U.S. Regulators Fine Pork Giant Smithfield Over Covid-19 Outbreak
11 September 2020 - 8:48AM
Dow Jones News
By Jacob Bunge
The U.S. Department of Labor fined Smithfield Foods Inc. over a
Covid-19 outbreak that infected nearly 1,300 workers and led to
four deaths at a South Dakota plant, alleging that the pork giant
failed to protect employees.
The action is the federal government's first Covid-19 related
penalty for a meatpacker, the Labor Department said. It comes after
the novel coronavirus rapidly spread last spring among workers that
power the $213 billion U.S. meat industry, forcing Smithfield and
other companies to temporarily close plants and disrupting the
supply of meat to grocery stores.
Smithfield said it would contest the citation, which carries a
proposed $13,494 fine, the maximum allowed by law, according to the
Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health
Administration.
Smithfield's Sioux Falls, S.D. plant is one of the pork
industry's biggest, with about 3,700 workers slaughtering nearly
20,000 hogs daily. After the facility was linked to more than 200
Covid-19 infections in early April, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem
urged Smithfield to close it for an extended period.
The company did, but Chief Executive Kenneth Sullivan warned
that plant closures would threaten the U.S. food supply and leave
farmers to deal with tens of thousands of unsold hogs.
Shoulder-to-shoulder processing line work, typical in U.S. meat
plants, helped make them early coronavirus hot spots, and U.S.
health officials estimated more than 17,000 meatpacking workers
were infected in April and May, with 91 deaths. The pandemic
spurred a succession of shutdowns at plants owned by Tyson Foods
Inc., JBS USA Holdings Inc., Cargill Inc. and other meatpackers,
sharply reducing U.S. meat production and forcing some supermarkets
to limit consumer meat purchases.
OSHA said Thursday that after inspecting the Sioux Falls
facility, Smithfield was found to have violated a requirement to
provide a workplace free from hazards that could cause death or
serious harm to employees. The agency said that at least 1,294
workers at the plant contracted Covid-19 over the spring, and four
died.
"Employers must quickly implement appropriate measures to
protect their workers' safety and health," said Sheila Stanley,
OSHA's Sioux Falls area director.
Smithfield, which is based in Virginia and owned by Hong
Kong-based meat company WH Group, blasted OSHA for citing the
company over plant conditions in March when the agency didn't issue
guidelines for the meat industry until late April. The company
requested that OSHA visit sooner, but the agency did not, said
Keira Lombardo, Smithfield's head of corporate affairs.
"Despite this fact, we figured it out on our own," she said. Ms.
Lombardo added that Smithfield spent $350 million on
coronavirus-related expenses from April to July, and that OSHA had
pointed to some of Smithfield's actions as a model for other
meatpackers. Smithfield's plant was affected by a broader
coronavirus outbreak in Sioux Falls, she said.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union,
which represents employees at the Smithfield plant, called the
proposed fine insulting and insufficient to ensure employers
safeguard workers' health.
"OSHA has been asleep at the switch throughout this pandemic and
this is just the latest example of the agency failing to do their
job and take responsibility for worker safety," said Marc Perrone,
the union's president.
An OSHA spokeswoman didn't immediately comment.
Write to Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 10, 2020 18:33 ET (22:33 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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