Meatpacking industry has a history of dangerous practices, writes food systems labor exper

Meatpacking plants are increasingly covid-19 hotspots, with more than 10,000 cases and at least 45 deaths nationwide linked to processing plant outbreaks, report Sky Chadde for the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and Kyle Bagenstose for USA Today. Michael Haedicke, an expert on food system labor issues, says poor working conditions and weak labor laws are the root of the problem, though others have tried to blame the spread on immigrant plant workers' home lives.

After Smithfield Foods was forced to shutter its huge Sioux Falls pork processing plant in mid-April, a spokesperson referred to the plant's "large immigrant population" and said "living circumstances in certain cultures are different than they are with your traditional American family," Buzzfeed News reports. Similarly, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on an April 28 call with lawmakers that he believed the infections "were linked more to the 'home and social' aspects of workers' lives rather than the conditions inside the facilities," Politico reports.

Haedicke, an associate sociology professor at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, says the workers are not to blame. There are two reasons the novel coronavirus is spreading so rapidly in meatpacking plants, he writes for The Conversation: "First, working conditions experienced in meatpacking plants, which are shaped by the pressures of efficient production, contribute to the spread of covid-19. Second, this industry has evolved since the mid-20th century in ways that make it hard for workers to advocate for safe conditions even in good times, let alone during a pandemic." Those reasons—which he explains in detail—not only show why meatpacking plants are infection hotbeds right now, but also why the problem will be difficult to fix.

Though hygiene and living conditions are not the problem, the workers' immigrant status has likely played a role in meatpacking plant outbreaks. During a recent panel discussion on the pandemic's impact in rural America, Chris Clayton, agriculture policy editor of DTN/The Progressive Farmer, said that the language barrier is a big problem. "It’s not just simply English or Spanish," Clayton said, noting that workers at the Sioux Falls plant speak 40 languages. A plant worker in Nebraska told him that many workers didn't really understand what was going on for weeks because of the language barrier, he said.

Immigrant workers at a North Carolina Butterball plant underlined Haedicke's point, saying the plant operators didn't stop production for a promised deep cleaning, told sick people they had to come to work, didn't establish social distancing rules in the plant, and provided little guidance or personal protective gear until well after the outbreak began, Victoria Bouloubasis reports for Southerly.

Leaked documents showed that as many as 52 workers were infected at the Duplin County Butterball plant in North Carolina, but neither the company or state government would confirm how many cases the plant had, Bouloubasis reports. Today, Butterball did confirm one plant employee's death but still would not say how many employees were ill, WITN reports.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to keep more plants open. A new memo from the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration removes local and state authority to force meatpackers to close, and "the Labor Department will consider defending meat companies against potential employee lawsuits if they make 'good faith attempts' to comply with safety guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bouloubasis reports.

Also, on April 28 President Trump declared meatpacking plants "critical infrastructure," which could compel the facilities to remain open. But that didn't work: at least seven plants have shut down since then. "In all, at least 38 meatpacking plants have ceased operations at some point since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. All closed for at least a day. Some have stayed closed for weeks. At least two of the seven plants that closed since the executive order have reopened," Chadde and Bagenstose report.