A wave of strikes loomed in the poultry industry yesterday as a result of the Kashruth Association’s efforts to force its system of market supervision on recalcitrant groups.
Shochtim are expected to strike today in all markets where Kashruth Association leg-bands certifying kosher slaughtering are not attached to fowl. The strike vote was taken as a result of the decision of Shochtim Union Local 440 to support the rabbinical issur, or ban, on unlabeled poultry.
“We’re licked,” an official of the Live Poultry Institute, a previously refractory wholesalers’ group, told the Jewish Daily Bulletin when the shochtim and rabbis united forces, and immediately the wholesalers proceeded to sign contracts with the Kashruth Association for supervision.
Last week the same wholesalers signed an agreement for supervision with an independent group of rabbis headed by Rabbi Raphael M. Barishansky. These rabbis have no intention of foregoing the benefits of their agreement, and their attorney who drew up the document, told a reporter that it “hasn’t a loophole.”
Furthermore, these rebel rabbis enjoy the full support of the Bronx butchers and poultry retailers.
Accordingly, 1,000 Bronx butchers and poultry dealers in an enthusiastic mass meeting Tuesday night at the Hunts Point Palace voted a complete stoppage of poultry purchase and sales.
Delegations from the East Side poultry dealers, the Borough Park butchers and poultry dealers and the Brownsville poultry retailers also announced their intention to strike.
Last night a joint committee of the striking organizations was considering whether to strike this morning or next Tuesday morning.
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