Latest Meat Processing Headlines
All the headlines from our Meat Processing Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Meat Packing Plant Owners Defend Operations During Pandemic
Jul 27 2020 // As part of an investigation into the spread of coronavirus at U.S. meat plants, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker released responses from major producers that defended their operations during the...
Virus Outbreak at Iowa Pork Plant Was Larger than Reported by State
Jul 23 2020 // The first confirmed coronavirus outbreak at an Iowa meatpacking plant was far more severe than previously known, with more than twice as many workers becoming infected than the state Department of Public Health told the...
Workers Turn Into Sleuths to Track Sicknesses Where Employers Keep Covid Data Secret
Jul 22 2020 // Jana Jumpp spends eight hours a day updating a spreadsheet — not for work, but a recent hobby: figuring out how many of Amazon’s 400,000 warehouse workers have fallen sick with the coronavirus. Amazon won’t...
Absenteeism at Meatpacking Plants Tied to Workplace Safety Concerns
Jun 15 2020 // Smithfield Foods Inc. is missing about a third of its employees at a South Dakota pork plant because they are quarantined or afraid to return to work after a severe coronavirus outbreak, according to the workers’...
Union: 44 COVID-19 Deaths Among Meatpacking Workers
Jun 5 2020 // At least 44 meatpacking workers in the U.S. have died from the new coronavirus and another 3,000 have tested positive, according to an estimate released on May 28 by the largest union representing workers. Meat processing...
Tyson Foods to Close Iowa Meat Plant as More Workers Catch COVID-19
May 28 2020 // Tyson Foods Inc. said on Thursday it will temporarily close an Iowa pork plant due to the coronavirus pandemic, a month after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered slaughterhouses to stay open to protect the country’s...
North Carolina Tyson Foods Poultry Plant Reports 570 COVID-19 Cases
May 26 2020 // Meat producer Tyson Foods is reporting 570 cases of COVID-19 at a poultry processing complex in North Carolina. Tyson said in a news release that it tested more than 2,000 staff members and contractors who work at its...
Workers Worry Over Enforcement of Meatpacking Plant Safety Recommendations
May 22 2020 // Federal recommendations meant to keep meatpacking workers safe as they return to plants that were shuttered by the coronavirus have little enforcement muscle behind them, fueling anxiety that working conditions could put...
Kentucky Requests DOJ Investigation of Meatpacking Industry
May 19 2020 // Kentucky officials on Friday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the meatpacking industry after local cattle farmers complained the price they are paid for their animals is continuing to drop at the same...
Workers Protest Virus Outbreak at Minnesota Poultry Plant
May 13 2020 // Workers have protested what they consider dangerous working conditions at the Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant in the central Minnesota town of Cold Spring, site of one of the largest COVID-19 workplace...
Workers at West Virginia Poultry Processing Plant to be Tested for Virus
May 12 2020 // The West Virginia National Guard will assist in conducting tests for the coronavirus starting Monday at a poultry processing plant in a small county where cases have increased, authorities said. Testing at the...
Meat Giant Sued for Worker’s Covid-19 Death in Philadelphia
May 11 2020 // The family of a beef plant worker who died because of the coronavirus has brought a wrongful death lawsuit in a Philadelphia court against JBS SA, the world’s biggest meat company. Ferdinand Benjamin filed the suit...
11 Midwestern AGs Seek Federal Probe of Meatpacking Industry
May 7 2020 // The attorneys general for 11 Midwestern states are urging the Justice Department to pursue a federal investigation into market concentration and potential price fixing by meatpackers in the cattle industry during the...
Lawsuit Over Worker Safety at Smithfield’s Missouri Pork Plant Dismissed
May 7 2020 // A U.S. federal judge has dismissed a worker advocacy group’s lawsuit accusing Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest pork processor, of failing to adequately protect employees from the novel coronavirus at...
At Least 116 Oklahoma Meat Plant Workers, 240 in Texas Test Positive for Virus
May 6 2020 // At least 116 employees at an Oklahoma pork processing plant have tested positive for coronavirus, Seaboard Foods spokesman David Eahart said in a statement on May 4. Meanwhile, a surge of coronavirus cases in the Texas...
Meat Workers Taking Leave, Quitting as Plants Reopen Amid Coronavirus Scare
May 6 2020 // America’s meat-processing plants are starting to reopen but not all workers are showing up. Some still fear they’ll get sick after coronavirus outbreaks shut more than a dozen facilities last month. Employees...
Midwest Meatpackers Cautiously Reopen Plants After Coronavirus Shutdown
May 5 2020 // A South Dakota pork processing plant took its first steps toward reopening on May 4 after being shuttered for over two weeks because of a coronavirus outbreak that infected more than 800 employees. As two departments...
Coronavirus Cases Surge in Reopened Colorado Beef Plant, Worker Dies
May 1 2020 // COVID-19 cases at a JBS meatpacking plant in Colorado have more than doubled “in a number of days” and a sixth employee died of the virus, a union official said on Thursday, underscoring the risks of U.S. meat...
Unions Push Back on Trump Plan to Order Meat Processing Plants to Stay Open
Apr 29 2020 // President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered meat-processing plants to stay open to protect the food supply in the United States, despite concerns about coronavirus outbreaks, drawing a backlash from unions that said at-risk...
Smithfield South Dakota Plant Eyes Reopening as U.S. Issues Meatpacking Guidance
Apr 27 2020 // South Dakota’s governor on April 27 said she hopes Smithfield’s Sioux Falls pork processing plant can reopen soon, a day after U.S. labor regulators urged the meat industry to adopt certain measures to prevent...
