July 9, 2020

Santa Catarina state, Brazil may scrap plant worker COVID-19 safety law

Brazil's largest pork producing state and second largest poultry producer, Santa Catarina could stop law protecting meat plant workers during COVID-19, according to state labour prosecutors, Reuters reported.

The move affects about 480,000 meat plant workers and other related workers.

Santa Catarina enacted Regulation 312, which forces Santa Catarina meatpackers to send home pregnant and Indigenous workers, while at the same implementing a 1.5 m distance among workers on the production floor.

Other measures included in the regulation include supplying protective equipment, and the need to inform suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases to the local health authorities.

Once the law is scrapped, major Brazilian meatpackers such as BRF and JBS only need to follow federal regulations passed in June for these companies to continue operations during the pandemic. Critics to the June law said it doesn't include physical distancing and testing workers for the virus.

Ricardo Santin, meat lobby group ABPA director said with the law abolished, it will harmonise state and federal regulations.

A JBS poultry plant at Santa Catarina in May was shut down temporarily due to COVID-19. 1,500 workers are employed there.

A growing number of COVID-19 outbreaks in Brazil has made China, a major importer of meat from Brazil, to impose import suspensions from six Brazilian meat plants located in Rio Grande do Sul and Mato Grosso state.

-      Reuters