Poor conditions in meat plants fuel Covid-19 outbreaks, say unions
Source: The Guardian
June 23 2020 - Sector faces calls for action after report reveals scale of infections among workers
The coronavirus outbreaks that have struck workers in meat-processing plants around the world are due to poor working conditions and living quarters in a sector that is in a “disastrous race to the bottom” in the quest for cheap meat, trade union representatives have said.
Meat plants have persistently been centres for outbreaks, with some of the biggest clusters in the US and Canada focused on slaughterhouses. According to the Food & Environment Reporting Network (Fern), which has been tracking the outbreaks, nearly 30,000 meat-plant workers across the US and Europe have been infected with the virus and more than 100 have died.
“The entire sector is in a disastrous race to the bottom, driven by the market and by consumer demand for cheap meat,” said Peter Schmidt, the head of international affairs at the German food workers union NGG. Schmidt claimed modern plants in Germany brought in contract workers from Eastern Europe who were prepared to put up with low wages.
“The working conditions in these plants are the absolute worst; cold, close together, working at high speed. And the housing, it is like in slavery times. When we were looking at it, we found that people were having to share beds. You do a 12-hour shift and then you change over.”