House panel investigates major meat companies for hundreds of Covid-19 deaths among meatpacking workers

"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," Bernice Yeung and Michael Grabell report for ProPublica. "The congressional investigation, opened by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, will examine the role of JBS, Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods, three of the nation’s largest meat companies, which, the subcommittee said, had 'refused to take basic precautions to protect their workers' and had 'shown a callous disregard for workers' health.'" The inquiry will also scrutinize the federal government's failure to protect meatpacking workers.

Meatpacking plants have been a major vector for the spread of the coronavirus in rural America. Employees, many of them immigrants, must work packed in close quarters, and many don't speak English or have 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," Yeung and Grabell report.

JBS and Tyson representatives said the companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to temporarily increase pay and benefits and implement coronavirus protections in their plants. A Smithfield statement said the company took "extraordinary measures" to protect workers, and spent more than $700 million on testing, equipment, and workplace modifications, Yeung and Grabell report.

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’s enforcement efforts. The subcommittee cited ProPublica’s reporting on how meat companies blindsided local public health departments, and on Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts’ efforts to intervene when local health officials tried to temporarily shutter a JBS plant amid an outbreak," Yeung and Grabell report. "ProPublica has also documented how meat companies ignored years of warnings 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."