The American Association of Meat Processors has contacted the House and Senate Agriculture Committees concerning the abuse of overtime by inspectors at small and very small meat plants. AAMP asked the Committees, which oversee Food Safety and Inspection Service operations, to investigate the abuse of overtime by FSIS that unfairly forces small and very small plant owners to pay overtime to the Agency and inspectors. If federal law requires tax-funded inspection of meat plants, then why does FSIS allow inspectors to amass overtime, other than during legitimate situations, such as holidays? The Agency says it has reclaimed authority that it gave away years ago to the inspectors' union. When AAMP asked about the overtime issue, FSIS said it has “higher priorities” at this time. It looks to us like FSIS management is still not in charge of its workers.

AAMP noted that the overtime situation has forced many small plants to drop inspection, and operate under retail-exemption. “Operating outside of inspection on a retail basis certainly does not help to make American food safer,” AAMP said. Many small plants operate under a “patrol” system, where an inspector covers four or five plants a day. The inspector may not be in the plant when processing operations, or removing a product from cooking, is being done during regular daytime hours. But if an operator wants to remove product from a smokehouse at night, the inspector demands a “two-hour callback,” meaning the plant will have to pay at least two hours of overtime, even though the inspector is just watching the product being removed from the oven. In most cases, equipment is already recording the temperature. The job of the inspector is to check the records, which he could do the next morning at the plant.

HACCP is supposed to allow processors to operate whenever they want. This was promised by FSIS when the HACCP regulation was published eight years ago. What has evolved instead is a system that is costing small plants huge amounts of money annually, and forcing many of them either out of business, or out of inspection.