Should we consider boycotting the meat plants that have become hot spots of Covid-19?

No. It’s not their fault that some employees came down with COVID-19 and caused the plant to shut down. And the results of the pandemic there would be punishment enough. Boycotting would only be punishment for worker and consumer alike. It would be akin to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

We don’t have to, they are closing.

I eat very little commercial meat (local poultry is really my thing) so my participation one way or another will make no difference. However, the idea that potentially ill workers (or any, actually) are forced back to work, into an unsafe environment, by government mandate, and therefore unable to collect unemployment benefits, is abhorrent to me.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Trump has ordered them to reopen. I can post a link if you can’t find one. They are opening.

Among other factors in this issue, I find it interesting that he is using the Defense Production Act to open meat packing plants but would not use it to convert production in other industires to PPE.

Here you go:

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/04/29/business/ap-us-virus-outbreak-trump-meat.html?searchResultPosition=3

Not a good situation and fuzzy legality. Last thing we need is a food panic, they had better make damn sure the workers are brought back into a safer environment or this could get ugly. Despite the order Gov’t can’t force any single person to go into work, anyone has the right to quit.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Yes, but then the can’t collect unemployment so they are in a bad situation either way.

I agree that if they enforce safety practices, provide PPE and give sick time to those infected, staying open would be the best but this does not necessarily seem to be what is being offered.

A lot of meat we don’t know where it comes from.

I know a lot of my friends (mostly republican) were afraid to eat anything Smithfield and obsessed it was Chinese owned. My guess is they will boycott that brand now that it was all over social media.

I want everyone to be safe working there and if the local government doesn’t do something in the absence of the fed doing it, I think the people in the state should make their voices heard. The lack of safety for those employees endangers the entire community at large.

I don’t think I buy anything Smithfield anyway.

My mom saw conditions in some of these other farms that are being talked about and we both agreed we wish meat was marked with the farm and slaughterhouse name, because some of the conditions for the animals are horrific. I stopped eating veal 25 years ago because of how some of the calfs are treated.

No need since this happened here in our Province in Canada the one meat Plant that was affected had closed until all is inspected and sanitized etc

The staff that had Covid -19 are being treated etc

This is just ONE plant so no boycott necessary here since that particular Plant did the right thing and is fixing the conditions etc

Effects of this revelation had resulted in much higher costs for meat now and I suppose the local Grocers had capitalized ( once again) to only supply the wealthy consumer with thick big steaks of which caters to the BBQ crowds only.

We have only two large Grocers in our Town which compete over the years and both have raised there prices so much so that I go to the local convenience store for half the costs for some items. (TP and subs/sandwiches,TV dinners just in case)

@Inspired_2write No, this is not one plant in Canada. This has been happening in the USA in a number of plants; Tyson’s and Smithfield in South Dakota are two I know. If it were one plant in Canada, Trump would have no ability to control it.

I believe there is merit in considering such measures as boycotts. Slaughterhouses have from the beginning been the sort of enterprise of which the public has feeble knowledge and are therefore ripe for abuse and exploitation of those reduced to working in them. It has always been grueling hazardous work, but the great transformation of the industry in my lifetime has seen the shift of such work from dangerous but solid middle class employment in major cities to still dangerous low wage exploitation of immigrant labor hidden away in backwater places desperate for any enterprise to provide some semblance of an economy. This shift of immigrant labor concentration from cities to rural desolation in such hazardous work has tailored an out of sight—out of mind environment with rural governments held hostage and therefore prone to lax regulation and enforcement of established rules protecting those providing the nation’s meat and poultry. The results are predictable and just what you would expect.

@janbb
I was mentioning here in our Province, not in Your country of which it affects many more plants I assume?

I agree completely with @stanleybmanly !
My best friend’s husband used to work in a slaughterhouse. The conditions are terrible. For both the animals and the workers. If people really knew where their meat came from and the conditions they are made in everyone would be vegetarian.

Nevermind Covid, there is such a high chance of disease coming through there. Maybe, just maybe this will open some people’s eyes. (but probably not). Your meat is not clean or healthy people !

ETA: One of the places closing down is in St. Charles, Illinois.

I drift towards and away from vegetarianism. I have some meat in the freezer from “before” and bought a few pork chops yesterday, but I am shooting to up my meatless days. I find it difficult to go completely vegetarian.

I do think there should be ways to press for greater safety controls for workers in meat processing plants and more humane ways of killing animals.

I am hoping if we get a new administration we will strengthen both OSHA and the FDA instead of eviscerating them along with the animals.

You should consider boycotting all meat, all of the time. If you are really concerned about the people who work in meat processing, consider looking up the adverse physical and mental repercussions these workers experience every day, all the time, not just during a pandemic.

It’s a bit hypocritical to just start caring now.

What would the boycott accomplish? It’s a waste of time unless there is some goal that they are seeking to reach.

What’s the goal?

The same as any boycott—pressure to drive necessary reform.

@stanleybmanly what does that mean, concretely? Reform is a meaningless word without specific goals.

The goal would be one’s own safety for one thing but mainly better oversight of the meat processing plants in terms of protection for the health of the workers who are being forced back to work while sickness is running rampant in their work place.

@tinyfaery I understand your point but I don’t think greater awareness of certain issues at times of crisis implies hypocrisy. We can’t all focus on everything bad all the time. I honor you for your vegetarianism but it’s not for me so I do my best to eat humanely. However, that is not the focus of this question here and now.

Here’s what it means: Communicable diseases cannot be confined in a fluid society to just the “throwaway” people in our nether regions like rural Nebraska or South Dakota. And the connection of that fact with the sausage on your plate is going to put that fact at the forefront of our current indifference.

The problem is that a lot of the meat processed at these plants isn’t sold under their brand names to begin with. They supply a lot of other brands and restaurants. Boycott Smithfield and Tyson brands sure, but they’ll just increase the amount of supply that they sell to third parties and the consumer will be none the wiser.

@stanleybmanly Agree with you on this one.
I’m sticking close to home with veggies and local meats for awhile (farmers markets.)

@Darth_Algar That’s why I’m suggesting the possibility of trying to avoid meat as much as is feasible or perhaps buying organic or certified or locally sourced meat. I realize this isn’t always feasible but one can try.

@janbb

Sure, but that just isn’t feasible for a lot of families.

@Darth_Algar I totally get that. This is more of a theoretical question than a practical one expecially in these times but something I will try to do. There is so much going on today to pay attention to and work on but my thoughts are on this today. And I do remember the California grape boycott that Chavez and Delores Huerta started that did help conditions for migrant farm workers.

But as with anything else, “quiet will not turn the trick”.

@stanleybmanly I think you’d be surprised how loudly American dollars speak still. If we all try to make an impact, the wallet’s the best place to start.

But the threat is multiplied several orders of magnitude through noise. People require information before they think to understand the significance of their mouthful of bacon or fried chicken exactly as they would the disappearance of their Jewish neighbors.

It is very much hypocrisy. Why care now, and not everyday that slaughterhouse workers are harmed mentally and physically? You can increase your awareness anytime, but you choose not to. I’m increasing your awareness right now that these workers are experiencing harm EVERY DAY. When this is over you are probably going to go back to not giving a shit and you will still be contributing to it. Boycott now and always.

^^ I hear what you are saying.

But disdain for hypocrisy is a laughable luxury in the realm of incentives next to the imminent urgency of self preservation. You want people to take an issue seriously, just let em know that THEY are gonna face death SOON through neglecting it.

For me this is 90% about the workers and animals being abused. It has almost nothing to do with the food possibly being prepared by someone with COVID19. Aren’t you assuming everything you buy might have has someone near it with COVID19? Just like assuming all hamburger meat might have E. coli?

My friends who all threw out their Smithfield meats in their fridge, I think if I alread had it in my fridge I still would have eaten it just cook it through.

“Article”: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/meat-plant-workers-us-coronavirus-war

Trump can force the plant to stay open but he can’t force an individual to work if they are sick.