A new congressional report reveals how meatpackers, with the assistance of trade associations, persuaded the Trump administration to keep plants open, despite the pandemic, on “baseless claims of beef and pork shortages.”
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis report analyzed more than 151,000 documents collected from government agencies, White House officials, Cargill, JBS, National Beef, Smithfield, Tyson Foods and the North American Meat Institute (NAMI).
The report details how packers persuaded then-Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to “elevate the need for messaging about the importance of our workforce staying at work to the (president of the U.S.) or (vice president) level.” They also asked for federal liability protection against lawsuits if workers were infected with COVID-19.
More than 59,000 workers at plants owned by the meatpackers contracted COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic, and at least 269 died, according to the first report by the subcommittee released in October.
The report states meatpackers “knew the risk posed by the coronavirus to their workers” and lobbied with USDA to keep plants open despite local officials and health departments shutting the plants down. Packers viewed state and local health authorities as their enemy, acknowledging their goal: “Now to get rid of those pesky health departments!” according to the report. They used USDA officials to “educate” other agencies to convince workers to continue working, stating they would not qualify for unemployment benefits, the report read.
When state and local officials were shutting plants down, Smithfield and Tyson engaged in phone calls with USDA officials, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, to stop the plant shutdowns. Smithfield and Tyson proposed seeking an executive order from then-President Donald Trump, and Tyson’s legal department drafted the proposed executive order. The executive order was issued after USDA officials received the draft from Tyson.
After the executive order was issued, White House officials reportedly “requested” that meatpacking companies “issue positive statements and social media about the president’s action on behalf of the industry, about the order itself and about how it will help ensure the food supply chain remains strong.”
The report also highlights how industry executives publicly made “baseless claims” of a pending food shortage while still exporting high volumes of meat. In April 2020, Perdue said empty store shelves were due to a “demand issue, not a supply issue.”
However, documents received by the subcommittee showed meatpackers had enough inventory to supply grocery stores. According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, meatpackers held 622 million pounds of frozen pork as of March 31, 2020. For the first three quarters of 2020, Smithfield exported 90 percent more pork to China than it did during the same period of 2017, while JBS appeared to have exported 370 percent more.
Industry reactions
After the report’s release, Julie Anna Potts, president and CEO of NAMI, said they and member companies cooperated with the subcommittee and provided thousands of pages of information, and the subcommittee has “done the nation a disservice.”
Potts said the report “distorts the truth” and “uses 20/20 hindsight and cherry-picks data to support a narrative that is completely unrepresentative of the early days of an unprecedented national emergency.”
“The report ignores the rigorous and comprehensive measures companies enacted to protect employees and support their critical infrastructure workers,” Potts continued.
Tyson Foods Inc. told Meat+Poultry that its commitment has been to their employees’ health and safety throughout the pandemic. Over the past two years, they have “been contacted by, received direction from, and collaborated with many different federal, state and local officials” as they navigated the pandemic. “This collaboration is crucial to ensuring the essential work of the U.S. food supply chain and our continued efforts to keep team members safe,” the statement continued.
Jim Monroe, Smithfield’s vice president of corporate affairs, told DTN the company has invested $900 million in worker safety and has exceeded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s and Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s guidelines.
“More than two years ago, we encountered a first-of-its-kind challenge,” Monroe said. “As an essential industry with responsibilities for the nation’s food supply, the challenges were particularly profound. We are immensely proud of the true dedication our team members showed to keep nutritious protein available as we took every appropriate measure to keep our workers safe.” — Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
