The next chicken you eat could take a detour to China before ending up at your local grocery store—unless you help Roger Simmermaker, president of IAM Local 610 of Cape Canaveral, FL, stop a bad idea in its tracks.
A post on Simmermaker’s “How Americans Can Buy American” blog exposes a recent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) decision to allow four Chinese poultry processers to “import raised and slaughtered U.S. chicken, process it, and then export it back to America to your favorite grocery store.” Click here to read the whole post.
Food safety standards in China are suspect at best, and its chicken products have been notoriously questionable. A recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation found that Chinese chicken jerky treats caused the death of more than 500 dogs in the U.S.
Simmermaker also writes that “no country-of-origin labels are required, so American consumers will have no idea if the chicken they’re buying was sent to China and back first or safely stayed only in America.”
Currently, the IAM represents employees at the Foster Farms chicken processing plant in Livingston, CA. If business practices such as this are allowed, good-paying U.S. jobs will keep going overseas because of bad economic policies that help corporations and harm American workers.
Simmermaker is starting a White House petition to stop this reckless idea before it becomes reality. The White House “We the People” petition requires 100,000 signatures in 30 days to get recognized.
Click here to sign the petition to protect American jobs.
