Essential workers, ‘not sacrificial workers’
On Tuesday, Donald Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act ordering meat processing/packing plants to stay open and for those plants that have already closed due to rising numbers of workers sick and dying with coronavirus to reopen.
The order declares the plants as essential to the food supply infrastructure but does not compel plant owners to provide safety measures for workers. The order only ‘suggests’ plants take precautions.
America’s food processing and meatpacking workers are in extreme danger, and our nation’s food supply faces a direct threat from the coronavirus outbreak. If workers in these plants are as essential as our elected leaders say, then it’s about time that our elected leaders provide them with the essential protections they need. Make no mistake, without national safety standards to protect these workers from the coronavirus– more lives will be lost, more workers will be exposed, and our food supply will face jeopardy: UFCW International President Marc Perrone.
In ordering the nation’s meat plants to stay open, Donald Trump is in essence marching many meatpacking workers off to slaughter. With his executive order on Tuesday night, the president is in effect overruling safety-minded governors and mayors who have pressured numerous meat, pork and poultry plants into shutting temporarily after they had become hotspots that were spreading Covid-19 through their surrounding communities. With such a move, Trump is – let’s not mince words here – is showing contempt for both workers’ health and public health.
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children” First Nations proverb.
