Photo credit: Juan Miguel Martinez
Controversy continued at Franklin’s Strauss meat packing plant last Wednesday, August 26, when PETA arrived. In the background are accusations of disregard for humanity and workers’ rights when Strauss, earlier this summer, terminated 29 employees after they asked for proper PPE as well as 6 feet of distancing when working. Walter Garron, former union representative for workers in meat packing plants in Wisconsin, took part in the August 26 protest.
Photo credit: Juan Miguel Martinez
“They are slaughtering milking cows and labeling them as grass fed beef. The workers are instructed to pull lamb and sheep off of trucks by hand and load into the factory entrance,” he told me, contradicting statements on the company’s website asserting “humane raising standards” for its “grass fed beef” and “pasture raised veal.” He joined the picket led by Jonathan Horn, a campaign worker for PETA. “Strauss is posing a threat not only to the animals they kill, but to its workers by continuing to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. PETA is here to encourage them to switch to more compassionate and healthy vegan options,” Horn added.
The demonstration outside of Strauss had about 15 participants, two of them dressed in death’s robes and skull masks, holding sickles. The idea of the costumes is to “haunt” the plant, with the reminder that bad practices in the meat industry can lead to death among its employees as well as inhumane conditions in which the animals are slaughtered. Protesters wearing “Animal Markets Breed Disease” face masks held posters proclaiming, “Strauss Brands: Stop Killing Animals and Workers.”
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According to the press release from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk, which indicts the meat industry in general, “Filthy, wet, blood and offal-soaked slaughterhouses are breeding grounds for deadly diseases that jump from animals to humans—they're the least safe workplaces in the world, even when there's not a pandemic raging. Working shoulder to shoulder in a slaughterhouse endangers everyone.”
PETA also notes that confining and killing animals for food has been linked to SARS, swine flu, bird flu and COVID-19—and a new strain of swine flu with “pandemic potential” is now spreading from pigs to humans in China. Recently, PETA purchased stock in major U.S. and Canadian slaughter companies to urge them to produce and pack exclusively vegan meats.
The messages on the sickles wielded by protestors in Franklin read “Slaughterhouses kill animals and workers.” Garron told me he will join any and all strikes against Strauss, because of their recent track record.
