{"id":26037,"date":"2021-02-04T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/after-hundreds-of-meatpacking-workers-died-from-covid-19-congress-wants-answers#1049390"},"modified":"2021-02-04T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T10:00:00","slug":"after-hundreds-of-meatpacking-workers-died-from-covid-19-congress-wants-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/04\/after-hundreds-of-meatpacking-workers-died-from-covid-19-congress-wants-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"After Hundreds of Meatpacking Workers Died From COVID-19, Congress Wants Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n by Bernice Yeung<\/a> and Michael Grabell<\/a> <\/p>\n \n \n

\n

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories<\/a> as soon as they\u2019re published.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n \n\n \n\n \n

A key congressional panel launched an investigation this week into the wave of COVID-19 infections that killed hundreds of workers at meatpacking plants nationwide last year and highlighted longstanding hazards in the industry.<\/p>\n \n

Since the start of the pandemic, the meat industry has struggled to contain the virus in its facilities, and plants in Iowa, South Dakota and Kansas have endured some of the biggest workplace outbreaks in the country.<\/p>\n \n \n\n

Never miss the most important reporting from ProPublica\u2019s newsroom. Subscribe to the Big Story newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n\n \n \n

The meat companies\u2019 employees, many of them immigrants and refugees, slice pig bellies or cut up chicken carcasses in close quarters. Many of them don\u2019t speak English and aren\u2019t granted paid sick leave. To date, more than 50,000 meatpacking workers have been infected and at least 250 have died, according to a ProPublica tally.<\/p>\n \n

The congressional investigation, opened by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis<\/a>, will examine the role of JBS, Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods, three of the nation\u2019s largest meat companies, which, the subcommittee said, had \u201crefused to take basic precautions to protect their workers\u201d and had \u201cshown a callous disregard for workers\u2019 health.\u201d<\/p>\n \n

The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House.<\/p>\n \n

In response to the subcommittee's announcement, officials for JBS and Tyson said that the companies had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to implement coronavirus protections and to temporarily increase pay and benefits, and they looked forward to discussing their pandemic safety efforts with the panel. Smithfield said in a statement that it had also taken \u201cextraordinary measures\u201d to protect employees from the virus, spending more than $700 million on workplace modifications, testing and equipment.<\/p>\n \n

The House subcommittee noted that reports from a variety of news organizations had illuminated problems with how the meatpacking companies handled the pandemic, and with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration\u2019s enforcement efforts. The subcommittee cited ProPublica\u2019s reporting on how meat companies blindsided local public health departments<\/a>, and on Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts\u2019 efforts to intervene<\/a> when local health officials tried to temporarily shutter a JBS plant amid an outbreak.<\/p>\n \n

ProPublica has also documented how meat companies ignored years of warnings<\/a> from the federal government about how a pandemic could tear through a food processing facility, and chronicled the role that meatpacking plants like a Tyson pork facility in Waterloo, Iowa, have played in spreading the virus to the surrounding community<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n

The subcommittee\u2019s inquiry will also scrutinize the federal government\u2019s shortcomings in protecting meatpacking workers. \u201cPublic reports indicate that under the Trump Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) failed to adequately carry out its responsibility for enforcing worker safety laws at meatpacking plants across the country, resulting in preventable infections and deaths,\u201d according to the subcommittee's letter to OSHA.<\/p>\n \n

The subcommittee also said that the agency had issued only a \u201cfew meager fines\u201d and \u201cfailed to show urgency in addressing safety hazards at the meatpacking facilities it inspected.\u201d The letter noted that OSHA had received complaints about JBS and Smithfield plants months before the agency conducted inspections.<\/p>\n \n

David Seligman, a lawyer who helped meatpacking workers in Pennsylvania file a lawsuit against OSHA<\/a> during the pandemic, said he hopes the subcommittee\u2019s efforts are \u201cjust one of the initial steps\u201d to holding companies accountable and ensuring workers are safe. \u201cThe harm inflicted on meat-processing workers during this pandemic, in service of the profits of corporate meat-packing companies and under a government that seemed happy to turn a blind eye, is a grave scandal,\u201d Seligman wrote in an email.<\/p>\n \n

In a statement, a Department of Labor spokesperson said that the subcommittee\u2019s inquiry is \u201cfocused on the Trump administration\u2019s actions surrounding the protection of workers from COVID-19 related risks,\u201d and the agency is committed to protecting workers, and that new guidance <\/a>on coronavirus enforcement that was issued in late January will serve as a \u201cfirst step.\u201d<\/p>\n \n

In its Feb. 1 letters to OSHA<\/a>, JBS<\/a>, Tyson<\/a> and Smithfield<\/a>, the subcommittee has requested documents related to government inspections at meatpacking plants and COVID-19 complaints lodged with the companies. OSHA was asked to brief the subcommittee by Feb. 15.<\/p>\n \n\n

\n\n

Do you have access to information that should be public about how regulatory agencies have responded to the pandemic? Email bernice.yeung@propublica.org<\/a> and michael.grabell@propublica.org<\/a>. Here\u2019s how to send tips and documents<\/a> to ProPublica securely.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n

For more coverage, read ProPublica\u2019s previous reporting on meatpacking and COVID-19<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n \n \n

This post was originally published on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bernice Yeung and Michael Grabell <\/p>\n

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1760,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6140],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26037"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1760"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26037"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26517,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26037\/revisions\/26517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}