In the absence of meaningful action by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), more than a dozen states, including Virginia, have issued emergency safety measures to protect essential workers from the risks of COVID-19. But Maryland – home to one of the largest poultry industries in the nation – is glaringly absent from that list.
We’ve seen dramatic changes in response to the coronavirus in the transportation, retail, and restaurant industries, but behind the closed doors at poultry plants, workers face dire health risks while continuing to labor in fear of contracting COVID-19.
Prior to the pandemic, workers in the poultry industry faced some fairly egregious working conditions. Inside plants, workers labor side-by-side while as many as 175 birds whizz by every minute for "processing." Painful repetitive stress injuries and cuts due to increased line speeds are all too common at these processing facilities. Reports from plant workers show that many are not permitted to take necessary bathroom breaks and resort to wearing adult diapers to make it through shifts.
A few weeks after the pandemic hit, many of the counties where meat and poultry processing facilities were located (and neighboring counties) had COVID-19 infection rates that were almost double the national average. All told, outbreaks, hotspots and COVID-19-related deaths traced back to meat processing plants have skyrocketed in 26 states across the country, Maryland included.
By early June, the coronavirus had already taken five Maryland poultry plant workers' lives and infected more than 200 other employees; hundreds of more community members suffered coronavirus infections linked to two poultry processing plants on the Eastern Shore. That number has likely grown since June, in the absence of serious protective measures.
Aggravating matters -- many poultry plant workers are low-income workers, here on H-2A and H-2B temporary work visas. H-2A and H-2B workers, though deemed essential, live in fear of losing their jobs and are understandably afraid to speak out about poor or unsafe workplace conditions, while also facing language barriers. Many of these workers travel to work in close-quartered vehicles, where social distancing is impossible, sleep in crowded settings, and lack access to health insurance, medical care and paid sick leave. Some horrendous reports include plant employers giving employees ice cream before required thermometer checks to enter the workplace.
The men and women who work at poultry plants labor under backbreaking conditions under the best of circumstances. In the middle of the pandemic, the added burden they bear is intolerable. It persists at least in part because the workers are treated as invisible to many of us – essential, but still invisible. |
While the Centers for Disease Control visited two poultry processing plants on the Eastern Shore and required the replacement of fans and plastic barriers between workstations, poultry plant workers still lack basic protections that would keep them, their families, and communities safe from the risks of the coronavirus. Such basic protections should include required physical distancing between plant workers, such personal protective equipment as masks and gloves, frequent sanitizing of work stations, access to handwashing stations (and required breaks to use them), free on-site coronavirus testing, shared information (offered in multiple languages) about plant-related coronavirus cases, paid sick leave, access to free or affordable medical care, and whistleblower protections.
Since OSHA has failed to take any serious action or enforcement that would protect essential workers during the pandemic, it’s up to states to mandate that employees at meat processing facilities and other essential workers are offered basic protections in the workplace, as well as in employer-provided housing and transportation vehicles.
The Center for Progressive Reform is among dozens of other groups calling on Gov. Larry Hogan to issue an executive order requiring Maryland Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH) to adopt new protective regulations for businesses in response to the pandemic. In particular, Maryland should act immediately to prevent poultry plant-related outbreaks by adopting an Emergency Temporary Standard that requires employers to create a safe working environment for essential workers and also makes clear that all essential workers are protected if they choose to report violations. The state should also prevent employers from firing employees due to COVID-19 related illnesses or for declining to work in unsafe circumstances.
The men and women who work at poultry plants labor under backbreaking conditions under the best of circumstances. In the middle of the pandemic, the added burden they bear is intolerable. It persists at least in part because the workers are treated as invisible to many of us – essential, but still invisible. It is impossible to imagine, for example, that Governor Hogan would permit his own staff to face such risks on a daily basis. Poultry workers deserve no less simply because they are poorly paid and may not be native English speakers.
Amidst a public health crisis, it’s both a moral and a public-health imperative that Maryland acts to protect those who provide our food. Without appropriate safety measures, these workplaces will continue to seed new infections as states work to reopen, needlessly sacrificing the health and lives of workers and those with whom they come in contact.
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Katlyn Schmitt | September 3, 2020
In the absence of meaningful action by OSHA, more than a dozen states, including Virginia, have issued emergency safety measures to protect essential workers from the risks of COVID-19. But Maryland – home to one of the largest poultry industries in the nation – is glaringly absent from that list.
Matthew Freeman | September 1, 2020
Writing in The Hill, CPR's Bill Buzbee and Mažeika Patricio Sullivan expand on a point they and their co-authors on an important article in Science magazine in August made ably: The Trump administration is running roughshod over science and law in its efforts to deregulate.
Alejandro Camacho, Robert L. Glicksman | August 27, 2020
Throughout his time in office, President Donald J. Trump has boasted about cutting regulations. His antagonism to environmental regulation has been particularly virulent and incessant. By one count, Trump Administration agencies have initiated or completed 100 environmental rollbacks. By thwarting often bipartisan legislative environmental protection goals adopted over the course of 50 years, President Trump's actions create serious threats to public health and environmental integrity. The Administration's suppression of public participation in regulatory decision-making has also undercut the ability of people and communities harmed by the Administration's deregulatory frenzy to protect themselves. These anti-environmental and anti-democratic practices converged in the Administration's recent revisions to the Council on Environmental Quality's (CEQ) regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Matt Shudtz | August 26, 2020
Since the very beginning of the pandemic, public health officials have warned of a second wave of COVID infections. With no epidemiological background, I’d say the impact of the virus looks more like a wildfire rolling across a forest seeking fresh fuel. But I fear that I am on the front side of a different sort of second wave. When the pandemic forced shutdowns across the country in March and April, millions of Americans lost their jobs. Some of us, myself included, were fortunate to work for organizations that have been able to weather the storm in a “virtual office.” But with September approaching, and schools forced to navigate uncharted waters, there are hard choices to be made. My wife and I had to make one such choice not long ago, and as a result, I'm leaving the best job I've ever had.
James Goodwin | August 25, 2020
This week, CPR is launching its Beyond 12866 initiative, an online platform focused on promoting a progressive vision for rebuilding the U.S. regulatory system. Such a regulatory system will be essential not only to achieving the progressive vision of a more just and equitable society; it will also do the heavy practical lifting needed for implementing key elements of a progressive policy agenda, such as the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and Black Lives Matter movement.
Daniel Farber | August 24, 2020
The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has driven home some lessons about governance. Those lessons have broader application -- for instance, to climate governance. We can't afford for the federal government to flunk Crisis Management 101 again.
James Goodwin | August 20, 2020
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) is a bad law and should be repealed. Yet, it has taken on outsized importance given that it provides one of the few vehicles for moving substantive legislation through a hyper-polarized Congress. The upcoming elections are thrusting it back in the spotlight, so let’s talk about the CRA and how opponents of the Trump administration’s assault on public safeguards might put it to its highest and best use.
William Buzbee | August 13, 2020
A new article in Science magazine that I co-authored with a number of distinguished environmental science professors from around the country dissects the remarkable disregard for science that the Trump administration displayed in its recent dismantling of the 2015 Clean Water Rule, which protected millions of miles of rivers and acres of wetlands from polluters.
Amanda Cohen Leiter | August 13, 2020
Environmental justice problems require a willingness to acknowledge privilege and adopt a more inclusive approach. I hope this post might prompt you to reflect, read, and start an uncomfortable conversation or two. We face existential environmental threats almost everywhere around the world, and we won’t succeed in combating them unless we’re all fighting together, for a healthy environment that everyone can enjoy.