Reopening meat and poultry processing plants is the subject of increasing controversy, in the wake of President Trump’s order designating them as “critical.”
Trump’s order, signed April 28, puts the decision on whether to close the plants in the hands of the USDA, taking it away from local authorities. Meat and poultry has been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus situation, with about 20 plants being closed at one time or another, and hundreds of workers contracting the virus.
Local authorities often face dilemmas when it comes to COVID-19 outbreaks in meat plants. The plants are often located in small communities where they are by far the biggest employer; keeping them closed has dire consequences for the local economy. At the same time, the plants have been the center of community outbreaks, and usually are the places where the largest numbers of people congregate.
“This is above a mayoral pay grade right now,” the mayor of Sioux Falls, S.D., location of a shuttered Smithfield Foods pork processing plant, told the Wall Street Journal. “I respect the position the feds are taking, I think it’s the right one, but I hope it’s not at the expense of employee safety.”
Meanwhile, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union sent a letter to the National Governors Association on April 31, asking that meat plants follow federal safety guidelines. These include enforcing physical distancing, providing testing and mandatory paid quarantine, and protecting ailing workers from retaliation.
“Let me be clear, the best way to protect America’s food supply, to keep these plants open, is to protect America’s meatpacking workers,” union president Marc Perrone told KTTC-TV, based in Rochester, Minn
