Corona Virus Committee: Meat companies lied about impending shortages and put workers at risk

Ignore the risks

For example, the report found that a JBS executive received an email in April 2020 from a doctor at a hospital near JBS’ Cactus, Texas facility, saying: “100% of all Covid-19 patients we have in the hospital are either direct employees or One of the family[s] “Your employees will get sick and may die if this plant continues to operate,” the doctor warned.

The emails prompted Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s chief of staff to contact JBS, but it remains unclear whether JBS responded to the email, the report said.

“This coordinated campaign has prioritized industrial production over the health of workers and communities, and has contributed to tens of thousands of workers becoming ill, hundreds of workers dead, and the virus spreading throughout surrounding areas,” said Rep.

“The shameful behavior of corporate executives who seek profit at any cost during a crisis and government officials keen to make their bids regardless of the harm to the public must not be repeated,” he said.

In response to CNN’s request for comment, JBS, in an email, did not address the doctors’ warning, which the panel highlighted.

“In 2020, as the world faces the challenge of navigating Covid-19, many lessons have been learned, and the health and safety of our team members has guided all our actions and decisions. During this critical time, we have done everything we can to ensure safety,” said Nikki Richardson, a spokeswoman for JBS USA. & Pilgrim’s:

The investigation showed examples of some executives in the meatpacking industry who acknowledged that transparency about lax mitigation measures and high plant infection rates would cause concern.

The report, citing a company email, on April 7, 2020, said managers at National Beef had discussed avoiding explicitly notifying workers when an infected factory worker returned to work with a doctor’s clearance, saying they should instead “advertise the meeting style”, the report said. , likely referring to announcements made during informal in-person gatherings of production line workers, “in the hope they won’t provoke more panic.”

The report said meatpacking companies and the US Department of Agriculture “together lobbied the White House to discourage workers from staying home or quitting.”

Moreover, meatpacking companies have successfully lobbied USDA officials to defend Department of Labor policies that deny their employees benefits if they choose to stay home or quit, while also seeking removal from legal liability if their workers fall ill or die on the job, according to for the report.

The investigation found that in April 2020, the CEOs of JBS, Smithfield, Tyson and other meatpacking companies asked Cabinet member Trump and then Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Purdue to “raise the need to send messages about the importance of our workforce staying in business to POTUS, or VP, And to make it clear that “fear of Covid-19 is not a reason to leave your job and you are not eligible for unemployment compensation if you do.”

On April 28, 2020, President Trump signed an executive order directing meatpacking plants to follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and OSHA on how to keep workers safe, so that processing plants remain open

“Meat processing facilities are a vital infrastructure and are essential to our nation’s national security. Keeping these facilities running is critical to the food supply chain and we expect our partners across the country to work with us on this cause.”

The committee’s report said meatpackers and lobbyists have worked with the US Department of Agriculture and the White House to try to prevent state and local health departments from regulating coronavirus precautions in plants.

Describing the contents of the report as deeply disturbing, a USDA spokesperson said, “Many decisions made by the previous administration are not in line with our values. This administration is committed to food safety, the sustainability of the meat and poultry sector and working with our partners across government to protect workers and ensure their health is given Their safety is the priority it deserves.”

A spokesperson for Purdue, who is currently the president of the University of Georgia, said Purdue is “focusing on his new position in service of Georgia students” and did not comment on the committee’s report.

Former President Trump did not respond to CNN Business’s request for comment.

False allegations of impending meat shortage

The report criticized those warnings, describing them as “false, if not completely false.”

Just three days after Ken Sullivan, Smithfield’s CEO, publicly warned that the Smithfield plant closure was ‘pushing our country dangerously over the edge with respect to our nation’s meat supply’, industry representatives were asked to issue a statement that ‘there is plenty of meat,’ enough… for export,” while Smithfield told meat importers the same, according to the report.

The investigation found that industry representatives believed Smithfield’s comments about the meat supply crisis were “intentionally frightening people”.

At the time, food experts told CNN Business that while there was a shortage of meat, sometimes, different cuts of meat might not be available.

Tyson said via an email that he was reviewing the report.

Smithfield said it took “all appropriate measures to keep our workers safe” when it faced the “first challenge of its kind” two years ago.

“To date, we’ve invested more than $900 million to support worker safety, including paying workers to stay at home, and we’ve gone beyond CDC and OSHA guidelines,” Smithfield spokesman Jim Munro said in an email to CNN Business.

“The meat production system is a modern wonder, but it is not one that can be redirected with just the click of a switch. And that is the challenge we have faced with closing restaurants, changing consumption patterns and subsidizing pigs on farms that have nowhere to go. The concerns we expressed were very real and we are grateful for averting A real food crisis and that we’re starting to get back to normal….have we made every effort to share with government officials our view of the pandemic and how it has affected the food production system? Certainly.”

Cargill and National Beef could not immediately be reached for comment.

The commission said its report was based on more than 151,000 pages of documents collected from meatpacking companies and interest groups, and calls with meatpacking workers, union representatives, and former USDA and OSHA officials, among others.

CNN Business’s Jennifer Korn contributed to this report