The administration’s meatpacking order kept generating backlash on May 4 because it forced a public-health tradeoff that workers and labor advocates had been warning about for weeks. The White House was treating meat and poultry processing as a supply-chain emergency, but the people doing the cutting and packaging were the ones absorbing the danger. In a pandemic, that kind of policy looks a lot like asking low-wage workers to take one for the grocery aisle. The consequence was not abstract: outbreaks, fear, and a widening sense that the administration cared more about output than human beings.
First recorded May 4, 2020·Meaningfully updated May 4, 2020
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Trump Keeps Meat Plants Open, Safety Be Damned
The administration’s meatpacking order kept generating backlash on May 4 because it forced a public-health tradeoff that workers and labor advocates had been warning about for weeks. The White House was treating meat and poultry processing as a supply-chain emergency, but the people doing the cutting and packaging were the ones absorbing the danger. In a pandemic, that kind of policy looks a lot like asking low-wage workers to take one for the grocery aisle. The consequence was not abstract: ou…
The administration’s meatpacking order kept generating backlash on May 4 because it forced a public-health tradeoff that workers and labor advocates had been warning about for weeks. The White House was treating meat and poultry processing as a supply-chain emergency, but the people doing the cutting and packaging were the ones absorbing the danger. In a pandemic, that kind of policy looks a lot like asking low-wage…
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