Meatpackers hyped 'baseless' shortage to keep plants open despite covid risks: report

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

BUSINESS

Meatpackers hyped ‘baseless’ shortage to keep plants open despite covid risks: report

A House panel alleges that industry players like Tyson Foods prepared a draft that became the basis for an executive order the Trump White House issued in April 2020

By Taylor Telford
Today at 10:43 a.m. EDT | Updated today at 10:43 a.m. EDT

The biggest players in the U.S. meat industry pressed “baseless” claims of beef and pork shortages early in the pandemic to persuade the Trump White House to keep processing plants running, disregarding the coronavirus risks that eventually killed at least 269 workers, according to a special House committee investigating the nation’s pandemic response.

In a report released Thursday, the committee alleges that Tyson Foods’s legal team prepared a draft with input from other companies that became the basis for an executive order to keep the plants open the Trump administration issued in April 2020, making it difficult for workers to stay home.

“Meatpacking companies knew the risk posed by the coronavirus to their workers and knew it wasn’t a risk that the country needed them to take,” according to the report by the select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis. “They nonetheless lobbied aggressively — successfully enlisting USDA as a close collaborator in their efforts — to keep workers on the job in unsafe conditions, to ensure state and local health authorities were powerless to mandate otherwise, and to be protected against legal liability for the harms that would result.”

{snip}

By Taylor Telford
Taylor Telford is a reporter covering national and breaking news. Twitter https://twitter.com/taylormtelford

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/05/12/meatpackers-covid-deaths-trump-industry/

[Marthe48]

1. Can Pres. Biden make an e.o

about abortion rights that make federal, state and local authorities powerless to reverse Roe v. Wade? Or an e.o. to protect voting rights from same?

[aocommunalpunch]

3. I don't see this administration trying anything close to that.

They haven't shown any indication of willingness in that direction.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. The dotard needed his hamberders

[oldsoftie]

5. So were they hiding the meat? Because it certainly wasn't on the shelves for awhile.

Not a big meat eater, but I would look every time I went to the stores & for quite some time the stock was thin.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. They have huge refrigerated warehouses with freezers, etc

They also have them at ports, etc.

Some examples -

https://clui.org/project-page/10236/10356

https://www.refrigeratedfrozenfood.com/articles/88099-tyson-foods-adds-cold-storage-capabilities-to-fresh-meats-facility

https://dentonrc.com/news/tyson-foods-asks-for-incentives-to-build-denton-warehouse/article_34a23949-1c7f-5e6d-ac24-64eb889dfab6.html

And then just like that, they could manipulate their use during the pandemic - https://www.perishablenews.com/meatpoultry/tyson-to-shut-down-emporia-cold-storage/

They had done it back in 2010 after the Great Recession too - https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2010/may/23/ripple-effect-cold-storage-fights-chilly--20100523/

Eventually due to the massive COVID infections at the processing plants, they had to shut those down and that eventually drained the stuff in storage (that had been held).

The latest "business model" is to operate as a "just in time" style manufacturing/storage/distribution system. That is what killed the TP industry during the early part of the pandemic, with that product quickly disappearing from the shelves but not enough capacity to scale up production to meet an increased demand.

[oldsoftie]

10. "Just in time"; learned from the Japanese, hurt MANY businesses. Like autos.

We're still feeling the impact of one part not being in stock stopping production. And too many foreign suppliers.

I would like to see Congress pass a law, SOME kind of law, to in some way force companies OUT of China. Especially companies making/buying critical items.
We are FAR more chained to China than we ever were with russia

[BumRushDaShow]

11. I agree

although oddly enough, and I never thought I'd see the day, but because of the continued lockdowns in China, Apple is getting slammed and has now "admitted" to maybe possibly looking at other countries for their supply chain.

Earlier in the year, they were blaming Japan and started moving to more Chinese companies for certain chips, but now the handwriting is on the wall -

Apple’s Overdependence on China Shows in $8 Billion Supply-Chain Snag


Mark Gurman
May 1, 2022, 9:45 AM EDT
Share this article

Apple products are primarily assembled in China, and that’s brought headaches in recent years—including supply-chain woes in its latest quarter. The tech giant should now engage in a rapid expansion elsewhere. Also: A look at last quarter’s results and how the company is slowing hiring at some stores. Apple Inc. likes to say that its supply chain is global and that it isn’t overly dependent on China.

The reality is that Apple is tremendously reliant on the country for manufacturing, and this relationship has caused headaches for the company, investors and consumers during the pandemic. That was especially evident on the company’s second-quarter conference call last week, when Apple warned that supply shortages—spurred in large part by Covid-19 lockdowns in China—would reduce sales by as much as $8 billion. That’s like losing an entire quarter’s worth of iPad sales.

During the call, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook reiterated the stance that Apple’s supply chain is “truly global,” with products made everywhere, including the U.S. But it’s clear that the company could shift more of its manufacturing out of China. Cook hinted that Apple may be looking to do more of that, noting that a growing number of chips are produced domestically. “We continue to look at optimizing,” he said. Already, Apple gets many of its components from outside China.

The parts that go into the iPhone, iPad, Mac and other products are made all over the world, from the U.S. to India to Vietnam to Japan. But the real bottleneck in production is the assembly process, better known within Apple and the manufacturing field as FATP. That stands for final assembly, test and pack. The vast majority of Apple devices go through that process in China. That’s why your MacBook Pro, iPad or iPhone probably says, “Assembled in China.”

(snip)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-05-01/will-apple-aapl-move-more-of-its-supply-chain-out-of-china-l2nchsuj

For some interesting reason, Europe is able to do more restrictions and a higher level of regulatory enforcement when compared to the U.S. and then that means we end up paying more because we are subsidizing the rest of the world (the same goes for pharmaceuticals).

[oldsoftie]

12. Thank you for the story; I hadn't heard that. I hope they follow through.

[keithbvadu2]

6. Human capital stock

Human capital stock

[keithbvadu2]

7. Wisconsin Supreme Court justice: Meatpackers aren't 'regular folks'

Wisconsin Supreme Court justice: Meatpackers aren't 'regular folks'

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142489043

[cstanleytech]

8. I suspect that they also hyped it to manipulate the price of said meat

in order to increase their profits which imo should lead to dissolving the companies like what happened to the original AT&T.

[amcgrath]

13. There needs to be all sorts of investigations

Into corporate behaviour surrounding the pandemic. From the very beginning, when 3M held the government to ransom, demanding that they could be held liable for flaws in unrelated equipment they had sold in the past.
We cannot shrug these things off. The companies should No that profiteering, especially in a time of crisis will incur heavy penalties