The Cyberactivist

I read an article this morning that was in
USA Today entitled, "Food safety chief
scolds inspectors" that I thought I should
bring attention to. Basically the top guy was
chewing out the inspectors for allowing the
industry to run roughshod over them and
stifle all attempts to enforce the regulations.

That, and yesterday's post, reminded me of
several attempts made by me and another
worker to test the inspectors to see if they
were really very diligent in finding violations.

I once stuck my hand in the blood and smeared
it on the wall up as high as I could reach just to
see how long it would be before someone did
something about it. It dried and flaked off. No
one ever said a word. It took it about 3 weeks
to do that. No inspector ever said anything.

I also once took a severed head and put it in
the little box with the thermostat to see how
long that would take. It laid there until the
maggots ate it up. No one ever did anything
about it either, even though everybody on back
dock and everybody that walked back there saw
it. You couldn't help but see it if you walked
into the hanging cage. Again, no inspector
found a thing.

One time a Mexican guy named Hermillio was
talking to me and another guy about the poor
sanitation in the plant and the failure of the
inspectors to do anything about it. I told him,
"I bet you could spread sh*t on the walls and
they would never notice it."

He said, "Let's find out." So, he went into the
bathroom, took a dump, got a stick, picked up
a turd, and smeared it on the wall of the break
room. Yes, it stayed there until it flaked and fell
off. Yet again, no inspector said or did a thing.

What passed for an inspection of back dock
when I was there was for the inspector to walk
through at break time or stand around in the
back dock break room for a few minutes, then
leave. This is the only place inside the building
for them to smoke, so they would stand in the
break room to do that, then move on. That
was the extent of the inspection. I have seen
them do that and sign off on it. I would testify
to that in court.

Inspections are a joke because the industry
intimidates the inspectors. They even sue them
personally for lost production time if they think
they can get away with it. Check out the article.
Even the head guy knows there are problems.