![]() Photograph: Dan Brouillette/The Guardianīut Tom Cullen of the Iowa newspaper the Storm Lake Times revealed that birds at Rembrandt were culled using a system known as ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+) in which air is closed off to the barns and heat pumped in until the temperature rises above 104F (40C). Oscar Garcia, a former plant supervisor at Rembrandt Foods. Chicken farms have previously slaughtered hens en masse by suffocating them with foam or pumping barns full of carbon dioxide, methods that have been criticized as inhumane. Outside criticism of Rembrandt has focused on the method of killing. Then they’re thrown out of work and no one speaks for them.” “They couldn’t protest because then they’d be fired and lose their redundancy pay. But chickens are chickens, right? People worked in those barns pulling out dead birds in terrible conditions, faeces everywhere, doing 12- or 14-hour days. “We get it: it was really inhumane the way they killed them. “Right now everybody’s worried about the chickens,” said Oscar Garcia, a former supervisor at the plant. Others fired from the plant contrast the seriousness with which the bird flu outbreak has been taken by Rembrandt’s management to what they describe as the company’s lax approach to the threat to workers from Covid, as it swept through factory farms and slaughterhouses in Iowa and elsewhere. But few voices have been raised in support of Rembrandt’s workers, some of them undocumented migrants. In the weeks that followed, animal rights protesters targeted Rembrandt’s billionaire owner, Glen Taylor, over the cull, including disrupting games played by the professional basketball team he owns, the Minnesota Timberwolves. The killing over, about 250 people were summarily thrown out of work with just a few dozen skeleton staff remaining. Workers spent nearly a month pulling the dead poultry from the cages and dumping them in carts before they were piled high in nearby fields and buried in huge pits. ![]() The slaughter of 5.3m hens at Rembrandt is the largest culling at any factory farm in the country. More than 22m birds have been killed in an attempt to contain the outbreak – the majority in Iowa, the US’s biggest producer of eggs. In the end the committee backed council staff who said that Kates Way did not fit within the council's naming policy, as Kate Sheppard did not have an association with the area.The culling has been repeated at chicken and turkey farms across Iowa and 28 other states from Maine to Utah. The merits of the name Kates Way had prompted disagreement among councillors, some saying people would not make the connection to Kate Sheppard without the inclusion of a last name.Ĭrs Andrew Noone and and Mike Lord felt the street should be able to be named Kates Way.Īt one point, committee chairwoman Kate Wilson joked she would have to remove herself from the debate.Ĭr Neville Peat, who confessed to being a pedant, felt the lack of apostrophe would further contribute to a proliferation of poor punctation. It was frustrating that such ''trivial'' matters had to be discussed at a standing committee meeting.Ĭr John Bezett also welcomed the review, saying he was sick of the ''silly debate'' that happened every time street naming was discussed. Mr Cummings argued naming the street Kates Way would recognise suffragist movement leader Kate Sheppard.ĭunedin Mayor Dave Cull said it was pleasing the bylaw on street names was being reviewed, but the important thing was that future decisions be left to staff. In the end, developer Pat Cummings did not get his way, with councillors voting in favour of a staff recommendation to name the street Kew Place instead. ![]() The concern over the amount of time spent on the issue was raised during a debate at Tuesday's infrastructure services committee over whether a street in a subdivision should be called Kates Way. Dunedin City councillors are sick of spending their time on a ''silly debate'' over street names.
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