meat plant safety News

Unions Say Meat Plants Relaxed COVID-19 Safety Measures After Outbreaks

Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, last year assigned a team of dedicated employees to enforce social distancing and sanitize surfaces at a South Dakota slaughterhouse where COVID-19 infected nearly 1,300 workers, the president of the local labor union …

How Meatpacking Plants’ COVID-19 Cases Hurt Counties

An estimated 334,000 COVID-19 cases are attributable to meatpacking plants, resulting in $11.2 billion in economic damage, according to a new study led by a researcher at the University of California, Davis. The study was published in the journal Food …

Tyson Gets OK to Use Employees, Technology for Safety Inspections at Meat Plant

Tyson Foods said on Tuesday it plans in January to have company employees take on duties from more than a dozen federal inspectors at a large Kansas beef plant, after getting a U.S. government waiver. Tyson said the change would …

Meat Plant Workers Being Denied Workers’ Compensation for COVID-19: Reuters

Saul Sanchez died in April, one of six workers with fatal COVID-19 infections at meatpacker JBS USA’s slaughterhouse in Greeley, Colorado, the site of one of the earliest and deadliest coronavirus outbreaks at a U.S. meatpacking plant. Before getting sick, …

OSHA Cites Smithfield Foods For Lax Coronavirus Safety for Meat Plant Workers

The U.S. Labor Department said on Thursday it cited Smithfield Foods for failing to protect employees from the coronavirus, making it the first major U.S. meatpacker to face a fine after outbreaks at slaughterhouses infected thousands of workers. The citation …

Reuters Report: How COVID-19 Swept Brazilian Slaughterhouses of Top Meatpacker

JBS SA, the world’s largest meatpacker, has vowed to keep the world fed during the coronavirus pandemic. Executives say the company has added more than 15,000 new workers in Brazil this year to crank out cuts of chicken, pork and …

Tyson Foods to Pilot Medical Clinics for Workers at Some Meat Plants Next Year

Tyson Foods is planning to open medical clinics at several of its U.S. plants to improve the health of its workers and better protect them from the coronavirus. The Springdale, Arkansas-based company, which processes about 20% of all beef, pork …

Brazilian Court Orders JBS to Require Worker Distancing After COVID Outbreak at Plant

A Brazilian court this week ordered JBS SA to impose a 1.5-meter (5-feet) distance between workers in the production line at its beef plant in Pontes e Lacerda to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, prosecutors told Reuters on …

20% of Meat Plant Workers Infected with Covid in Large Exporter Brazil, Union Says

One in five workers at Brazil’s meat plants have been infected with coronavirus, according to union estimates. That would make the country home to one of the world’s worst workplace outbreaks. The estimate comes from Nelson Morelli, the president of …

OSHA Defends Inspector Calling Ahead to Pennsylvania Meat Plant Before Visiting

A federal safety inspector tipped off a coronavirus-tainted Pennsylvania meatpacking plant before visiting the next day — then failed to issue a citation, according to testimony in a lawsuit accusing the agency of failing to do its job. The inspector …