September 22, 2020

US efforts to protect meat plant workers against COVID-19 fall behind competitors

The United States' efforts to protect workers at meatpacking plants from COVID-19 lag behind those of its competitors as it has so far issued voluntary guidelines instead of imposing mandatory safety measures to control infections.

In Germany, the government is ready to upend a labour contracting system that left poorly paid immigrant workers vulnerable.

Australia's second-most populous state, Victoria, slashed slaughterhouse staffing capacity to enforce strict spacing requirements.

In Brazil, the federal government has set safety rules, though unions have said they're not strong enough.

In the United States, the only federal citations against major meat processors resulted in fines of less than US$16,000 (S$21,700), decried as paltry by worker advocates.Smithfield Foods was fined US$13,494 and JBS SA was issued a penalty of US$15,615, drawing outrage from two US senators, a former safety official and a major national union as being inadequate.

Additionally, an executive order from US President Donald Trump has pushed plants to run at full capacity since late April.

James Ritchie, assistant general secretary of the Geneva-based International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations, described the US response to controlling COVID-19 infections "a mess," with the executive order being "downright dangerous" without any enforceable safety rules.

COVID-19 infections spread rapidly among US meat workers in March and April, prompting major facilities to shutter before the US president issued the order to keep them open.

Since then, it's been unclear how widely the virus is still impacting workers as many companies aren't publicly disclosing new cases.

A tabulation of local news reports by the Food and Environment Reporting Network totalled at least 42,606 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 203 related deaths among meatpacking workers through September 18.

Evidence points to the virus spreading by air, with an initial study in Germany showing particles can jump more than 8 meters in slaughterhouses where cold temperatures and poor ventilation put workers at risk.

This month, US regulators issued their first sanctions against meatpackers in connection with outbreaks.

The next litmus test for how well the virus is being controlled at US meat plants is likely to come over the next few months as the weather turns colder, which could help infections to spread more quickly and the period will also coincide with the annual flu epidemic that sweeps the northern hemisphere.

In contrast to the US, German and Australian regulators intervened with stronger measures for meat workers even though the nations were dealing with smaller outbreaks.

Germany's Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner is even calling for higher food prices to ease cost pressures on producers.

"We are currently experiencing a momentum, an opportunity to readjust the meat industry," Kloeckner said in e-mailed comments to Bloomberg. "That is what we are tackling."

In the US, labour unions' lobbying efforts to include mandatory COVID-19 safety measures are "an uphill battle" said Rebecca Reindel, occupational safety and health director for the AFL-CIO.

Efforts to win better safety regulations are hampered as the employees are often minorities and immigrants who, unlike other high-risk workers such as doctors and hospital staff, labour out of sight of consumers.

"They face a lot of barriers," Reindel said. "You have a lot of workers of colour. You have a lot of immigrant workers. You have a lot that don't know their safety and health rights."

- Bloomberg