As coronavirus cases mounted at meatpacking plants this month, the federal government granted 15 poultry processors waivers to cut chickens faster, usually by crowding more workers onto their production lines.
Overall, poultry plants with such waivers are at least 10 times more likely than the meatpacking industry as a whole to have coronavirus cases among workers, USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting found.
. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union says such crowding could increase the risk of coronavirus and opposes the waivers.“I’m convinced that the USDA is probably just putting those out there because they think we’re all preoccupied with COVID and not paying attention to what they’re doing,” Mark Lauritsen, the union’s director of food processing, meatpacking and manufacturing, said Thursday.
The USDA grants the waivers to companies that use a new inspection system and provide increased access to plants' data on salmonella contamination. Officials say the higher speeds offer plant owners an incentive to adopt the system and to share information that leads to improved food safety.“What USDA does with the data is still a mystery,” he said.
“At this point we have made a few small increases in very specific instances,” Morgan Watchous, a Tyson spokeswoman, said in an email. “As we adapt to the situation we all face right now, in several of our facilities we’re slowing down our line speed to allow for social distancing and safety of our team members.”
Three of the six COVID-affected plants with waivers, where one worker died from the coronavirus, are owned by Wayne Farms in Alabama. Wayne Farms did not respond to requests for comment.
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