Nearly 4,000 US meatpacking workers to strike at plant run by top Trump donor

Pilgrim's Pride, a subsidiary of the JBS Brazilian meat processing conglomerate, donated $5m to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee, making it the largest single donor… 

Workers say JBS has forced them to pay out of pocket for expensive personal protective equipment, discriminated against immigrant workers and tried to force through low-ball contract options…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/11/jbs-usa-meatpacking-strike-trump

 

Hundreds of meatpacking workers with work permits lose their jobs following Trump immigration crackdown

"They're not being treated fairly. They did everything right. They did what they were told do. They followed the procedure," Ulin said. "But because of some political B.S. ... they're caught in the middle." 

He also pointed out that these are the same meatpacking workers the first Trump administration deemed essential workers during the Covid pandemic. 

 "Everybody working on that plant, some of these people were among them, showed up for work willingly and proudly, to put food on the table during a crisis time," Ulin said. "Five short years later, because of some political immigration issue — you're not good enough to work here anymore. I just have an issue with that."…

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/iowa-jbs-plant-lose-work-permits-tps-trump-rcna221672

 

A Scandalous Reason Meat Prices Have Skyrocketed – Mother Jones

Reining in Big Meat will require bolder federal action. On the campaign trail, Kamala Harris proposed a federal ban on price gouging that could provide a legal framework to challenge market manipulators. But the most important move, Frerick says, is simply to en-force existing laws: "In the meat industry, we already did this all a century ago. This isn't rocket science—it's really just a question of political courage."…

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2024/12/agri-stats-antitrust-meatpacking-inflation-doj/

After Hundreds of Meatpacking Workers Died From COVID-19, Congress Wants Answers — ProPublica

...The congressional investigation, opened by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, will examine the role of JBS, Smithfield Foods and Tyson Foods, three of the nation's largest meat companies, which, the subcommittee said, had "refused to take basic precautions to protect their workers" and had "shown a callous disregard for workers' health."...

https://www.propublica.org/article/after-hundreds-of-meatpacking-workers-died-from-covid-19-congress-wants-answers

How Labor Secretary Scalia Played Chicken With Meatpacking Workers’ Lives – Mother Jones

A typical poultry, pork, or beef plant employs hundreds of people—by and large immigrants, refugees, and people of color—toiling shoulder to shoulder to dismember and break down carcasses moving down the kill line at rates as high as 390 cattle, 1,295 pigs, or 10,500 birds per hour. Meatpacking workers have always faced hazardous conditions and high injury rates, and their tight working conditions make them highly susceptible to viral pathogens. What spreads inside a meat factory doesn’t stay within its walls: By late May, rural counties that had meatpacking plants with COVID-19 outbreaks had average infection rates five times higher than the rest of rural America. As of mid-July, at least 168 meatpacking workers had died from the disease.

“It’s a terrible experiment in achieving herd immunity,” says David Michaels, a professor of occupational health at George Washington University who led the the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under Obama. By the time the pandemic runs its course, he predicts, “everyone will have become infected” at meatpacking plants. ....
https://www.motherjones.com/food/2020/07/labor-eugene-scalia-meatpacking-osha-stress-carpal-tunnel-coronavirus-covid/

'We're modern slaves': How meat plant workers became the new frontline in Covid-19 war

News of the first Covid-19 death at the Tyson Foods poultry plant in Camilla, south-west Georgia, spread slowly. “It was like they were keeping a secret,” said Tara Williams, a 47-year-old worker at the plant, as she described her account of management’s response to the death of her colleague Elose Willis. “It took them about two weeks to just put a picture up, to acknowledge she had died.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/meat-plant-workers-us-coronavirus-war

Republicans Keep Blaming Workers for Coronavirus Outbreaks at Meat Plants – Mother Jones

Trump’s HHS secretary Alex Azar said the virus was linked to the “home and social” lives of workers.
https://www.motherjones.com/food/2020/05/republicans-keep-blaming-workers-for-coronavirus-outbreaks-at-meat-plants/

New lawsuit seeks to stop the use of ‘downed’ pigs for food products - The Washington Post

The USDA made it illegal in 2007 to slaughter downed cattle for beef products and in 2016 outlawed the slaughter of downed calves for veal....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/downed-pigs-are-turned-into-pork-products-a-new-lawsuit-seeks-to-stop-that/2020/02/06/3f8302ea-46c8-11ea-bc78-8a18f7afcee7_story.html

I’ve seen the hidden horrors of high-speed slaughterhouses | Opinion | The Guardian

There is still time to stop an imminent program that would allow facilities to increase slaughter speeds, while reducing the number of trained government inspectors...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/ive-seen-the-hidden-horrors-of-high-speed-slaughterhouses

Trump says American workers are hurt by immigration. But after ICE raided this Texas town, they never showed up - The Washington Post

Despite growing wages, few Americans sign up for grueling jobs at a meatpacking plant. ....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-says-american-workers-are-hurt-by-immigration-but-after-ice-raided-this-texas-town-they-never-showed-up/2018/03/04/8ce16362-1d65-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html