Not Enough Meat Inspectors - But Plenty of Managers

Stanley Painter, Chairman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Local Unions stated that the recent massive U. S. beef recall, prompted by Humane Society video of the dragging of a “downer” cow to slaughter, is not a new or isolated incident of meat processing plants failing to follow regulations. He told the domestic policy panel of the U. S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that there are simply not enough field inspectors to do the job. In some instances he said inspectors of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) are assigned to as many as 24 plants over a territory too large to allow for the mandated daily inspections.

He also said that inspectors who do uncover violations and record them as required by their job, are often the target of retaliation within the FSIS. Further, he said that inspectors are sometimes directed not to record the violations to give the companies time to fix the problems.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), an investigative arm of Congress, indicates that the number of inspectors has declined since 1995 despite the fact that the FSIS budget has increased over that time. Painter said that instead of hiring inspectors they see more managers and that approximately 25% of the agency’s personnel are managers. Richard Raymond, Undersecretary for Food Safety at the Agriculture Department responds that the inspector role is understaffed, but that he has hired more and reduced the quantity of managers.