To avoid meat shortages during coronavirus shutdown, Trump must protect plant workers
When we visit the meat counter at our favorite grocer, we seldom think of the labor involved in getting that piece of meat to table nor do many of us know how life at the meat-processing plant has changed in recent years. With today’s high-speed assembly lines often sped up to increase productivity, workers in meat-processing plants are working shoulder to shoulder in dangerous working conditions with accidents often underreported by workers for fear of retribution.
Activists target manufacturers like Nike every time they discover some Third World country producing gear at non-livable wages and dangerous working conditions, but here we have working conditions closer to home that have actually worsened in recent years. In the food business, consumers who demand non-GMO foods, organic produce, low-fat options to name a few, can get all the information they need with labeling, but it’s more difficult for a consumer to know what’s on the front end of the process that produces the meat in our grocery cart.
President Trump’s recent executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to prevent some states from closing meat-processing plants with high rates of the coronavirus among its workers revisits a sector of our economy that has flown under the radar. The wages of those who slaughter and process the meat for our tables may come as a shock to consumers who choose a piece of meat for the quality of the cut and the price on the label. According to Zip Recruiter, an online resource for job seekers and employers, the average wage of a meat processor is $12 per hour.
From the early 20th century when Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle,” exposing dangerous and unhealthy conditions in the meat-processing industry, wages and working conditions improved as federal and state governments responded with improvements in the industry. Then, more recently, at least three developments changed the circumstances of the workers. First, plants moved from the North, where workers had union support and protection, to southern and rural states, where right-to-work laws gutted union membership and its protections.
Second, the U.S. Department of Agriculture under Trump recently deregulated pork processing plants and allowed increased line speeds in poultry and pork production, making inspections more difficult.
Third, small meat-packing plants gave way to large conglomerate companies that wield enormous power in Washington and state capitals where they extract favorable legislation limiting protections for workers and denying a national minimum wage that would benefit such workers.
That brings us to the question of why President Trump would use the Defense Production Act to keep meat-processing plants with hundreds of coronavirus cases open without requiring testing and personal protective equipment as part of his order. While Trump’s executive order delegates to the Secretary of Agriculture the authority “to take all appropriate action” to keep meat-processing plants operating, no federal agency has followed up with any mandatory safety rules to protect workers at those companies to date.
Trump has been amazingly transparent in his bungled press conferences about his objective of reopening the economy in hopes of reassuring his reelection in November. Yet, if he wants to prevent meat shortages many restaurants and consumers are experiencing, the first priority must be the safety of the workers in the plants. It does no good to keep their production lines open if there are not requirements for testing, social distancing to the extent that is even possible in an assembly-line production, and supplies of personal protective equipment. That is what is missing in the president’s executive order and its aftermath.
As workers succumb to COVID-19, aside from the human tragedy, it is not realistic to assume workers can be replaced continuously. It’s a false choice for President Trump to choose open over closed plants. He must back up his executive order with specific requirements on how workers will remain safe and on the job. It is not asking too much of the president of the United States to show equal concern for those processing the product as he shows for consumers in a reopened economy.
Trump’s knee-jerk response to corporate meat producers without requiring worker protections flies in the face of his populist rants at his rallies for the little guy. What’s obvious about his selective use of the populist narrative is that not all little guys are created equal, and immigrants working as meat-processors simply don’t count for much. That was most evident when the president approved of a raid on a Mississippi poultry-processing plant to apprehend 680 Hispanic immigrants and separate them from their children and families. Many of these immigrants had been recruited by the plants to fill vacant positions Americans don’t want.
Today’s workers in meat-processing plants fit right into Trump’s approach to dealing with the powerless while he sides with large corporations intent on keeping their plants open, but without protections to ensure workers will remain healthy and be there to open up tomorrow. For too many of today’s workers, “The Jungle” is not just a history lesson.
Meat shortages as a consequence of the coronavirus sickening plant workers must be dealt with boldly and realistically. Placing the workers’ health first and foremost is the only way consumers will have access to the quality and quantity of meat at the grocer and in restaurants.