‘All smoke and mirrors’: How Trump’s meatpacking order has failed to keep workers safe

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The move signaled that the nation’s priorities focused more on the continued production of meat than the safety of workers. Since then, COVID-19 cases tied to meatpacking plants have soared.

for information it had on the plant, but a DOL spokesman would not say whether OSHA inspectors had actually visited it.

The CDC also has visited plants, but it doesn’t enforce worker safety. As of June 9, the agency toured facilities in 17 states, including Nebraska, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, said Jason McDonald, an agency spokesman. It has not sent a team to Iowa, which has several plants with large outbreaks.

Stabenow was among the 29 committee members who raised concerns about the USDA’s handling of meatpacking worker safety in the May 15 letter. The senators also asked a series of questions related to how the agency planned to keep workers safe, and asked for answers by May 25.That the USDA would spearhead a worker-safety effort is an odd fit, experts said. The agency has argued for years that it doesn’t have the authority to oversee worker safety.

Among the OSHA complaints regarding the coronavirus that the agency and its state partners have closed are myriad claims of lack of personal protective equipment, inability to distance from co-workers and companies withholding information about exposure to co-workers who have tested positive for the virus. In some instances, the agency recommends following OSHA and CDC guidelines — the same ones the complaints allege are not being followed.

USDA could have used its food-safety inspectors as a resource to understand what is happening in meatpacking plants, said Jerold Mande, a former deputy under secretary for food safety at USDA and deputy assistant secretary at OSHA. One week later, Perdue sent letters to meatpacking companies asking them for safety plans — but it applied only to plants without a “clear timetable” to reopen.

But in June Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said the company didn’t need to do it because it closed its plants down “voluntarily.” Perdue’s letter doesn’t mention anything about voluntary closures. Mickelson declined to provide more details. The Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, home to one of the first large meatpacking plant outbreaks, reopened on May 7, two days after Perdue sent his letter.

 

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States got Trump to threaten folks into going back to work and now we discover they were being used to sell meat to China! People have died and someone needs to be held responsible.

As politicians put American workers' lives at risk, the meat they produced was actually sold to China. Profits over people? SHAME. 'As Meat Plants Stayed Open to Feed Americans, Exports to China Surged'

Just like all of his bullshit. Hollow, means nothing. Waste of four years. And causing death.

Die from Covid or people die of hunger.

The food supply is non-negotiable

No ones safe now! 😷Trump should resign.....Now😷👎🏽

So they wanted US to starve instead?

Trump doesn't Give a DAMM about Workers!!!!!

Here is the a video of eye witness of Hilary Clinton child torture and killing. He described 2 acts of totally sick and disgusting child torture and killing and eating by Hilary

You people are trash

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