OSHA Fines Smithfield and JBS Meatpackers For Failures During COVID-19 Outbreaks
The U.S. Department of Labor has fined Smithfield Foods Inc. regarding a COVID-19 outbreak that infected almost 1,300 meatpacking employees and killed four. The fines allege that the company failed to properly protect its employees from the virus. Smithfield said it would contest the citation, a proposed $13,494 fine, which is the maximum amount allowed by law, according to the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “OSHA has been asleep at the switch throughout this pandemic and this is just the latest example of the agency failing to do their job and take responsibility for worker safety,” said Marc Perrone, president of The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. The Sioux Falls, South Dakota plant at which the outbreak occurred is one of the pork industry’s largest, with about 3,700 employees. Another large meatpacker, JBS, was also fined for failure to properly protect workers at its plant in Greeley, Colorado, where 290 employees have tested positive and six have died. Between the two meatpackers, the total fines are $29,000, so little that critics fear it will do little to incentivize the nation’s meatpackers to protect workers from additional outbreaks and deaths.
Tyson Opens Medical Clinics At Some Of Its Meatpacking Plants
The Arkansas-based meatpacking company Tyson processes about 20% of all beef, pork and chicken in the United States, and some of its plants have become coronavirus hotspots. In response, the company announced that it is opening medical clinics near seven of its plants, including in Storm Lake, Iowa, and Holcomb, Kansas. The clinics are scheduled to open early next year. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 24,000 of Tyson’s 120,000 U.S. employees, commended the move. Mark Lauritsen, head of the Union’s food processing and meatpacking division, stated that other meat processors such as JBS and Cargill have already started using clinics at some of their large plants because workers must stand close to each other. In the U.S., at least 17,700 meat plant workers have been infected or exposed to the coronavirus and 115 have died, according to the Union. The families of three Tyson workers in Iowa who died from COVID-19 earlier this summer sued Tyson, claiming they knowingly endangered employees at the start of the pandemic. Until the medical clinics are operational, Tyson has hired nurses to conduct coronavirus tests every week. Company officials estimate that less than 1% of its workforce is currently dealing with active cases.
Workers Union Sues USDA Over Faster Chicken Plant Line Speeds
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and local unions that represent 10 chicken plants in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri teamed up with the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen to file a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C. Back in 2018, the U.S. Department of Agriculture permitted line speed waivers when the National Chicken Council petitioned to accelerate speeds. Last week, the union sued the Agriculture Department, claiming its line speed policy not only puts workers at risk but also makes it harder to safely prevent the spread of COVID-19, as increased line speeds make social distancing among workers practically impossible. The lawsuit asserts that the USDA allowed 53 of 124 chicken processing plants to process as much as 175 birds per minute instead of limiting production to 140 birds, as detailed in the existing 2014 regulations.
Robot Butchers Offer Hope To Beleaguered Meatpacking Industry
Tyson Foods currently relies on about 122,000 employees to process 1 in every 5 pounds of chicken, beef, and pork produced in the United States. On average, large meatpacking plants owned by Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and Smithfield pack 3.2 workers per 1,000 square feet of manufacturing space, according to industry analysts Boston Consulting Group (BCG). That worker density has been increasing in recent years, according to BCG, and is now three times the national average for most manufacturers. While executives of Tyson and other top producers report that robots cannot disassemble animal carcasses with small differences in size and shape the way humans can, they are looking for solutions to worker concentration and safety issues that have troubled the industry since the pandemic began. In response, Tyson’s Manufacturing Automation Center offers a glimmer of hope. Tyson opened the center last summer and has invested nearly $500 million in technology and automation over the past three years. While fine cutting in meatpacking plants, such as trimming fat, must be done by human workers, Tyson’s automation team (which includes former auto industry designers) is helping to transition from human butchers to robotic ones for tasks such as sawing and deboning.
Latin American Food Markets Implement Safety Protocols To Contain Virus
Mexico City’s Central de Abasto is a massive compound of food warehouses and wholesale outlets, a prime spot for the metropolitan area’s 20 million consumers to buy fruits and produce. About 90,000 people work at the market, which receives roughly 300,000 customers a day. With so many people, the Central de Abasto became the source of over 200 recorded coronavirus cases per week during the month of May. To improve safety, Market Director Hector Garcia Nieto says the market installed its own testing center and triage area and instituted contact tracing even before the city did. Since the installment, the weekly number of cases traced to the market fell to about 60 or 70.
Similarly in Peru, which has over 2,600 food markets vital to its citizens, government officials report that 36 of the most popular markets in the capital city of Lima were points of contagion. And in Venezuela, the Las Pulgas market became the source of an outbreak which caused 400 of the province’s nearly 580 recorded coronavirus cases. While health experts and organizations worldwide report that there is currently no evidence that you can catch COVID-19 from food or food packaging, crowded spaces such as food markets remain a significant risk due to the sheer number of people. Throughout Latin America, public health officials continue to implement safety protocols to reduce outbreaks while simultaneously providing consumers with access to their primary sources of food.
How Europe’s Meatpacking Plants Avoided Becoming COVID-19 Hotspots
The meatpacking industry in the U.S. looks quite different than the industry in Europe. In the U.S., about four huge companies account for roughly 80% of slaughterhouse production. While Tyson Foods, JBS SA, Cargill and National Beef have plants scattered throughout the United States, European meat production is far less centralized. In Germany alone, there are more than 14,700 meat and fish processing companies. Spain has about 3,810 meat and fish processing companies. With fewer, smaller slaughterhouses, Europe has not had quite as many challenges in containing large viral outbreaks at meatpacking plants. Individual governmental regulations have also helped.
Soon after the outbreak began, Germany’s government proposed a series of reforms to transform labor practices for plant workers. Likewise, France’s Agriculture Minister proposed testing every single slaughterhouse employee for the coronavirus among other precautions. The U.S., on the other hand, has designated meatpacking plants as “critical infrastructure” and authorized all plants to stay open. As of June 9th, at least 24,715 U.S. meatpacking workers have been infected with COVID-19 and at least 86 have died, according to data collected by Leah Douglas of the Food & Environment Reporting Network. By contrast, in Europe, about 2,670 coronavirus cases have been reported among meatpacking plants and four workers have died, according to an analysis of news reports, government figures, and union statistics.
43,000 Pounds Of Beef Recalled For Possible E. Coli Contamination
According to the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, nearly 43,000 pounds of ground beef have been recalled for potential E. coli contamination, including packages sold at Walmart nationwide. The beef was produced June 1 at Lakeside Refrigerated Services of Swedesboro, New Jersey, sold under the brand names Thomas Farms and Marketside Butcher, and marked “EST. 46841” in the USDA inspection mark. The USDA classified the announcement as a “Class I” recall, meaning it’s a “health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.” The recall notice said that consumers with questions should call the Lakeside Processing Center Call Center at 856-832-3881.
Produce Processing Facilities Become New Coronavirus Hotspots
By late May, Washington’s Yakima County documented more than 600 COVID-19 cases among agricultural workers. Of those, 62% were workers in the apple industry and other packing operations or warehouses, according to county data. Yakima County now has the highest per-capita coronavirus infection rate on the West Coast with 4,834 cases as of June 10th.
In California, Monterey County is known as “the world’s salad bowl” for its massive vegetable farms, and as of June 5, Monterey reported 247 COVID-19 cases among agricultural workers, 39% of the county’s total cases. Coronavirus cases are also rapidly increasing in Florida’s agricultural community of Immokalee, where 2,581 cases were reported as of June 13, up significantly from its 966 cases reported June 8.
Meatpackers Resume Operations, COVID-19 Cases Increase
U.S. meatpacking plants have spent millions on mitigating coronavirus risks, yet they remain outbreak hotspots. Since April, cases in meat-processing facilities have increased by more than 100% to 20,400 total infections across 216 plants in 33 states, according to an analysis by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. At least 74 meatpacking employees have died due to COVID-19. In the past two months, Tyson Foods has installed barriers and provided masks to protect its workers, yet 24 of its plants have since reported outbreaks, two of which have sickened more than 800 workers. Prior to implementing safety measures, only five of the company’s facilities had outbreaks.
Smithfield Foods has also implemented protective measures such as temperature checks, plastic barriers, additional hand-sanitizing stations, and deeper cleaning and disinfection procedures after its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant became the country’s largest coronavirus hotspot. Since safety measures were installed, additional outbreaks have been reported at 11 Smithfield plants. At some other meatpacking facilities, protective measures have not been as thorough or enforced. A federal meat inspector in the Midwest reported to USA Today that she visited several plants where workers were not wearing masks, despite some of them testing positive for the coronavirus. After alerting a supervisor, she was told that as long as she had a mask she must continue working or use vacation time or take unpaid leave. .
Meatpackers Spend Millions on Coronavirus Precautions
Chief financial officer of Hormel Foods Corp. Jim Sheehan reports that the company has spent $20 million on coronavirus precautions since March. Expenses include on-site temperature checks, plexiglass dividers, masks, and special bonuses for front-line employees to minimize the risks of COVID-19. The company, best known for its Spam, turkey, and bacon products, anticipates spending up to $80 million on virus-related expenses in the second half of 2020. Sheehan is currently budgeting for both temporary and permanent costs while looking for efficiencies such as buying less expensive masks.
Tyson Foods Inc. has spent even more, including $120 million solely on front-line worker bonuses, according to chief financial officer Stewart Glendinning. Most of the costs are expected to be temporary, but it all depends on what is required to keep Tyson workers safe. “If you’re a business you want to make money,” said Glendinning, “and the only way to do that is by continuing to operate the plants with healthy employees.”
