Just so you know— around 70% of meat packing employees are black or Hispanic. Nearly 50% are immigrants. 15% lack health insurance. Forcing them to work in a pandemic has nothing to do with a “free market” but everything to do with ruthlessness and disregard for human life.
Hearing people use “free market” rhetoric during a pandemic (mostly libertarians and conservatives) tells you one of the key failures of economics— our models lack context. A working being forced back to work when 20+ million are unemployed is actually Marxian theory at work.
We are not operating in a free market. So just stop. These are not “voluntary quits” as they are not voluntary and they are not quits. This is putting a gun to the head of the working poor and acting like there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s sick.
Anyone using traditional labor theory right now is gaslighting you for the explicit purpose of endangering workers lives. These workers must have PPE, frequent testing, sick leave, health insurance, and the right to not return to work due to concerns over their health.
We’ve already seen the community outbreaks from food manufacturing plants, and these policies will create even more in many of these rural communities. There is something deeply wrong with this.
Lastly, this would be a great time to have a functional Economic Research Service at the USDA, to study our food supply chain and it’s pricing, etc. But this administration killed it last year. So we’re left with less information and fewer options. It’s a deliberate plan.
