The federal government is doing too little to protect family livestock producers, according to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. He sent a letter to U.S. Ag Secretary Ann Veneman this week, urging her to re-examine how the meatpacking industry is regulated. Harkin says big packers are hurting family farmers through their unfair and anti-competitive conduct.Harkin says “The U-S-D-A, I believe, has had an abysmal record in the past on enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act. They failed to initiate any regulations in nearly three years. They haven’t even filed one complaint against meatpackers for anti-competitive conduct last year.” Harkin says there is a critical need for a strong enforcement and regulatory system.Harkin says the U-S-D-A needs to put teeth into enforcing laws on the books, adding, the “laws created to protect the interest of our family farmers and consumers must be enforced, not ignored.” On another issue, Harkin says he’ll offer an amendment on the Senate floor today that would prevent the Bush Administration from enacting policy Harkin says would keep millions of workers from earning overtime pay. Harkin, a Democrat, says passage of the Bush plan would injure families and further harm the nation’s economy. He says up to eight-million workers, earning as little as 22-thousand-100 dollars a year, would be ineligible for overtime pay, losing up to 25-percent of their wages. Harkin says exempting those workers from earning overtime won’t keep them from trying to earn more money by working the extra hours, but they won’t be able to take home as much when they do.Harkin says “Under President Bush’s wrong-headed leadership, we’ve lost three-point-one million private sector jobs,” and he fears more jobs will be lost under what he calls the Republican administration’s “malpractice.” For the workers who would lose overtime pay, Harkin says “They’ll work longer, get paid less and be away from their families more.”
