I’m glad Sen. Kennedy is speaking up, but I wonder what he had for lunch. A lot of us are complicit in paying others to do the dirty work for us. I buy chicken labeled “organic” but am not totally sure what that means for the chickens or the workers. Are we all going to go vegan? As nice as it sounds, I don’t think so, and conditions for farm workers in the fields are not so great either.

Anna,

“Organic” refers only to what the chicken was fed, not how it was treated.

“Free range” is a label often sought by people troubled by the thought of a living, breathing, sentient beings trapped together in cages so tightly they can’t stretch or turn around. For most of their lives. But it’s not much more than a label. http://tinyurl.com/2dcl6f

This site has a lot of information about chickens. http://www.upc-online.org/ .

The woman who runs it was featured last year on NPR’s “This American Life” with Ira Glass. He visited her sanctuary, thinking he’d have another tale of eccentricity to feature on his popular program. As he later explained to David Letterman, though, the experience made him a vegetarian. He was willing to look.

Understandably, many of us don’t want to look, but I wish we Unitarian Universalists would take our “…RESPONSIBLE search for truth” a little more seriously.

One thing that doesn’t get talked about much in the whole “immigration” discussion is that major slaughterhouses are very much benefiting from the labor of illegal immigrants. These used to be jobs that were unionized, and the workers made decent, middle class wages - employers were held accountable to meet health and safety requirements, and pay workers for injury, etc. Over the last two to three decades, that has largely evaporated.

I would like to know how these corporations are even getting away with hiring illegal immigrants in the first place. Oh wait, it’s probably got something to do with money! And just in case John McCain is listening: yes, these are jobs that US citizens would do - they DID for many years!

Please do not in any way interpret this as a slam against illegal immigrants/undocumented workers. They are just being used by companies that don’t want to pay fair wages or keep their workers safe.

At the risk of going on too long in the comments section, I offer this site about working conditions for farmworkers:
http://www.nfwm.org/fw/fwconditions.shtml
I know there are many reasons to be revolted about cruelty to animals on farms. In our concern for animals and our search for truth, I hope we don’t forget that many of the PEOPLE who make it possible for us to eat vegan are paid poorly, treated inhumanely, and are exposed to chemicals that shorten their lives.