(CN) — After being slow to implement safety precautions during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the meatpacking industry has seen a string of outbreaks in plants that have killed hundreds of workers. Now companies in the United States try to balance worker safety with keeping production high.
Complicating matters is a late April executive order from President Trump that mandated industrial meat production continue as an essential service— and it has. According to the Department of Agriculture, U.S. meat producers are now operating around 95% capacity when compared to 2019.
This despite the fact that infection rates among workers seem to be holding steady in the face of efforts to stop the spread. Labor advocates say there should be concern about this, as the status quo is troubling.
In testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee last week, Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, urged Congress to enact sweeping protections for meatpacking and grocery store workers.
“Millions of workers who lack access to paid sick days and paid family and medical leave are facing the devastating choice between risking their own health or risking the loss of a paycheck or job. Strong anti-retaliation protections must be in place in order to ensure that workers who feel ill, or who are suffering from Covid-19, can remain at home, in quarantine for the full period of time recommended by the CDC,” Perrone told lawmakers.
At the June 10 hearing, he estimated that 225 union members have died from the virus, with over 29,000 being either sick or exposed to someone who is sick. UFCW is the largest private sector union in the country and represents 1.3 million workers.
In an ag-centric state like Nebraska, where the virus has largely been contained outside of meatpacking communities, it is easy to see the impact meatpacking has had.
On its online dashboard, a heat map shows the most infections in Douglas, Hall and Dakota counties, which are home to multiple large meatpacking operations. Douglas County contains Omaha, along with much of the state’s population, but the most troubling numbers come from Hall and Dakota counties, where 72 of the state’s 216 deaths have occurred.
In comparison, Douglas County, which has seven times the population of the other two counties, has a lower death count, with a total of 60.
Following Trump’s order in April, Nebraska and other states stopped reporting separate Covid-19 infection data from plants and only report on a county-by-county basis. Nebraska also doesn’t break down the data by ethnicity, though, on May 29, a spokeswoman did note that Hispanic communities are bearing the brunt of infections here. Despite comprising only 11% of the population, Latinos suffered 48% of Covid-19 infections and 20% of deaths in Nebraska.
These numbers were no surprise to the organizers of Children of Smithfield. As the name suggests, the group was formed in April by young people whose parents work at a Smithfield pork processing plant in Crete, Nebraska. They knew each other from social media and started a Facebook group to talk about what they could do to address safety issues. Since then they have earned widespread attention for their efforts.
“We’ve been pretty vocal about how the response was too little, too late. Had the companies been more active, they could have mitigated the spread,” group admin Dulce Castaneda told Courthouse News in an interview.
Children of Smithfield advocate for paid sick leave and hazard pay for all workers; more personal protective equipment and sanitation in plants; and a program that would allow workers to make confidential reports of workplace hazards in order to limit retaliation against those who speak out. Castaneda also pointed out that the meatpacking industry has not implemented distancing programs on the lines and in locker rooms.