Dive Brief:
- Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)introducedthe Safe Line Speeds in COVID-19 Act in the Senate to suspend current and future USDA waivers and regulations allowing meatpacking companies to increase production line speeds at plants during the pandemic. The companion House of Representatives billwas introducedearlier this month.
- On the same day Booker proposed the legislation, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and five of its local affiliates teamed up with Public Citizen Litigation Groupto file a lawsuit in federal court结束豁免,允许更快的家禽线speeds. UFCWrepresents more than 250,000 workers across meatpacking and food plants.
- Last year, the USDAissued a final rulethat implemented the New Swine Slaughter Inspection System, effectively removing regulatory hurdles for maximum federal limits on line speeds.
Dive Insight:
As the pandemichas ravaged meatpacking workersand temporarily shuttered plants, theprocessing plantsare trying to make up for lost time,returning to normal production levelsand increasing line speeds.
Despite additional precautions meat giants have put in facilities,coronavirus hasn't stopped spreadingamong workers.UFCW's lawsuit arguesthe waivers allowing poultry plants to increase production line speeds further endangers workers already facing more risk.
Since the pandemic began, more than 30,000 meatpacking workers have tested positive for coronavirus and more than 168 have died,the Food and Environment Reporting Network reported. After plants started to close to stop the spread, President Donald Trumpissued an executive orderto keep facilities open and the supply chain flowing. At the time, criticssaid this movecould endanger workers. In a release about the litigation, the union said faster line speeds make it worse.
"As COVID-19 continues to infect thousands of meatpacking workers, it is stunning that USDA is further endangering these workers by allowing poultry companies to increase line speeds to dangerous new levels that increase the risk of injury and make social distancing next to impossible," UFCW International President Marc Perrone said in a release. "This lawsuit will help to finally stop this dangerous corporate giveaway from the USDA."
The industry has long been trying to increase line speeds. In 2017, the National Chicken Council andmeatpackerswere pushing for the USDAto approve a 25% increase in chicken processing-line speeds to keep pace with growing demand for poultry. More recently, the USDA hasgrantedslaughterhouses the go aheadto speed up processing. The lawsuit argues that the USDA allowed 53 of 124 chicken processing plants to produce 175 birds per minute, instead of limiting production to 140 birds per minutebased on regulations implemented in 2014.
UFCW isn't alone in working to stop the increase in production line speeds. The Safe Line Speeds in COVID-19 Act introduced in the Senate would suspend all active waivers issued by USDA and prohibit the department from using federal funds to develop and implement any program that would increase line speeds.
Booker said Tuesday in a keynote address at the virtual National Food Policy Conference that it is not a dramatization to say that the way food is produced and consumed in the U.S. is "quite literally a matter of life and death."
"That is true for our workers, who are being forced to risk their lives to get food onto our plates as they are crowded into meatpacking plants that have become hotbeds for COVID-19 outbreaks," Booker said.
Congress has been critical of the meat industry's response to the pandemic as workers got sick andexports to China increasedwhile supply fell.Last month, Booker and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)opened an investigationinto the actions of meatpacking plants during the pandemic. In addition to Booker's bill,the two senators are jointly callingfor more strict and enforceable regulations.
Industry has pushed back. The National Chicken Councilsaid in a poston its website there is "no evidence to suggest" faster lines increase workers' risk of contracting COVID-19.AndKenneth Sullivan, CEO of Smithfield Foods,wrote in a letterto Warren and Booker it seemed the senators formed their opinion without speaking to companies.
"This is disappointing," Sullivan wrote. "This is especially disheartening after what our industry and its brave frontline workers have been through over the past several months."
