House Democrats Launch Investigation of OSHA, Meat Plants Over COVID-19 Outbreaks – By Abigail Abrams (TIME) / Feb 1 2021
House Democrats are ramping up pressure on large meat producers that have seen continued COVID-19 outbreaks and on federal authorities that they believe have failed to protect workers at the plants during the pandemic.
Rep. James Clyburn, chair of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, sent letters on Monday to Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods and JBS USA, three of the largest meat producers in the country, requesting information about employee complaints, illnesses and deaths, plant closures, safety measures and other details of how the companies have dealt with COVID-19. He also sent a letter to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Department of Labor’s division tasked with regulating work place safety, requesting information about what he described as “ineffectual” enforcement of safety standards under former President Donald Trump.
Nearly 54,000 workers at 569 meatpacking plants across the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 270 of those people have died, according to the letters. Meatpacking companies “have refused to take basic precautions to protect their workers, many of whom earn extremely low wages and lack adequate paid leave, and have shown a callous disregard for workers’ health,” Clyburn said in the letters.
When the coronavirus first surged last spring, meat processing plants became one of the early work places to see large outbreaks of the virus. Some plants temporarily closed, but after companies warned of food shortages, Trump ordered them to stay open. Workers were deemed essential, and the fast processing line speeds often required them to spend long hours breathing right next to each other without masks. As many continued to get sick throughout the year, unions tried to raise the alarm, and in some cases protested the working conditions and lack of oversight.
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