Big meat gang is getting awfully smelly

[chuckChuck]

https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/op-ed/comment-the-big-meat-gang-is-getting-awfully-smelly/ https://www.manitobacooperator.ca/op-ed/comment-the-big-meat-gang-is-getting-awfully-smelly/

[Blaithin]

Why is the Manitoba Cooperator publishing a piece that doesn’t even mention packing plants in Canada?

Not saying ours were handled the best but that piece is 110% American.

Is it also fully applicable to the issues Australian packers had? What about issues in other countries that we never even heard about. Must have been a big cover up!

Really, a crappy article overall. They’re big global names that weren’t mentioned. JBS, Cargill, Tyson.... so how did those big global names fare in other countries around the globe. Don’t make it sound like they’ve got the world in their palm when the only example they have is America.

[chuckChuck]

Why is the Manitoba Cooperator publishing a piece that doesn’t even mention packing plants in Canada?

Not saying ours were handled the best but that piece is 110% American.

Is it also fully applicable to the issues Australian packers had? What about issues in other countries that we never even heard about. Must have been a big cover up!

Really, a crappy article overall. They’re big global names that weren’t mentioned. JBS, Cargill, Tyson.... so how did those big global names fare in other countries around the globe. Don’t make it sound like they’ve got the world in their palm when the only example they have is America.

The author Alan Guebert is a regular syndicated columnist for many US and Canadian Farm papers. The Cooperator carries his columns frequently. The story is about how Big meat influences US government policy and specifically Covid policy which is alarming!

I agree It would be interesting to know what is happening in Canada, Australia etc. The packing industry is highly concentrated so it represents all the big names you named.

I am not sure why you are calling the article crappy? is it because you don't believe what he is writing about or because he didn't mention Canada? Please explain.

[chuckChuck]

https://www.farmandfoodfile.com/ https://www.farmandfoodfile.com/

Alan Guebert is an award-winning agricultural journalist and expert who was raised on an 720-acre, 100-cow southern Illinois dairy farm. After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1980, he worked as a writer and senior editor at Professional Farmers of America and Successful Farming magazine. In 1984, Guebert returned to Illinois to establish his freelance writing business and to serve as a contributing editor to Farm Journal magazine.

He began the syndicated agriculture column “The Farm and Food File” in 1993 and it now appears weekly in more than 60 newspapers throughout the United States and Canada.

Guebert previously wrote ”Letter from America,” a monthly perspective on U.S. farm and food policy for European and Asian publications. “Letter from America” ran from 1995 through 2007.

Throughout his career, Guebert has won numerous awards and accolades for his magazine and newspaper work. In 1997, the American Agricultural Editors’ Association honored him with its highest awards, Writer of the Year and Master Writer.

[Blaithin]

The author is a regular syndicated columnist for many US Farm papers. The Cooperator carries his columns frequently. The story is about how Big meat influences US government policy and specifically Covid policy which is alarming! I agree It would be interesting to know what is happening in Canada, Australia etc. The packing industry is highly concentrated so it represents all the big names you named.

I’d like to think the rest of the western world isn’t as corrupt as America. I mean... we’re corrupt but we aren’t America.

An article focusing on other western countries responses to handling the outbreak in plants would give a broader image of how the situation was handled. Not just an American viewpoint which must always seem to focus on the political. Especially with the election looming.

All that article says is they called the White House...

What was done in plants?

Here there were shift alterations. Slow downs. Shut downs. Some infrastructure changes. Testing and temperature checks. All those hand washing pamphlets and more I’m sure.

The article makes it sound like nothing of this nature was done Stateside and that all that happened down there was the White House ordered workers back to work.

I’m actually quite glad I’m not a subscriber to the Cooperator if they think columns focusing on nothing more than American political manipulation is what their readers are interested in. At least mention markets or something that’s pertinent to international readers.

Mind you, same guy could be in my subscription to WP and I just haven’t gotten to it in my backlogged pile 😂

[blackpowder]

I read the article. Editorial reallly. It's message has a value. But it's cant towards pro labor, minorities and anti big business, anti current govt is what attracts Chuck.

[furrowtickler]

So here in Canada , how are the meat plants doing ? You know the ones that serve Canadians . Blathin brought up some very good points again .

[Blaithin]

Not to change this into a discussion about minorities and migrant workers, but why isn’t/wasn’t the home atmosphere addressed in the article.

It mentions who’s in the plant working and calls them vulnerable, but in no way mentions how they live. (I don’t mean they live in squalor)

Here the packing plants are employed by a large percentage of immigrant workers. Nothing wrong with that. However those workers do have a tendency to live in large familial homes and interact regularly with friends and family within their community and circle.

A plant has the perfect conditions temperature and humidity wise for the virus to spread, but a close second would have to be close living conditions with a larger than normal amount of people.

Now this isn’t to start the debate of “if they got paid more they wouldn’t have to all live together”, it’s more than that. That is their culture. They live in familial units. They aren’t like first world westerners who’s dream goal is a large house for four people to spread out in. They are a fairly tight knit community.

In fact the first cases that made it to my small town were community infections that branched out from the packing plants. I’m hours away from the two big plants.

So should the packing companies be held accountable for excessive spread when a large part of it probably occurred in the home place? I can’t say it was similar in America however chances are high it played a part as well.

With, or without, the call to the White House, would living conditions not have resulted in similar results anyway?

With, or without, the call to the White House, at what point is food security a priority? Living in the country with a freezer full of meat and a field full of cows, it’s easy for me to say shut the plants down. Taking the perspective of an urbanite who has a total of three meals stored in my tiny fridge freezer, the idea of next to no meat making it to shelves.... that’s an intimidating prospect. I’ve already filled my closets with toilet paper and hand sanitizer, and my cupboards with flour and yeast, but what else should I try and hoard if the meat supply isn’t even safe?!


Easy to sit back and judge based on part truths. I wouldn’t want to have been in the position of having to make those kind of calls though. Nor would I say it’s a true reflection of how rank an industry is or is not.

[chuckChuck]

“Heavy-handed lobbying by Big Agbiz is not unusual. What is unusual, however, is the “quick seven-day turnaround, even amid an emergency like COVID-19” to get White House action.

USDA wasn’t the only federal agency to spring into action. Shortly after Big Meat made its pitch to the White House, “… the Labor Department, which had been hearing similar complaints… issued guidance clarifying that workers who quit to avoid contracting the disease wouldn’t receive jobless benefits.”

As cold hearted as that was, the packer lobbyist asked for even more. “Hearing a strong and consistent message from the president or vice-president,” wrote Julie Anna Potts, NAMI’s president, in an email, “… is vital: being afraid of COVID-19 is not a reason to quit your job and you are not eligible for unemployment compensation if you do.”

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Shortly thereafter, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue was empowered to order the worried and, in some instances, already COVID-infected, employees back to work. Then, to ensure they went, the government removed any safety net if they quit out of fear or illness.

With little recourse, most of the browbeaten and scared — 65 per cent of U.S. meat-packing employees identify as either Black, Brown, and/or immigrant — went back to work. As a result, says ProPublica, more than 43,000 were sickened by COVID-19 and “at least 195” died.“

[chuckChuck]

Regardless of where workers caught Covid it is unethical to force sick workers back to work Where they put themselves and other workers, community and families at greater risk of catching Covid and dieing! 195 workers died!

Some Plants in Canada shut down, cleaned up and put in measures to reduce spread.

We know that many Canadians will not take jobs in meat plants because the working conditions are poor and the pay is not great. It’s worse in the US where there is a good chance many of the workers are undocumented and scared as hell of losing their jobs or being deported.

[Blaithin]

Canadian Labour Law states all workers have the Right to Know, Right to Participate, and Right to Refuse.

If America doesn’t have similar laws, that is America’s problem. Again.... not even a little bit mentioned in the article with a focus so narrow it can hide in the cracks in Farmaholics ground.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say the big global packers weren’t able to run so roughshod in other countries because other countries have better laws in place to protect their workforce and their health. America doesn’t.

So who are you mad at, the government who let it happen, the company’s who took advantage of it or the industry it’s involved in. Because the entire title of that article is misleading if it’s an attempt to strike at the government.

[chuckChuck]

Both the corrupt government and the companies are at fault in the US. That’s obvious. As with many decisions in the US, agri biz writes a lot of the policy!

As a meat producer you should be very concerned about how your industry operates because if you aren’t you will alienate a lot of customers. It’s bad for business for meat packing plants to run roughshod over workers.

[Blaithin]

I’m concerned that a paper, and an agriculture paper at that, feels it should publish a column titled in such a way as to have next to nothing to do with the content yet carry with it the strength to tarnish an entire industry.

It highlights itself like Vegan propaganda material. The entire meat industry is at fault! Meat stinks. Big meat is bad! (Stop eating meat!)

How am I, as a beef producer, even involved in anything in that article? I’m not in that country. I’m in no control where my animals end up slaughtered if I sell them on to someone else for finishing. I have no capability to grant or deny packing plants anything.

My industry is far, far more than the end chain processor and a foreign government. People need to realize that. We are far more than feedlots. We are far more than a finishing method. We are far more than a step on the healthy eating pyramid that may or may not be removed. Stop grouping one industry together under a negative faucet it has in order to get sensationalized garbage to print.

Meat is not the issue in that article. The fact it can run on like it’s meat that is the problem and at the end you feel you can say it’s a concern I need to have for my industry is hogwash. The concern I have for my industry from it is it’s irrelevant, misleading and sensationalized title choice that will have negative impacts on all meat production.

Labour laws are the problem that article is trying to highlight. Government complacency and corruption is the problem. And yes, those are issues that are worth being concerned about, but not by me because I’m in the same, vague, industry, but by everyone. The only thing it has to do with meat is it’s picking on the packers.

There are things I’d like changed in regards to slaughtering but they are things in Canada. Things that will effect me. Not American conspiracies about being bought and owned by big name Agri food companies.

The more I type on this thread, the grouchier I get at the paper for running that column hah

[chuckChuck]

Consumers have every right to know how the meat industry treats its workers. They also have every right to know how safe their meat is and how it is produced and how food safety rules are applied.

Its called accountability and transparency. As a consumer and a producer I expect nothing less.

There is a good chance the US industry has influenced food safety rules in their favour as well. Cutting corners, red tape and reducing costs is what is all about when you only think about the bottom line.

And I buy my meat from local producers as much as possible to support them and to know how it was produced and processed.

Consumers who don't have this choice should also have some assurances and trust that their meat is safe.

[Blaithin]

So we should judge the CFIA and the plants in Canada based on an article we read about American policy during Covid?

Sorry but what does the latter have to do with our food safety.

American food safety policy in general is substandard to Canadian, at least in the beef department which I am more familiar with. But I don’t recall that article mentioning acceptable waste products America feeds its cattle that are not allowed in Canada, or America’s lack of an established traceability program. Probably because that isn’t a food safety article.

It’s a labour article.

Get the meat out of it.

Call out the companies, not the product, not the industry.

You think packing plants are the only culprits?

There is nothing transparent about that article. It’s a flag trying to catch your attention to something way out in the field.