Day 094 - 01 Mar 95 - Page 58
1 Q. Is the Montfort company one of the ones that is involved in
2 that experiment?
3 A. I do not know.
4
5 Q. You do not know?
6 A. No.
7
8 Q. Was the purpose of the streamlined inspection system to
9 increase the productivity of beef plants?
10 A. It is not the intent of the -- it is not to increase
11 productivity of the meat plants. The intent of it is to
12 put more responsibility on the supplier to make sure that
13 that meat that he produces is wholesome as opposed to
14 depending on the inspectors to make that kind of decision,
15 and have that kind of responsibility. The methodology of
16 the test is that by streamlining they reduce the number of
17 inspectors and increase the number of persons responsible
18 on the plant to see what would happen if the number of
19 inspectors were to be reduced, have indicated that there is
20 no negative effect and it has nothing to do with increasing
21 the productivity of the plant in terms of volumes.
22
23 Q. So it has not had any effect of speeding up the lines or
24 the process at all?
25 A. I do not know if it had any effect or consistent or
26 significant effect on speeding up the line. That one I do
27 not know, but what I do know is that it has no significant
28 effect on the microbiological level of the carcasses.
29
30 Q. Which are the conditions that you know that are part of the
31 streamlined inspection system?
32 A. I do not remember exactly, but I am pretty sure that
33 all the big three were involved to some degree. I cannot
34 tell you for sure.
35
36 Q. Would you look at page 37 and read the last paragraph in
37 the left-hand column?
38 A. Yes.
39
40 Q. Have you seen a thing like that happen?
41 A. Absolutely not. It is a federal crime to do so. If a
42 person violates that it is a federal offence which is
43 punishable by severe penalty. You can even end up in
44 jail. The inspector is the only who can make that decision
45 on whether or not that meat is contaminated or not or to
46 decide whether or not it is wholesome, he is the only one.
47
48 Q. The paragraph that starts in the right-hand column just
49 above the black lines that go across the page, "observed
50 from the cat walk", if you just read from there onwards.
51 A. Yes.
52
53 Q. Have you seen that happening?
54 A. No, I have not. Again it is the same thing. Employees
55 cannot, they are very aware that they cannot do that. The
56 only person who has the authority to do that is the Federal
57 inspector.
58
59 Q. What about the four paragraphs following that?
60 A. The ones that start with "pool".
