Coronavirus in rural America (Part XXXXII): Meatpacking

This is not actually a "rural" topic, nor is it one limited to the white working class, so I have avoided treating it as such and writing about it on these blogs.  But after weeks of following outbreaks of coronavirus in meatpacking plants, I've decided to collect many of those stories here, along with datelines, in no particular order.  Well, no particular order except that I have to start with this Washington Post coverage of comments by the Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this week.  Justice Patience Roggensack, in the middle of an oral argument about the constitutionality of the governor's stay-at-home order, responded to data about the high rate of infection in Brown County (whose county seat is Green Bay):

These were due to the meatpacking, though. That’s where Brown County got the flare. It wasn’t just the regular folks in Brown County.

Many people on Twitter are calling this racist, though I've not seen any data on the racial make up of those who work at the JBS meatpacking plant in Brown County.   Others called Justice Roggensack's comments "elitist" and "classist," which they no doubt are.  My favorite comment on Twitter came from Prof. Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas Law School who commented that the Chief Justice said "the quiet part out loud."  Ahem. 

Here's a great overview of what is happening in this coronavirus era, with the meatpacking industry overall, from Adam Clark Estes for Vox/Recode, from May 8:

This is the new reality: an America where beef, chicken, and pork are not quite as abundant or affordable as they were even a month ago. The coronavirus pandemic has hit the meatpacking industry hard, as some of the worst virus outbreaks in the United States have occurred in the tight, chilly confines of meat processing plants. Standing elbow-to-elbow, workers there — many of them immigrants, in already dangerous roles and making minimum wage — are facing some of the highest infection rates in the nation.

Sick workers mean meatpacking plants are shutting down, and these closures are contributing to a deeply disruptive breakdown in the meat supply chain. The vast majority of meat processing takes place in a small number of plants controlled by a handful of large corporations, namely Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, JBS USA Holdings Inc., and Cargill Inc. More than a dozen of these companies’ beef, chicken, and pork plants closed in April, and despite an order by President Trump to reopen the plants, managers fear that doing so will put lives at risk so facilities continue to close. There have been nearly 5,000 reported cases of workers with Covid-19 at some 115 meat processing facilities nationwide. At least 20 meatpacking workers have died.

Here's a Politico story about how Alex Azar, Secretary for Health and Human Services, blamed the high incidence of coronavirus in meatpacking plants on workers' "home and social" conditions.  An earlier Buzzfeed story reported similar blame-shifting by Smithfield re: the Sioux Falls outbreak.

A Smithfield pork processing facility, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, population 154,000, was one of the earliest meatpacking outbreaks reported.  Reports on the outbreak there are here, here and here.  Don't miss NYT's "The Daily" Podcast interviewing a woman, born in South Sudan, who worked at the plant and was diagnosed with coronavirus after she was quarantined following a co-worker's diagnosis.  But one poignant aspect:  when she was put on quarantine, she was told she would be paid for 40/hours a week during that period.  But she could not get by on just 40/hours week wages because she'd been working and earning an average of $500/week in overtime.

A Cargill pork and beef processing plant in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, population 25,340, is the subject of this Bloomberg story and this NYTimes story from a few days ago. 

A Tyson plant in southwest Georgia was featured in this post from early April. 

A Smithfield plant in Milan, Missouri, population 1,960, is featured in this New York Times story from late April.  Here's an excerpt, focusing in part on a novel legal theory being used in a suit against Smithfield:

But as the coronavirus pandemic has emerged, workers say they have encountered another health complication: reluctance to cover their mouths while coughing or to clean their faces after sneezing, because this can cause them to miss a piece of meat as it goes by, creating a risk of disciplinary action.

The claims appear in a complaint filed Thursday in federal court by an anonymous Smithfield worker and the Rural Community Workers Alliance, a local advocacy group whose leadership council includes several other Smithfield workers.

The complaint also seeks to test a novel legal question: whether health hazards at the plant present a public nuisance.

Meat and poultry processing plants in Nebraska (Grand Island), Colorado, and on the DelMarVa peninsula have also been closed temporarily.  Here's a terrific Pro Publica story on Nebraska Governor Ricketts' decision to keep a JBS meatpacking plant open, against the advice of public health officials.

Today, The Oregonian covered an outbreak of coronavirus at a seafood packing plant in Astoria, Oregon, population 9477.

There are no doubt many more outbreaks I've not picked up on or am not highlighting here, such as in Dodge City, Kansas, the Texas Panhandle, and "deep East" Texas.  As with nursing homes and jails/prisons, these packinghouse outbreaks show up as dense spikes on charts and tables tracking where the coronavirus hotspots are.  They look particularly "oversized," if you will, when they occur in areas with small populations.

Post-script:  Big New York Times feature May 10 out of Black Hawk County, Iowa, population 131,090, which includes Waterloo.  Here's the lede, which has the county sheriff playing a role I would not have expected, while Tyson Foods plays the villain part just as expected:

On April 10, Tony Thompson, the sheriff for Black Hawk County in Iowa, visited the giant Tyson Foods pork plant in Waterloo. What he saw, he said, “shook me to the core.”

Workers, many of them immigrants, were crowded elbow to elbow as they broke down hog carcasses zipping by on a conveyor belt. The few who had face coverings wore a motley assortment of bandannas, painters’ masks or even sleep masks stretched around their mouths. Some had masks hanging around their necks.

Sheriff Thompson and other local officials, including from the county health department, lobbied Tyson to close the plant, worried about a coronavirus outbreak. But Tyson was “less than cooperative,” said the sheriff, who supervises the county’s coronavirus response, and Iowa’s governor declined to shut the facility.

A week later, Tyson sent a text message to employees:

Waterloo Tyson is running.  Thank you team members! WE ARE PROUD OF YOU!

Please read for yourself the rest, reported by Ana Swanson, David Yaffe-Bellany and Michael Corkery.

Cross-posted to Working Class Whites and the Law.

Postscript from ProPublica on June 12, by Michael Grabell, Claire Perlman and Bernice Yeung.  The headline is "Emails Reveal Chaos as Meatpacking Companies Fought Health Agencies Over COVID-19 Outbreaks in Their Plants."

This postscript is from McDonald County, Missouri, in the state's far southwestern corner, in early July 2020, where a surge in cases is attributable to two meatpacking plants.