How meatpacking plants became coronavirus hot spots: Yahoo News Explains
Thousands of workers at meat processing and meatpacking facilities across the country are testing positive for the coronavirus, causing many plants to shut down operations as a potential meat shortage looms over American households. Debbie Berkowitz, a former adviser for OSHA during the Obama administration and current Worker Safety and Health program director at the National Employment Law Project, explains why the meat industry has been particularly hard-hit with the disease.
Video Transcript
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- A local processing plant reported dozens of new cases.
- Hundreds of COVID-19 cases at meatpacking and manufacturing plants.
- Coronavirus cases on the rise at meat processing plants.
- Nationwide, many meat and poultry plants have temporarily shut down after thousands of workers contracted coronavirus.
DEBBIE BERKOWITZ: I want to make it clear that the reason this spread in meatpacking and poultry is because of how close workers work to each other. These are huge plants. Thousands of workers lined up on both sides of metal tables with the conveyor running down the middle. And the cow or the pig or the hog comes in one end, and your pork chop or your steak comes out the other.
The fact that meatpacking plants have been closing was not inevitable. It didn't have to happen. The workers in meatpacking plants were exposed to COVID-19 at work. It spread through the workplace because the companies, over a month, a month and a half ago, did not implement the basic safety recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This administration, they just decided they would trust industry to do the right thing. They provided some very vague guidance on how to protect workers at work. You know, every sentence that says, keep workers six feet apart "if possible," "if feasible," and please "consider" [INAUDIBLE] in every sentence. Which means it's not enforceable because an employer, a big meatpacking company like Tyson's or JBS or Smithfield can say, OK, we've considered it, and we're not doing it. Because that would mean slowing down the line. It would mean producing less. But at least the plants would still be open. Now they're closed. And so we're facing sort of, you know, the problem of when plants close.
- Meat supplies down, prices going up. And one of the country's best known fast food chains now out of beef in some of its restaurants.
- Grocery giants are putting a cap on how much meat customers can buy.
- Empty shelves from store to store.
- Fast food chain Wendy's becoming the latest company to feel the effects of a pandemic-triggered meat shortage.
DEBBIE BERKOWITZ: COVID-19 in the workplace and other diseases, like people having colds or-- don't really affect the food. The key with meat and poultry is salmonella. So this is not really a food safety issue. But what about workers and treating them humanely?
Before this pandemic, meatpacking already had the distinction of being one of the most dangerous industries in the country. And in a very shortsighted way, they decided not to move workers farther apart. They decided not to put them in masks until it was way too late and so many workers were sick.
