open letter

395 Fountain Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11208

June 1, 2011

Donnie Smith
President and Chief Executive Officer
2545 E OZARK AVE
GASTONIA, NC 28054-1423

Dear CEO Donnie Smith,
Hey there, I’m a 19 year old teen born and raised New York but also grew up on a farm as a kid in Honduras a little country in Central America. I am writing to you because I recently discovered how all your meat products are made and packaged and I was complete repulsed by the idea. I personally believe that the way your company has run for all these years is completely appalling with all the drugs that your workers put into the animals its inhuman and cruelty towards animals and the mistreatment of the farmers that are used in order for your companies process to work. I grew up on a farm raising chickens, cows, pigs, with my family and it was a smooth process on a 30 by 300 feet farm. All organized and treated are animals right growing them naturally until they were a good size to be eaten by everyone. No injections or antibiotics or anything else that they say is put into your company’s meat. Everyone would work on a specific animal for the day and they would always be treated with respect just like everyone else who worked on the farm. ““They are bred and drugged to grow so large so quickly that their legs and organs can’t keep up, making heart attacks, organ failure, and crippling leg deformities common. Many become crippled under their own weight and eventually die because they can’t reach the water nozzles.” If this were to happen to a dog or a cat people would be outraged about this statement, but since it’s just a chicken some people don’t care about what happens to them. The bottom line is, despite what animal it is, this is a form of animal cruelty”. (Brittney Pulce 1) In an article by Brittany Pulce she herself talks about the idea of animal cruelty and even though your company says they do not drug their animals it is everywhere that your company still does in order to rapid the growth of the animals but also due to all of those animals death at the same time it’s also doing a very large amount of damage to the environment and yet the company refuses to step up and take responsibility for their company’s main issues. Even if I grew up eating all of those processed meat sold by your company I still can’t get over the fact of it being drugs in the food and the cruelty done to your animals.
All the workers disserve to be like that animals and taken care of. But the way your farmers are treated and workers is complete cruelty, I believe it should stop and lot of changes should be made in the method used in your company. Your workers are over worked stressed and have no health insurance yet they suffer and mistreated worst then anything other job out there. Your company’s “employee’s” all disserve to be treated fairly and paid an equal rate instead of under minimum wage just because they are not citizens it still isn’t right on the pressure and amount of work put on one employee. They health issue is an even bigger problem because your works medical issues are mostly unreported and suffer serious illnesses, injuries even death and yet they aren’t even insured enough. No matter who it is that works for any company the health issues done to a human life is really serious that just proves the greed and insecurity a company lies on now a day. No one disserves that kind of cruelty in Kentucky OSHA Widens Tyson Probe. (Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigates Tyson’s Foods)(Brief Article) by Nash, James L, he talks about worker is and the horrors of the slaughter houses and what happens to an employee can easily be killed at work and yet the company doesn’t really do much to even help. It seriously sickens me to know that the life of another person can mean nothing to a large cooperation. Its seriously just not right for anyone even their family aren’t support at all even if the workers worked over 40 hours also its just insane in cruelty.
What also bothers me is that due to all the drugs injected to all the animals hasn’t started a large epidemic in society yet. Why does the company refuse to see or accept the fact that due to all the consumption of all your customers eating the meat with all those antibiotics can have a negative effect on everyone? “Crowding allows animals to easily share diseases, many of them able to spread to people. The factory owners use antibiotics to try to suppress the disease outbreaks in the facilities but many of the bacteria that cause the infections are able to adapt to these drugs forcing the animal industry to add ever more and different antibiotics to the feed of the cattle, pigs and chickens in these facilities. Some diseases like “mad cow disease” are spread by viruses, not bacteria and antibiotics do not affect viruses.” In an article in Great Health Connections they explain how the epidemic years ago started and how it spreads around. Yet I don’t see why doesn’t the company finally stand up and take charge and become responsible for all these problems which causes society to worry and not trust any food company for example like your Tyson’s.

I don’t like the idea on a company’s cruelty just because they have all their money and can. With all the money a company like Tyson makes they should be more responsible and change the methods used. All change doesn’t hurt anyone besides what would change if a company finally decided to get up and make a change their customers and everyone in society would believe that its finally time for a change and to know if a company as big as Tyson decided to change and help, What does the company have to lose anyways is what I’m asking you? I’m just being honest on my opinion and I know something needs to be done soon before something serious and epidemic start. Help all your workers yourself and do the country a favor and finally do the right thing.
Sincerely,
Fredy Alvarez