HBO Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Chickens (HBO)

[gpatt0n]

	Published on May 17, 2015 John Oliver explains how chicken farming can be unfair, punishing, and inhumane. And not just for the chickens!
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[surepip]

This is a very, very poorly done segement, even if done as a satire skit.

 

The Growers can opt out of their contract if they find the work does not suit them. It is my experience some growers burn out after awhile and should, if they can, walk away from it. That will generally mean selling the chicken houses.

 

I do know virtually every chicken complex in the county has "growers to be" lined up waiting in the wings.

 

I know there are a lot of 2nd, and even 3rd generation growers.

 

Tournament challenges are common at many businesses. Sales Call Centers often pit the employees against each other with various incintives.

 

Botton line for the grower-integrator relationships, is the integrators takes the chances and gambles rolling the dice a particular grower will bring in a good flock they can make money on, and that the price of the chicken meat stays at a sufficient level to offset any increases in feed prices.

 

2007 to 2014 we had about 50% of the industry in bankrupty because of the ethanol industry driving the price of corn from $3.50 to $8.50+. The integrator takes all the risks for the feed and pricing.

 

And diseases. And any medications for diseases.

 

And last I heard all the growers are guarranteed a mininum that will cover their bank notes and put food on the table. Most families do have 1 of the parents working an 8 to 5 to have that secure income with health insurance, etc.

 

Here are comments from "The Meating Place", an industry blog.....

 

 

John Oliver is a British political satirist, writer, producer, television host, actor, voice actor, media critic, and stand-up comedian. He might also be someone for the chicken industry to reckon with.

In his weekly show “Last Week Tonight” he delivered an 18-minute monologue about the chicken industry tournament system relationship with its contract growers.

“Chicken farming can be almost as brutal for the farmers as it is for the chickens. Here's our piece from last night. ” was the message the show posted on Twitter promoting the segment, which aired Sunday night.

Though technically a satire, the report was formatted like a news story, replete with video clips of congressional hearings, industry events and chicken farmers talking about their financial difficulties. It ended with a call to action, encouraging viewers to push their legislators to support failed legislation offered by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) that aimed to protect farmers who speak out against the current system, if the legislation is reintroduced.

The report has already been picked up by a number of media and blog outlets, including Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Time, The Wall Street Journal and Slate, among others.

Industry response

“This segment, unfortunately, presents a completely one-sided view of U.S. poultry production and is not an accurate reflection of the overwhelming majority of the 25,000 farm families who partner with chicken companies,” according to a statement issued by the National Chicken Council. The NCC has also pointed to its own document explaining the tournament system.

The NCC cited a University of Delaware survey stating that 75 percent of farmers were satisfied in their relationship with the chicken company, and 73 percent were satisfied with business overall. Most companies have contracted with farmers for 12+ years on average, if not several generations, and maintain waiting lists of farmers who want to raise chickens for them.

According to NCC, the system insulates farmers from the risk of changing market prices for chicken and feed ingredients such as corn and soybean meal, which represent the vast majority of the cost of growing a chicken.

 

 

http://www.chickenroost.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/NCC_Issue-Brief_Tournament-System.pdf

[gpatt0n]

Surepip:

 

The idea that the conglomerates are intimidating dissatisfied growers and punishing them, not for producing chickens, but for complaining is presumably a free-speech issue.

 

I think the elephant in the room is that personal issues probably are at the root as one person, in a position of power, uses the system (games the system) to punish another for a totally unrelated event ...

 

Example: The growers son allegedly knocked up the daughter of the guy who determines the grades of chickens that the grower gets and therefore impacts his ability to compete.) Since the grower reports to the guy who gamed the system in retribution, there is no recourse.

 

So, from what I gathered from the story, is that the issue is not so much the structure of the competition but rather the ability of individuals charged with administering the competition to skew the results for reasons beyond the ability of the grower to respond.

 

We all know that the contracts the growers sign with the integrators remove much of their ability to sue and/or seek redress from government for what they perceive as injustices. Being denied access to the court through contracts - something many consumers feel in regard to credit card companies and retailers (mandatory arbitration) - and coupling that with rules that punish those who speak up tilt what presumably would be a level playing field.

 

You know as well as I do that opening the issues to the courts or to the Congress - i.e. providing them access to government for redress of grievances - is probably not going to result in much more than the opportunity to litigate. Litigation will not happen except in the most egregious cases that ought to be exposed. (If growers are under financial stress, they don't have the million dollars to litigate a Tyson on some frivolous charge.)

 

Bottom line, the message I got from the story is that this is a first amendment issue and that the contracts prevent redress of grievances in court because, presumably, the contracts that are in place prohibit litigation and that allows some bad players to game the system for potentially personal reasons.

 

pubby

[surepip]

No Pubby it does not work that way.

 

Our integrators are very much ISO divided into areas of responsibility.

 

The Live production side is who the grower works for.

 

The killing plant/processor is who determines the growers success, or lack there of.

 

The top management of each group might ride upstairs on the elevator together, but don't know each other's first name.

 

The system show tonnage of feed, number of chicks delivered, early mortality of chicks, late mortality of chicks, and any other unusual or normal problems.

 

When the catch the birds and take them to the processing plant, they are weighed on their way in. We are talking 10,000 to 50,000 chickens at 7-8 pounds each livewieght. Some extremely large numbers.

 

The formulas then come down to a cost per ton, not per pound; and how they stack up against the guys who got birds from the same hatchery, same breeder farm, same everything that same day.

 

To game this system as you suggest would be hard.

 

From my experience, it is either the JOB ended up being alot more work that that specific farm family expected, or they burned out, or, hey.....it happens,.....they just are not that good at growing chickens. Bad Judgement, bad Luck, bad flip of the coin. It all can add up to bad results.

 

They really have to get horrible to be fired. To the point of costing the integrator more than they can afford to lose on one flock after another. Or flocks that come in so conatminated with Salnmonella they have to be destroyed. The integrators work with the growers as much as they can, plus some, trying to make them successful. A happy grower brings in good results.

 

A typical complex has 175 to 200 growers. Andother 10 pullet houses for the breeder hens to live in for 20 weeks, and another 20 breeder houses to product the ferticle eggs.

 

With a list of 10-20 more who would like to grow for them.

 

Some are better than others.....some worse, and some, just depending on where they are who come in with the Average. I know of Pilgrim growers in Virginia who HATE them......and others here and in Alabama who LOVE them. Yet 5 miles down the road is a Tyson complex where everyone is best buddies. Each complex is stand alone. I really thing it is a people ....management-labor situation, but the contracts are written to provide lots of outs for the grower.

[gpatt0n]

Even if the system is near perfect as you say, that is no reason to deny the growers access to the courts or intimidate them into silence through contract provision.

 

In an industry as large as the poultry industry, you can't tell me that there is not some butt hole out there figuring some angle, whether it is to get his brother in law in the business by bankrupting another and plotting to buy that property at auction and a discount ... I think what we see here is the difficulty when you mix a private business (farming) with contract labor in which both parties seek the greatest profit from their venture.

 

pubby

 

PS: I think what Oliver really stumbled into is a labor dispute that involves contract labor agreements with people who have a stake in the game - the capital investment in chicken houses who find they can't act like labor and organize because if they went on strike, those who didn't would reap all the rewards.

[surepip]

Even if the system is near perfect as you say, that is no reason to deny the growers access to the courts or intimidate them into silence through contract provision.

 

In an industry as large as the poultry industry, you can't tell me that there is not some butt hole out there figuring some angle, whether it is to get his brother in law in the business by bankrupting another and plotting to buy that property at auction and a discount ... I think what we see here is the difficulty when you mix a private business (farming) with contract labor in which both parties seek the greatest profit from their venture.

 

pubby

 

PS: I think what Oliver really stumbled into is a labor dispute that involves contract labor agreements with people who have a stake in the game - the capital investment in chicken houses who find they can't act like labor and organize because if they went on strike, those who didn't would reap all the rewards.

No Puibby, you need to look a lot closer at the relationship between the integrator and the growers.

 

In my 38 years, visiting one hell of a lot of farms, spending a great deal of time with the 4Integrator managers [breeder Manager, Hatchery Manager, and Grow Out Manager, along with the Live Production Manager] they tend to have a very close freindly relationship with their growers. They used to be welcome visitors to the hatcheries, often coming by to eat lunch with the manager, or a beer in the parking lot after work. The BioSecurity issues have pretty much stopped that sort of deal.

 

But I find many that go out to dinner, visit at birthdays, etc. Remember in a well run operation they are much more of a Partnership than a worker/management situation.

 

Also, when thinking "Strike Threats", it is the integrator who take 95% of the risks, and still covers the grower for the other 5%.

 

The problems, when they occur is generally more directed at a newish grower family who did not realize how much work it would be. It is very much like a paper route, expect 24-7 when they have birds on the farm. Wven with all the automated equipment, basically someone needs to be there all the time. Power outage that doesn't kick in a stand by generator, well pump burn out, etc. mush be addressed at once. In the summer all the birds could die in a matter of minutes.

 

Literally, if mom and dad are out to Red Lobster for dinner, and none of the kids are home when a thunderstorm comes through, they have to leave and go check the birds.

 

Every upgrade I have ever had to deal with, when the integrator insists the grower add equipment, or a new something, they work with them as to how it will be paid for, and what the payback for them will be.

 

When we first started placing our egg santizers at the breeder farms where the hatching eggs come from in the mid 1990s, there was grumbling about have to buy this $10,000 machine to clean and sanitize the eggs. Next visit to that farm, Mrs.Brown gave my associate Uri a great big kiss, and thanked him profusely for pushing the issue with the sanitizer. They had eaten dinner before dark every night since installing the machine, saving them 3-4 hours of work per day. Her husband has since died, but she is still running that farm with 2 breeder houses with some of her grand children's help.

 

The unfortunate part as i pointed out before is if the grower wants to quit, he basically has to either sell the farm, or find someone to run the houses the integrator approves of. The bank note for the houses won't allow him to just say I Quit.