Meat Processing Was Never Safe, and Now It’s Worse
By: Carlin Soos
Tags: Justice, Equality, Work, Vegan, Coronavirus

On April 26th, Tyson Foods published full-page advertisements in Sunday editions of The Post, the New York Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “Anxiety, doubt, and the fear of the unknown are now our constant companions,” the copy, apparently written by CEO John Tyson himself, claims. Tyson warned that the “food supply chain is breaking,” and within days President Trump signed an executive order classifying meat processing facilities as “critical infrastructure,” requiring plants to remain open.

Corporate messaging, however, is getting mixed. Less than two weeks after those advertisements ran, representatives from Tyson Foods reported a “positive” long-term outlook as their retail business benefits from a 20% bump, part of an industry-wide trend of rising consumer purchases as more people are making their meals at home.

These beings, bred and raised for their flesh, had bleak futures to begin with, and yet people have somehow found a way to make their suffering even greater.

Executives at Tyson might be feeling “positive,” but the mood is gravely different on their slaughterhouse lines, where tightly packed workstations make coronavirus transfer especially easy. “There is no social distance that is possible when you are either working on the slaughter line or in a processing assignment,” explained Paula Schelling, acting chairwoman for the food inspectors union in the American Federation of Government Employees.

Preventive measures have come too late. As of June 12th, more than 24,000 coronavirus cases have been tied to meatpacking plants in the U.S., and at least 87 workers have died — and these outbreaks impact their surrounding communities as well. The issue is also not confined to North America, although the United States is certainly handling it worse than European countries.

All open U.S. facilities are running at max capacity, but there’s still an estimated 25% reduction in beef and pork processing power. This decreased production means millions of animals raised to be killed and eaten will, instead, be killed and discarded; Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc. “depopulated” 2 million chickens in April and current processing backlogs means an estimated 700,000 pigs will be destroyed each week.

A recent Intercept exposé reveals how Iowa Select Farms exterminates their pigs using the “ventilation shutdown” method, a process that slowly kills the animals by restricting airways and steaming their barns. The intense heat and humidity within the pens slowly suffocates and roasts the pigs to their death. Any survivors are later killed with bolt guns. These beings, bred and raised for their flesh, had bleak futures to begin with, and yet people have somehow found a way to make their suffering even greater.

While the fallout of a diminishing workforce has become increasingly clear, none of the most obvious business-oriented solutions seem particularly promising. Although frozen meat storages and in-store purchase limits might stave off a serious shortage, any undergraduate Econ major (or Marco Rubio) will tell you that steady demand plus decreased production is unsustainable. Even taking into consideration the significant drop in restaurant orders and institutional purchases, changes must be made to both processing and distribution if the meat industry wants to satisfy its customers.

Line speeds could be quickened, but faster processing increases the chance of work-related injury. Longer shifts could compensate for limited staff, but what health risks might arise from extended exposure? I doubt additional workers could be packed into already crowded workstations, but, even with some creative spatial reasoning, this approach only exposes more people to dangerous conditions. If these meat processing facilities are ripe for coronavirus transmission, it does not look like companies can increase productivity without further harming their employees. That being said, I don’t expect particularly ethical decision making from the business executives who exploit people, animals, and the environment for profit.

Telling someone in a financially precarious situation to reject a job for the sake of their health is essentially asking them to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

In what is already a notoriously dangerous field, COVID-19 has put more stress on those employed at meat processing facilities. Attesting to the many risks and few benefits of these positions, annual turnover is thought to be extremely high, figures I have seen estimated from 75 to 100%, with one particularly bad case approaching 400. (Since most companies do not make this data public, researchers are generally unable to get a clear view of the situation.) Workers of color occupy almost half of all food production and processing jobs in the United States, more than 70% of our farmworkers are foreign born, and a majority of slaughterhouse employees are either Black or Latinx, statistics that fit the historical trend of those from marginalized and underserved communities being saddled with the country’s least desirable, lowest paying jobs.

As the virus continues to spread, employees must “choose” between protecting their health, the health of those around them, and getting a paycheck. Against the backdrop of a pandemic — one in which people of color and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are significantly more likely to die from related complications — what are their options? Telling someone in a financially precarious situation to reject a job for the sake of their health is essentially asking them to jump from the frying pan into the fire: sure, there’s a chance they will contract the coronavirus at work and die, but one’s survival prospects are similarly poor if they cannot buy food, afford rent, access adequate medical care, and tend to other essential needs.

‘No, you don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that. Nobody wants to do that. You’ll have bad dreams.’

Built upon a foundation of financial and emotional distress, the relationship between workers and management is dubiously consensual, and the death of Annie Grant, an employee at a Tyson poultry plant in Georgia, demonstrates how people can be coerced into dangerous situations by demanding bosses. When examined too closely, the illusion of choice begins to crack.

Making matters worse, the psychological consequences of meat processing are more or less an open secret. In Every Twelve Seconds, Timothy Pachirat, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, recounts his year of undercover work in a slaughterhouse. After expressing interest in working the “knocker” — the gun-like machine that quickly releases a metal bolt into the head of cattle, killing them in preparation for further dismemberment — a veteran of the knocking box advised, “No, you don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that. Nobody wants to do that. You’ll have bad dreams.”

We should never applaud people for tolerating their own mistreatment, or glorify oppressive work relations as some kind of heroic self-sacrifice, especially when we’re choosing between human life and ground beef.

At a May 8th roundtable in West Des Moines, Iowa, Vice President Mike Pence praised food industry leaders. “I think this may well turn out to be your finest hour,” he said, “a time when an industry stepped up and met the moment, and at some personal risk to themselves.”

We should never applaud people for tolerating their own mistreatment, or glorify oppressive work relations as some kind of heroic self-sacrifice, especially when we’re choosing between human life and ground beef. The CEOs of Hy-Vee, Kroger, Smithfield, and Tyson who attended that panel are not accepting “some personal risk to themselves,” they are risking their employees. I may be wrong, but I don’t think John Tyson spends forty hours a week working his processing lines.

Her newfound hero status didn’t protect Annie Grant, and Pence’s affected show of empathy only rebrands systemic injustice with a patriotic twist. If the Vice President truly admired food chain workers, the Trump administration wouldn’t help absolve their employers of legal liability when they die on the job. They would make sure all slaughterhouse workers have regular bathroom access. They would ensure everyone has the proper gear, health benefits, paid sick leave, and hazard pay necessary to protect themselves and their families — not just now, but always. They would enforce disciplinary actions when managers pressure sick employees to return to work. Or, better yet, they would make it so no one is left with a job that fuels nightmares.