Uproar growing among meat workers

Alberta producer among those where virus found

A growing number of workers who are crucial to supplying the world with meat are demanding that their companies do more to keep them safe from the coronavirus.

Labour unions are starting to speak out as their members fall ill, there are reports of increased absenteeism and some front-line workers have even walked off the job. That’s raising the spectre of mass protests that could threaten global meat supplies just as supply chains unravel and grocery stores struggle to keep food on their shelves.

It’s part of the balancing act facing meat and agricultural producers in a pandemic: how to keep the world fed while safeguarding employees. Slaughterhouses and processing plants are sanitizing their operations more, staggering lunch breaks and checking people’s temperatures, but unions say they’re still falling short.

“They’re scared to make that decision that you guys need to be six feet apart because the production is going to plummet,” said Paula Schelling, acting national joint council chair of food-inspector locals for the American Federation of Government Employees.

The first case of a worker at a major U.S. meat producer testing positive for the virus was reported last week at poultry giant Sanderson Farms Inc. Since then, infections have cropped up everywhere from JBS SA plants in Iowa to Harmony Beef in Alberta.

While scattered factories have closed temporarily or cut output, generally companies are keeping plants running when workers get sick. Rather than shutting entire plants, they’ve focused on identifying areas where infected people have had direct contact.

In the U.S., social distancing is not possible in processing facilities where workers are side by side, and the Department of Agriculture is not equipping its consumer-safety or food inspectors with protective masks or hand sanitizer, Schelling of the American Federation said.

Dozens of inspectors who are at high risk of coronavirus complications due to health issues are on safety leave, and one consumer safety inspector died of coronavirus in New York City, she said.

While food safety inspectors follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “there are times when the physical layout of the plants they work in make social distancing a challenge,” the USDA said in a statement. “Unlike doctors and nurses in hospitals, there is no data to suggest that slaughter establishments are at higher risk of exposure.”For processing workers, a Canadian union representing them has asked employers to increase the space between each employee’s work area, even if line speeds drop.

“We’re calling on all these employers to look themselves in the mirror and say no matter what happens we did everything we could to keep food on the table and everyone safe,” said Thomas Hesse, president of United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 401, the largest private-sector union in Western Canada with 32,000 members in Alberta, mostly in food processing and retailing.