Tyson Foods took out a full-page ad in several newspapers on Sunday, warning that the closure of food-processing plants due to the coronavirus is “breaking” the supply chain.
In a full-page ad published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, board chairman John Tyson wrote that “the food supply chain is breaking,” saying farmers will be left without anywhere to sell livestock and “millions of animals — chickens, pigs, and cattle — will be depopulated because of the closure of our processing facilities.”
“There will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed,” he added.
Nearly two dozen meat processing plants, from beef to pork and chicken, have closed after clusters of employees tested positive for COVID-19, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). Of the 6,500 employees affected, 20 have died.
Three of the nation’s largest pork producers – Tyson Fresh Foods, Smithfield Foods, JBS – have shut down indefinitely. Because of closures and partial shutdowns of meatpacking plants, U.S. pork capacity is down about 30 percent. Additionally, the first of some of the country’s big poultry plants were forced to close last Friday because of COVID-19 outbreaks among employees.
Social Distancing problems
Meat processing plants are ruthless when it comes to keeping costs down while increasing efficiency. So much so that they have contributed to the dangerous conditions revealed once the coronavirus hit.
“There are many serious safety and health hazards in the meatpacking industry,” the Occupational Safety and Health Administration says on its website. “These hazards include exposure to high noise levels, dangerous equipment, slippery floors, musculoskeletal disorders, and hazardous chemicals,” among others
It all boils down to the simple fact that meat companies have been speeding up their production lines, and this requires more workers who have to stand close together. Meat processing plants are different from, say, a cereal plant. There, workers operate machinery that packages, shapes, or produces the food.
With meat, the employee gets up close and personal with the product. Employees are often tasked with a specific job on an assembly line, like removing bone or muscle as meat passes by on a conveyor belt. Steve Meyer, an economist with commodity firm Kerns and Associates, says there is no question that social distancing is not practiced in meat plants. He estimated that many stand about three or four feet apart from each other while working.
This close-quarters way of working has turned meatpacking facilities into incubators for the coronavirus, even though the owners of the facilities say they are trying to balance protecting workers with ensuring that Americans don’t face meat shortages.
Major meat processors say they have put protocols into place – like temperature checks and plexiglass to encourage social distancing in some areas and to help keep their workers safe.
Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act
The closures of so many meat processing plants has raised the fear of a break in the nation’s food supply chain, which President Trump played down today. “There’s plenty of supply,” he said, per Politico. “It’s distribution.”
In comments to the media, Trump said he will sign an executive order on Tuesday to shield meatpacking companies from legal liability from worker claims of not being adequately protected. There was no mention of how the executive order was going to address worker safety, though. The order just means the employees have to stay on the job.
“We only wish that this administration cared as much about the lives of working people as it does about meat, pork, and poultry products,” said Stuart Applebaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, according to Forbes.
