Clyburn targets OSHA, meatpacking companies with investigation of COVID-19 outbreaks Kyle Bagenstose, USA TODAY
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U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, announced Monday that the committee will investigate the spread of COVID-19 in the nation’s meatpacking plants.
In a first move, the committee issued investigatory letters to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and food companies JBS USA, Smithfield Foods, and Tyson Foods. Each letter requested a bevy of documents, including those that could shed light on how each entity responded to COVID-19 outbreaks and complaints within plants.
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2/2/2021 The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis launched an investigation Monday into the spread of COVID-19 at meatpacking plants during the course of the pandemic. The committee sent letters to the country’s top meatpackers JBS, Smithfield Foods, and Tyson Foods as well as to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), requesting scores of information on the entities’ management of the spread of the virus among meatpacking workers, with a response deadline of Feb. 15. “Public reports indicate that meatpacking companies … have refused to take basic precautions to protect their workers, many of whom earn extremely low wages and lack adequate paid leave, and have shown a callous disregard for workers’ health,” subcommittee chairman Rep. James Clyburn wrote to meatpackers. “These actions appear to have resulted in thousands of meatpacking workers getting infected with the virus and hundreds dying.”
A Democratic-led House panel is launching a probe into coronavirus outbreaks at meatpacking plants and whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration adequately enforced worker safety rules.
Representative James Clyburn, who chairs the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, sent letters Monday to Tyson Foods Inc., Smithfield Foods Inc., and JBS USA requesting information on the number of sick employees, facility closures, safety measures and leave policies for when workers tested positive. Nearly 54,000 workers at 569 meatpacking plants in the U.S. have tested positive for Covid-19, and at least 270 have died, Clyburn said in the letters.
Meatpacking companies “have refused to take basic precautions to protect their workers, many of whom earn extremely low wages and lack adequate paid leave, and have shown a callous disregard for workers’ health,” the letters to the companies said.
A temperature scanner in one of Tyson s US facilities
A US Congress panel is investigating three of the country s largest meatpacking businesses in relation to worker deaths at their facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The House of Representatives Coronavirus Subcommittee has asked the US arm of Brazilian beef giant JBS, domestic meat group Tyson Foods and Smithfield Foods, which is owned by China s WH Group, to provide records of inspections, complaints and other internal documents as part of its investigation into widespread coronavirus infections and deaths in meatpacking plants . It wants to determine whether possible worker-safety rule breaches have occurred.