ACTION ALERT * * * ACTION ALERT * * * ACTION ALERT
United Poultry Concerns
December 9, 1999

Attention All Humane Educators, Animal & Child Advocates
Film star Danny Glover needs to hear from you immediately!
Urge Danny Glover NOT to Participate in the Perdue
Farms "Masterpieces In Chicken" Exhibition
Children drawing pieces of dead chickens for
Perdue "nuggets" is child exploitation, not art

Contact: Danny Glover
c/o Michelle Bega
Rogers and Cowan
1888 Century Park East, Suite 500
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Fax 310-788-6600
Tel 310-201-8800
email

The Issue: A December news release from Perdue Farms announced a children's "art" exhibition January 12th to be co-hosted by Perdue chairman Jim Perdue and movie actor Danny Glover in New York City. Kids between the ages of three and twelve are to receive prizes for their drawings of chicken "nuggets" in connection with a Perdue marketing project in 2000 aimed at kids.

Actor Danny Glover, hailed by Perdue as a child advocate who "cares about kids, childhood literacy, and the arts," was quoted as calling the "Masterpieces In Chicken" exhibition "a lighthearted art contest" based on "the wonderful designs the kids have come up with" for Perdue Farms.

Please write to Danny Glover immediately and urge him to cancel his involvement with Perdue Farms and the "Masterpieces In Chicken" Exhibition. Urge him not to link his reputation to Perdue's predatory manipulation of children for profit. A true child advocate would never be a spokesperson for products and "art" based on animal cruelty, environmental degradation, and worker mistreatment--the Perdue legacy. As the director of the New York City Humane Education Committee, Dr. Sheila Schwartz, wrote to Mr. Glover:

"Students entering the 'Masterpieces In Chicken' contest are being asked to draw shapes that may later be used to design patterns for 'chicken nuggets' to be sold for human consumption. Children will be drawing replicas of parts of the bodies of dead chickens as if they were manipulating clay or some other inanimate object. In the process they will be rewarded for their internalization of the values of Perdue Farms, that is, animals as objects."
Additional Information:
  • A chicken nugget is made of reconstituted chicken parts, grease, polyphosphates, and other chemical agents needed to hold the slop together, reduce "unsightly drip," and disguise a sickening product that would otherwise cause a child to vomit. Increasing health problems are now being documented in children growing up on greasy chicken nuggets and other artery-clogging poultry products. Chicken nuggets are unwholesome, unhappy, and unhealthy products.

  • Perdue Farms has a record of violence, corruption, pollution, and dishonorable business practices including denying estroom access to female employees, thereby forcing them to menstruate and urinate on slaughterhouse floors or get fired, worker intimidation, sexual harassment, environmental pollution, and animal cruelty.

  • In the 1990s, Perdue Farms and the poultry industry blocked legislation that would have added poultry to the 1958 Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. Chickens are deliberately kept alive and tortured with electric shocks during the Perdue slaughter process. No sensitive child would eat or design a "Perdue fun shape" if the child knew how cruelly Perdue's chickens are mistreated and slaughtered. The "Masterpieces In Chicken" contest/exhibition is a betrayal of children's innocent trust.

  • Perdue is currently under attack by human rights advocates, religious groups, animal advocates, legislators, OSHA, and environmentalists. The Washington Post recently documented some of Perdue's scandalous behavior on the Eastern Shore, including the company's criminal politics in Salisbury, Maryland, which would rather let the local children drink Perdue's slaughterhouse waste water than upset the "tax base" (The Washington Post, August 2, 1999, A1+).

  • Perdue Farms is using this "art" exhibition partly to counteract this bad publicity and appear to be a good corporate citizen that cares about kids, literacy, and the arts. Meanwhile the children of the single mothers, migrant workers, and other unfortunates churning through Perdue's trailer camps and slaughterhouses on the Eastern Shore are not part of Perdue's "cultural," "pro-kids" agenda.

  • In the movie The Grand Canyon, Danny Glover portrayed a philosophically sensitive man with values the opposite of everything "Perdue" stands for. Kids need Danny Glover to be a true advocate for children and for the creative spirit. By linking himself with Perdue and the poultry industry, Danny Glover debases the concept of child advocacy and his own reputation as a child advocate. Surely, Danny Glover will divorce his good name from this destructive downslide before it's too late.

  • NY Times - They Say Perdue Is Bad To The Bone - December 21, 1999

Please contact Danny Glover now. Thank you!

United Poultry Concerns. December 9, 1999


United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
757-678-7875
FAX: 757-678-5070
www.upc-online.org

(Action Alert - Danny Glover Promotes Purdue Farms)