Paula Soldner

My name is Paula Soldner.

I became a federal employee in 1987 and was that till September 30th of 2025.

I was a food inspector and consumer safety inspector.

We inspected the meat and poultry products that you'll see in the grocery store.

I am also the National Joint Council chairwoman for the union, AFGE, presently, even though I am retired from the federal sector.

I worked in Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin.

An inspector has to have a very strong tolerance for blood.

You've got to be able to have that strong stomach to endure the blood, to endure the guts.

All those internal organs that surgeons on a daily basis see, whether it is a hot dog, whether it is a bratwurst, whether it's a summer sausage, the gamut of what happens on a week

could go from slaughtering to deboning the animal to watching all the processes to get to that final finished product.

And that's where having the knowledge of somebody getting trained that has been around for years.

That's lost.

It's completely lost.

The other experiences of what we as the veteran inspectors did is long gone.

You can be as book smart as you want to be until you step into the reality onto that slaughter floor.

I dread the long-term effects.

When there is life that is lost because of food safety issues that are not getting corrected, I think losing the experience and the training of these inspectors out there is so critical.

And now that it is lost, are we ever going to get it back?