Labor Dept. watchdog says USDA and OSHA should have better protected meatpacking workers during pandemic

The Agriculture Department’s Food Safety Inspection Service and the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration should have worked together more, and done more in general, to make sure meatpacking workers were better protected during the pandemic, says a new report released Tuesday by the DOL's Office of Inspector General.

Then-USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue "made clear he saw no role for the agency in protecting workers and mostly put it off on OSHA," Sky Chadde reports for the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. But "OSHA has been roundly criticized for failing to protect meatpacking workers from the coronavirus. In the pandemic's first year, the agency doled out small fines to only a handful of plants, and it failed to inspect every plant where cases were publicly reported."

OSHA “entered the pandemic with its fewest number of inspectors in its history. At the same time, the number of workplaces it has to oversee has increased,” Chadde reports. “Still, according to the inspector general's report, OSHA should have identified what federal agencies oversaw high-risk industries — including meatpacking — and provided training to on-the-ground employees in how to assist with worker safety.”

It was critical for OSHA and FSIS to work together because of the risky conditions in meatpacking plants, the report said, but “OSHA and FSIS had some history that made collaborating challenging … Before the pandemic, when FSIS inspectors would make a referral about potential worker safety violations to OSHA, OSHA would investigate FSIS, not the plant, according to the report. Because of this, FSIS inspectors were hesitant to refer possible violations.” Read more here.