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New symbol would join kosher labels

If you look carefully, you may spot the letters K, OU, or KAJ somewhere on the label of some food packages. These letters indicate that the food is kosher; that it meets Jewish dietary laws. Now a major Jewish group wants to add a new symbol that indicates not only how the food was prepared, but how the workers who handled it were treated.

It started when an article appeared in a national Jewish newspaper last May describing the long hours, unsafe working conditions, and exploitation of employees at a kosher meat packing plant in Iowa. The article described the situation of one of the plant’s immigrant workers: “She has worked 10- to 12-hour night shifts, six nights a week. Her cutting hand is swollen and deformed, but she has no health insurance to have it checked. She works for wages starting at $6.25 an hour and stopping at $7 that several industry experts described as the lowest of any slaughterhouse in the nation.”

In response to that article, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism began developing standards for a proposed “righteous certification,” indicating, among other things, that employees worked in safe factories and weren’t being exploited. This certification would be in addition to the regular kosher certification.

“No one in the Jewish world has ever really tried to marry the socially responsible laws of how we treat workers with the laws of how we should eat,” said Rabbi Morris Allen, who heads the committee studying this new certification. “We were so concerned that the animal is slaughtered in the most humane way that we overlooked the person standing right next to it.”

If the “righteous certification” is adopted, it would join a groundswell of socially conscious shopping, ranging from fairly traded coffee products to conflict-free diamonds. Rabbi Allen believes that the “righteous certification” label would also appeal to the social conscience of non-Jews, similar to how Ben & Jerry’s ice cream appealed to people willing to pay more for ice cream produced by a company with progressive ideas.

The certification committee hopes to finalize its guidelines this winter, and then begin the process of having those guidelines approved. If adopted, the “certified righteous” designation may begin appearing on food packages next year.