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LA Occasions featured Haub Regulation Professor Margot Pollans piece in “Op-Ed: Every little thing unsuitable with our meals system has been made worse by the pandemic”
LA Occasions featured Haub Regulation Professor Margot Pollans piece in “Op-Ed: Every little thing unsuitable with our meals system has been made worse by the pandemic”
Final Tuesday, President Trump invoked the Protection Manufacturing Act to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to “take all acceptable motion . . . to make sure that meat and poultry processors proceed operations.”
Though technically the chief order neither forces crops to open nor compels staff to indicate up, it reveals the president’s utter disregard for plant staff who may face a excessive threat of contracting COVID-19 from workplaces contaminated with the coronavirus. Based on the United Meals and Business Staff Worldwide Union, greater than 5,000 staff at meat processing crops have already been sickened, at the very least 20 have died, and greater than 20 crops have needed to shut in latest weeks.
It’s a merciless irony that Trump for thus lengthy refused to make use of the Protection Manufacturing Act to order manufacturing of lifesaving medical gear, and now does it so readily to guard the multibillion-dollar meatpacking business.
This government order ought to come as no shock. It’s completely in keeping with the president’s many insurance policies that hurt immigrants and minorities. Most of those staff are individuals of colour, and, in line with the Authorities Accountability Workplace, about 28% are foreign-born. Many had been recruited from overseas to take these jobs, that are low paying and harmful even in one of the best of instances.
Maybe much less clearly, the chief order is in keeping with a troubling sample in federal meals legislation: the systemic disregard for the well being and security of staff. Federal meals legislation prioritizes the pursuits of meals shoppers over these of meals system staff. When meals sickens shoppers, the legislation on the books offers for aggressive motion.
Against this, when meals staff are in danger, the federal authorities has a nasty monitor file. From underenforced pesticide security legal guidelines to insufficient protections from debt slavery and different types of exploitation, the pursuits of meals system staff come final. Earlier than the pandemic, the Trump administration additional weakened pesticide safety and relaxed legal guidelines governing line velocity in meat processing crops. Sooner manufacturing strains improve the chance of office damage. The federal authorities’s lax method to defending meals system staff from COVID-19 continues this pattern.
— to www.pace.edu
