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By Thin Lei Win
ROME, June 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Standing elbow-to-elbow deboning chickens, chopping beef and slicing hams: working conditions in the multi-billion dollar meat-packing industry could be fostering future pandemics, according to a report from a major investor group.
Coronavirus has been spreading rapidly in meat plants in countries including the United States, Brazil and Germany among workers who live in cramped quarters and often lack masks and paid sick days.
The Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return (FAIRR) coalition, whose members manage $20 trillion in assets, has delved into how working conditions and environmental malpractices at 60 meat, fish and dairy giants have made them vectors for infection.
How much of a risk is the industry to global health and what can be done to protect workers?
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Why it matters:
Meat processing and packing plants in North America and Europe have become hotspots for outbreaks of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
In the U.S. more than 20,000 meat-packing plant workers have fallen ill, according to the Food and Environment Reporting Network.
Nearly 340 meatpacking workers at a single plant in Brazil tested positive for the novel coronavirus last month and the Netherlands, Ireland, France and the UK have faced similar issues in their slaughterhouses.
The industry is also vulnerable to outbreaks of other livestock-originating disease including African Swine Fever, Swine flu and Avian flu.
Are meat plants still operating?
The pandemic has forced dozens of meatpacking plants – including the world’s largest pork processor – in the United States to temporarily close.
President Donald Trump, though, has told the industry to continue to operate despite concerns about workers’ safety.
A U.S. trade union representing meatpacking and food-processing workers on Wednesday called on the Congress to protect workers with new laws.
