If California can do it for chicken eggs, why can’t we do it for all goods sold in America?
The Oct 4 print copy of the New York Times Business section has the report (on-line) on the recent United States District Court ruling by Judge Kimberly Mueller in favor of a California law.
Fig 1: Chicken Factory – products banned in California
California had passed a law that all eggs sold there had to be from chickens living in a volume large enough to stand, lie down, turn around, and stretch wings to the fullest extent.
If the hens were in tighter confinement, their products (eggs) could not be sold in California. Fig 1 shows such a “factory farm,” source is http://www.farmsanctuary.org/ To Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, Oklahoma, Iowa and Nebraska, this constituted a horrible attack on their businesses; Missouri filed suit, the others joined as oppressed brethren.
Judge Mueller dismissed the suit, writing
“It is patently clear plaintiffs are bringing this action on behalf of a subset of each state’s egg farmers.”
Near the end of the article, the NYT says
“California voters approved a 2008 ballot measure that required pigs, calves, and egg-laying hens to be raised with enough space…”
We strongly support of California on this. Speaking for myself, I have not had veal since leaning how calves were raised, decades ago. We buy eggs produced locally, from farms that raise their chickens humanely.
At the end of the NYT report: “California legislators later expanded the law to ban the sale of eggs in the state from any hens that were not raised in compliance with its animal care standards.”
It was its last sentence of the report that caught my eye.
Fig 2: 13 yr old worker
Previously, we posted Can We Stop Using Slave Labor? about the U.S. businesses relying on near-serfs, uncomplaining slave-like laborers in the off-shore factories that make products for the U.S. market.
We proposed the idea of “right-tariffing” – doing what we must to assure that all products sold here were made in facilities that meet or exceed U.S. standards, such as our OSHA rules. (Fig 2 is of a 13 year old factory worker, source: DailyMail). We believe that this would bring manufacturing jobs back to the American homeland.
The post had 2 comments, both positive, why only two? I guess the idea stated directly– goods for sale should be made to local standards, at least –sounds too radical.
Fig 3: Happy hen watching from grassland
» But California’s law does exactly this – in demanding humanitarian treatment of food animals they are implementing what I proposed for imported goods.
Last comment: until we institute such a national policy, we will see economic life support fail for our countrymen making at, or less than median wages
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Charles J. Armentrout, Ann Arbor
2014 Oct 04
Listed under Economics
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