Agribusiness
TOP TAKEAWAYS: Three things to know from our Seaboard Foods investigation
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Here are the most important things to know from our investigation into a major pork processing plant.
Agribusiness
PAIN DENIED: At one of the country’s largest meatpacking plants, workers say their injuries were ignored
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Workers were told their injuries were “break-in pain,” soreness that comes from adjusting to life in a meatpacking plant. But some injuries were severe enough to warrant additional testing and treatment. In one case, a man was pushed to work with what turned out to be a fractured vertebrae.
Agribusiness
Meatpacking plants have long relied on immigrant labor. Now, some are turning to foreign visa workers.
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For decades, the industry has recruited immigrants and refugees to perform the dangerous job of cutting America’s meat. Now, a small but growing number of plants are employing visa workers.
COVID-19 and Meatpacking
Trump ag secretary Sonny Perdue personally lobbied to keep meatpacking plants open during pandemic, emails show
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It’s well-established that Trump administration officials wanted meatpacking plants to keep operating, often with industry pressure, as workers fell ill and died by the dozens. But new emails obtained by nonprofit Public Citizen show Perdue personally lobbying to keep plants open, including pressing Robert Redfield, the former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director.
Opinion
OPINION: USDA just put meat packers on notice
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The CEO's of all the major meat packers have just collectively set their hair on fire and are likely calling internal company meetings RIGHT NOW about how to handle the industry's greatest threat in, like, forever. That's because the United States Department of Agriculture announced this month that it will attempt to significantly strengthen enforcement of the 100-year-old Packers and Stockyards Act that was originally written to stop meat packers from stealing from poultry,hog farmers and cattle ranchers with a bag of tricks that manipulated live stock prices through unfair, deceptive and anti-competitive practices. As written back in 1921:
Section 202 of the PSA (7 U.S.C. §§ 192 (a) and (e)) makes it unlawful for any packer who inspects livestock, meat products or livestock products to engage in or use any unfair, unjustly discriminatory or deceptive practice or device, or engage in any course of business or do any act for the purpose or with the effect of manipulating or controlling prices or creating a monopoly in the buying, selling or dealing any article in restraint of commerce. But meat packers have had a century to go to the courts in order to chip away at straightforward protections. And chip away they did, finally hitting the mother load in 2004 in the landmark case Pickett v. Tyson Fresh Meats Inc.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama ruled that to win Section 202 PSA case a meat producer or rancher had to prove a singular meat packer's buying practices reduced marketplace competition by arbitrarily lowering prices paid to sellers with the likely effect of increasing retail prices.
Coronavirus
Some incarcerated meatpacking workers spent ‘100 percent’ of their time in high-risk settings during pandemic
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Some meatpacking plant workers found themselves at the intersection of two of the riskiest settings during the pandemic: correctional facilities and meatpacking plants.
Opinion
Opinion: Tyson’s attempts to litigate COVID in federal courts a scam
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All through 2020, Big Meat and the Trump White House abused immigrants and low-income people working at the nation's slaughterhouses, all but physically forcing them to work in a cauldron pot of coronavirus. The White House named meat packers essential workers while Big Meat failed to do enough to protect its on-line employees from COVID-19. Predictably, avoidable illness and death followed. Now comes litigation.
Agribusiness
In what’s likely a first, a meatpacking plant employee won a COVID-19 workers’ comp case
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Many workers compensation claims have been denied throughout the pandemic. But the court ruled the JBS employee was infected with COVID-19 at the plant and should be compensated for lost wages after he fell ill.
Graphic of the Week
GRAPHIC: As industry pushed fears of meat shortage, exports increased
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Trade data shows the value of American meat exports reached its highest level since 2014.
Agribusiness
Union files OSHA complaint against one of the largest pork plants in the country
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The complaint states Seaboard Foods in Guymon, Oklahoma, did not report coronavirus cases to federal authorities and also failed to implement worker protections, such as social distancing measures.