Thread by @weareoversight

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis is launching an investigation into Covid-19 outbreaks at meatpacking plants. During the Trump administration, workplace regulators failed to properly enforce safety requirements.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

We’ve been investigating the meatpacking industry’s influence in the Trump administration’s Covid-19 response and the health risks for the industry’s workers. Here’s what we’ve uncovered so far:

Documents we obtained along with @Public_Citizen, and reported on by @USATODAY, showed the Trump USDA and meatpacking industry collaborated to downplay and disregard risks to worker health during the coronavirus pandemic.
americanoversight.org/emails-reveal-…

Meatpacking plants asked the Trump USDA to intervene on multiple occasions when state and local governments either shut them down over health and safety concerns or sought to impose worker health and safety standards.
americanoversight.org/document/usda-…

Our records requests also shed light on how meatpacking company Smithfield Foods pressured the former administration to help the company reopen processing plants despite rising numbers of coronavirus cases among workers and local health department orders to shut down.

In April 2020, former President Trump signed an executive order calling meat-processing plants “critical infrastructure,” allowing them to stay open even with nearly 7,000 meatpacking workers having been affected by the coronavirus.

The emails we obtained showed that just a week before this order, the meat industry had provided the Trump administration with a draft order very similar to the one ultimately signed by Trump. This bolstered previous reporting from Propublica.
usatoday.com/story/news/202…

In October, the USDA announced an additional $500 million in contracts as part of the Farmers to Families Food Box Program. The program has been mired in controversy since its first announcement in April.
americanoversight.org/documents-reve…

Documents we, along with @Public_Citizen, obtained provide further insight into the program’s origins, suggesting that meat industry groups may have pitched the program to Trump’s USDA to avoid incurring costs associated with repackaging products intended for food service.

These records represent several instances in which meatpacking companies and their lobbyists have cited the Covid-19 pandemic as justification to seek special treatment from the federal government, often prioritizing profits over worker safety.