

H.R. 14741 would extend Federal inspection to all plants slaughtering, eviscerating, or processing poultry for human food. We favor such a provision, since it would assure that within a half year all plants would be under the same law and the same regulations. It would provide more uniformity of inspection than is otherwise possible. In this highly competitive industry, in which 1 cent a pound in price can make a big difference, uniformity is highly desirable.

But H.R. 14741 would not extend the Federal program's authority in any other way. It would not modernize the program. It would not increase labeling authority. It would not close an exemption loophole in the present law, under which 1 percent of poultry, or some 100 million pounds live weight, annually escape inspection.

H.R. 15146 follows the Wholesome Meat Act. Unlike H.R. 14741, it would modernize the poultry inspection program. It would provide inspection for intrastate plants by requiring States to enforce programs at least equal in consumer protection to the Federal; one within two or in some cases, three-years after enactment. Otherwise, the Federal Government would take over the inspection of the intrastate plants in that State.

The best bill, in our opinion, would be a combination of the coverage provision of H.R. 14741 and the modernizing provisions of H.R. 15146. But if we must choose between the two measures which were introduced, we would pick H.R. 15146. It is a more complete bill.

But we should like to strongly urge some changes in H.R. 15146. They are:

1. New section 5(c) (5) should be deleted. It would permit Stateinspected plants to ship into interstate commerce.

In other words, plants that are only under State inspection, under no other inspection-only under State inspection-under that provision would be allowed to ship across State lines.

The provision is rather ironic, for while the State authorities were so loud in complaining about alleged Federal poaching on their preserve, they are delighted to do so on the Federal one.

But there is more involved here than simply bureaucratic empire building. The rationale for section 5(c) (5) is that the bill provides that State programs be "at least equal" to the Federal program. It, therefore, is said to make no difference whether State or Federal inspection occurs.

Unfortunately, that will not be true in actual practice.

The at least equal formula probably goes as far as Congress can in the search for equal protection. But the requirement will not necessarily provide equal enforcement in practice. There will be variations in regulations and in enforcement from State to State and between States and the Federal program.

The tremendous pressures which are specially exerted on a State level will not always be withstood. The variations will cause some unfair competition, and it will be increased if State plants are allowed to ship into interstate commerce.

Any and all plants which ship into interstate commerce or to federally inspected plants can and should get Federal inspection. If the line between Federal and State programs, between interstate and intrastate plants, is to be erased, then we suggest that the intrastate plants be brought under Federal inspection rather than interstate plants being brought under State programs which have yet to prove themselves.

The fact is that there is unlikely to be many State poultry inspection programs. There are too few States which have a sufficient number of intrastate plants to make it worthwhile to establish an inspection program. We regard section 5 (c) (5) to be aimed not so much at poultry inspection, but rather to provide a wedge for reopening the meat inspection law.

2. Because the mass of the poultry industry is concentrated in comparatively few areas of the Nation and because few States will probably go to the expense of establishing a program, we suggest that the bill contain a State waiver provision. This section would allow the Governor or the elected State secretary of agriculture to indicate to the Federal Government that the State will not provide inspection and ask the Federal program to inspect its intrastate plants.

As a result, consumers could be protected before the 2-year period runs out. There is no reason why preparation for inspection and the inspection, itself, should wait 2 years if the State does not intend to establish a poultry inspection program.

3. Even the waiver may not be adequate to speed poultry inspection in those States which will not establish programs. It is possible that a Governor or State secretary of agriculture may not plan to undertake the expense of a program because of the small number of poultry plants in the State, but they may find it politically impossible to ask

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