Bill Berkowitz and Gale Bataille: Meatpacking Industry’s COVID-19 Devastation. Thousands Sick, Hundreds Dead.
December 8, 2020
Workers in the meatpacking industry are not just essential workers; they are sacrificed to COVID (Banalities)
By Bill Berkowitz and Gale Bataille
The December 5th New York Times headlined an article titled “The Elderly vs. Essential Workers: Who Should Get the Coronavirus Vaccine First?” The sequence of access to the vaccine for people other than front-line health care workers and residents of nursing homes, raises tough ethical questions. Who is essential? How are the disproportionate impacts of class and race to be factored into access guidelines? Clearly, workers in industries such as agriculture and meatpacking -- the most dangerous of all occupations -- must be at the front of the line.
On November 23, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit in the Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S. District Court, against Noah’s Ark Processors for the company’s refusal to protect essential meatpacking workers. According to the suit, treacherous conditions at the plant are putting essential meatpacking workers at grave risk of contracting COVID-19 and passing it on to their families and community members — as well as causing COVID-related death.
Meatpacking workers are no strangers to workplace danger and the coronavirus pandemic has made conditions much worse. At least fifty thousand or 10 percent of meatpacking industry workers have been infected, and more than two-hundred fifty deaths (both are likely under counts) have been reported as COVID-19 outbreaks have swept through large meatpacking plants like JBS in Greeley, Colorado, Tyson Foods in Waterloo, Iowa, and Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and other plants across the country.
Workers’ families have experienced outbreaks, risking the health of entire communities. Some meatpacking plants have taken precautions but all too many continue to put their workers at risk, and continue to do so. According to Jacobin’s Heather Schlitz, “as [coronavirus] cases spike again, [meatpacking] workers are being forced to show up even if they could be sick with COVID-19.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meatpacking is the nation's most dangerous occupation. The meatpacking industry has the highest overall injury rate, but also by far the highest rate of serious injury—more than five times the national average, as measured in lost workdays.
In mid-September, ProPublica reported that in addition to President Trump issuing an executive order in April to keep meatpacking plants open, and emails it obtained “show that the meat industry may have had a hand in its own White House rescue: Just a week before the order was issued, the meat industry’s trade group drafted an executive order that bears striking similarities to the one the president signed”
The plaintiffs in the ACLU suit against Noah’s Ark Processors in Hasting, Nebraska, include former plant employees and a local pediatrician who treats the children of meatpacking workers and people with COVID-19.
According to an ACLU Press Release, headlined “ACLU Files Federal Lawsuit Against Nebraska Meatpacking Plant Over Treacherous COVID-19 Conditions,” “Despite legislative advocacy and numerous complaints, local, state, and federal officials have refused to enforce laws requiring safe working conditions in Nebraska’s meatpacking plants, where essential workers are predominantly Latinx and Black. To date, there has been no enforcement action against any Nebraska meatpacking plant.”
The ACLU press release states that “The lawsuit notes Noah’s Ark‘s persistent refusal to take obvious public health precautions — physical distancing, adequate sick leave, testing, and clean masks — to protect its workers and the surrounding community from a new surge of COVID-19 cases. That risk is growing even greater as winter approaches.”
“Noah’s Ark’s negligence includes”:
The plant does not promptly replace workers’ masks when they become soiled with blood, fat, and sweat, forcing workers to leave part or all of their face uncovered.
The plant has made no effort to physically distance workers from one another while they are in the plant. Every day, they stand shoulder to shoulder for hours at a time on the processing lines, and they sit crowded together in a small windowless cafeteria where they cannot wear masks while eating.
The plant does not offer adequate sick leave to ensure that sick workers can stay home. It has pressured sick people to work, allowed others to keep working despite symptoms, and refused to pay many who have stayed home because of symptoms. It has not announced sick-leave policies to its workers.
On top of everything else, Noah’s Ark is not providing any onsite testing, so when there is a surge in cases, the plant and its workers will have no idea until it is too late.
In mid-November, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported that “A wrongful death lawsuit tied to COVID-19 infections in a Waterloo pork processing plant alleges that during the initial stages of the pandemic, Tyson Foods ordered employees to report for work while supervisors privately wagered money on the number of workers who would be sickened by the deadly virus.”
Tyson Foods’ president and chief executive officer, Dean Banks, issued a statement saying “these allegations do not represent who we are, or our core values and team behaviors.” According to this statement, Tyson Foods has “suspended, without pay, the individuals allegedly involved and have retained the law firm Covington & Burling LLP to conduct an independent investigation led by former Attorney General Eric Holder. If these claims are confirmed, we’ll take all measures necessary to root out and remove this disturbing behavior from our company.”
Yes, the story of Tyson plant supervisors wagering on Covid-19 related worker infections and deaths is profoundly disturbing. But, isn’t this really a parable about the meat packing industry? The bet by Tyson and others is that the national clout of the industry (based on our insatiable appetite for meat) will trump any state or local efforts to increase safety and health requirements for workers.
In a story titled “COVID-19 Has Exposed the Gross Exploitation of Meatpacking Workers,” posted at the National Resources Defense Council ‘s website, Lena Brooke, the NRDC’s food campaign director, pointed out that the Covid-19 pandemic has merely exacerbated problems that have existed for years in the meat packing industry.
To the meatpacking industry, the cost in terms of mostly Latinx and Black worker’s lives is negligible, in comparison to their profits. Case in point: “Finally, after seven months of UFCW Local 7 imploring the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to investigate the COVID-19 outbreak response at the JBS plant in Greeley, Colorado, the agency imposed a fine of $15,615 on the company on September 12. According to OSHA, $15,000 is the largest fine allowed by law. ‘It’s absurd, and it’s absolutely insulting. $15,000 is nothing compared to $54 billion in profit,’ Kim Cordova, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 sa[id], noting that OSHA’s role has been like that of a fox watching the henhouse.”
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