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Don't help DeCoster

Letters to the Portland Phoenix Editor, May 6, 2011
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS  |  May 4, 2011

Thank you for your recent article regarding GOP representative Dale Crafts's outrageous bill that would absolve Jack DeCoster's factory farms of requirements to pay minimum wage and overtime to their workers, and allow collective bargaining. (See "GOP Lawmakers Want To Do DeCoster 'A Favor,'" by Colin Woodard, April 29.) DeCoster's egg factory farms have collected numerous labor, safety, health, and environmental violations in the past four decades, and Mercy For Animals' undercover investigation at a DeCoster factory farm in Maine exposed egregious animal abuse that resulted in DeCoster's guilty plea to ten counts of cruelty to animals.

Mercy For Animals' undercover footage shows workers throwing live hens into trash cans, hens suffering broken bones and festering wounds, and workers slaughtering sick or injured birds by grabbing their necks and swinging them around. As in most factory farms, these hens were confined in cages so small they were unable to fully stretch their wings and were denied everything that comes naturally to them. DeCoster's unspeakable cruelty certainly does not merit a legislative favor.

Eddie Garza
New York Campaign Coordinator
Mercy For Animals

Related: GOP lawmakers want to do DeCoster 'a favor', Raising chickens within city limits, Review: Farmageddon, More more >
  Topics: Letters , eggs, farms, Dale Crafts,  More more >
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[ 05/29 ]   Brad Hooper  @ Andy's Old Port Pub
[ 05/29 ]   karaoke with DJ Ponyfarm  @ Slainte
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 See all articles by: PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS



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