[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                  HOW THE MEATPACKING INDUSTRY FAILED
                      THE WORKERS WHO FEED AMERICA

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

             SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

                                 OF THE

                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            OCTOBER 27, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-49

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                                __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
46-025 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                              
                             
                             
                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of   James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking 
    Columbia                             Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts      Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee                Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia         Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Ro Khanna, California                Michael Cloud, Texas
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland               Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York   Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan              Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Katie Porter, California             Pete Sessions, Texas
Cori Bush, Missouri                  Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Danny K. Davis, Illinois             Andy Biggs, Arizona
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida    Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Peter Welch, Vermont                 Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr.,      Scott Franklin, Florida
    Georgia                          Jake LaTurner, Kansas
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland           Pat Fallon, Texas
Jackie Speier, California            Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois             Byron Donalds, Florida
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Mike Quigley, Illinois

         Jennifer Gaspar, Deputy Staff Director & Chief Counsel
               Beth Mueller, Chief Investigative Counsel
                          Derek Collins, Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

                  Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director

             Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Crisis

               James E. Clyburn, South Carolina, Chairman
Maxine Waters, California            Steve Scalise, Louisiana, Ranking 
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York             Minority Member
Nydia M. Velazquez, New York         Jim Jordan, Ohio
Bill Foster, Illinois                Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Nicole Malliotakis, New York
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
                        
                        
                        C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on October 27, 2021.................................     1

                               Witnesses

Debbie Berkowitz, Practitioner Fellow, Kalmanovitz Initiative for 
  Labor and the Working Poor, Georgetown University
Oral Statement...................................................     6
Rose Godinez, Interim Legal Director, American Civil Liberties 
  Union of Nebraska
Oral Statement...................................................     8
Martin Rosas, President, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 
  2
Oral Statement...................................................    10
Magaly Licolli, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Venceremos
Oral Statement...................................................    12

Written opening statements and the written statements of the 
  witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives 
  Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

Documents entered into the record during this hearing are listed 
  below.

  * Majority Staff Report - Coronavirus Infections and Deaths 
  Among Meatpacking Workers at Top Five Companies Were Nearly 
  Three Times Higher than Previous Estimate; submitted by Rep. 
  Foster.

  * Chart illustrating average reported cases per 100,000 meat 
  and poultry workers per day; submitted by Rep. Miller-Meeks.

  * Letter - Worker Testimony, Bernarda Lopez (Pseudonym).

  * Letter - Worker Testimony, Javier Gomez (Pseudonym).

  * Letter - Worker Testimony, Juan Rodriguez (Pseudonym).

Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
    HOW THE MEATPACKING INDUSTRY FAILED THE WORKERS WHO FEED AMERICA

                              ----------                              


                      Wednesday, October 27, 2021

                   House of Representatives
                  Committee on Oversight and Reform
              Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, and on Zoom. Hon. 
James E. Clyburn(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Clyburn, Waters, Maloney, Foster, 
Raskin, Krishnamoorthi, Scalise, Jordan, Green, and Miller-
Meeks.
    Chairman Clyburn. Let me welcome everybody and once again 
apologize for getting started a little late.
    Mr. Whip, I informed everybody that your job and mine is 
really to count the votes. We don't have any responsibility for 
when they come.
    Mr. Scalise. If you need some help, let me know.
    Chairman Clyburn. So thank you so much for your indulgence.
    Today, our select subcommittee is holding a hybrid hearing, 
where members have the option of appearing either in person or 
remotely via Zoom.
    For members appearing in person, let me remind everyone 
that, pursuant to the guidance from the House Attending 
Physician, all individuals who are attending in person are 
required to wear masks.
    Let me also make a few reminders about hybrid hearings.
    For those members appearing in person, you will be able to 
see members appearing remotely on the two monitors in front of 
you. On one monitor, you will see all the members appearing 
remotely at once in what is known in Zoom as ``gallery view.'' 
On the other monitor, you will see each person speaking during 
the hearing when they are speaking, including members who are 
appearing remotely.
    For those members appearing remotely, you can also see each 
person speaking during the hearing, whether they are in person 
or remote, as long as you have your Zoom set to ``active 
speaker view.'' If you have any questions about this, please 
contact committee staff immediately.
    Let me also remind everyone of the House procedures that 
apply to hybrid hearings.
    For members appearing in person, a timer is visible in the 
room directly in front of you. For those who may be remote, we 
have a timer that should be visible on your screen when you are 
in ``thumbnail view'' and you have the timer pinned.
    For members who may be appearing remotely, a few other 
reminders: The House rules require that we see you, so please 
have your cameras turned on at all times, not just when you are 
speaking. Members who are not recognized should remain muted to 
minimize background noise and feedback.
    I will recognize members verbally, and members retain the 
right to seek recognition verbally. In regular order, members 
will be recognized in seniority order for questions.
    If you are remote and want to be recognized outside of 
regular order, you may identify that in several ways. You may 
use the chat function to send a request, you may send an email 
to the majority staff, or you may unmute your mic to seek 
recognition. Obviously, we do not want people talking over each 
other, so my preference is that members use the chat function 
or email to facilitate formal verbal recognition. Committee 
staff will ensure that I am made aware of the request, and I 
will recognize you.
    Now, at the request of the House Recording Studio, I will 
count down from 10, and the livestream will begin when I get 
down to one.
    [Countdown.]
    Chairman Clyburn. Good afternoon. The committee will come 
to order.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time.
    I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
    America's essential workers have suffered a terrible toll 
from the coronavirus pandemic, risking their health and even 
giving their lives to do the jobs that are needed to be done 
and couldn't be done remotely.
    Perhaps no essential workers have been more struck as hard 
as those in the meatpacking industry. With long shifts, 
enclosed workplaces, and crowded conditions, meatpacking plants 
presented a perfect storm for the coronavirus to spread.
    It became clear in the first weeks of the pandemic that 
this critical industry would be hit particularly hard, but 
until now we have not had a full sense of how hard meatpacking 
workers were hit. Most meatpacking companies refused to 
publicly disclose the full numbers of infections and deaths 
tied to their plants. This refusal kept workers, their 
communities, policymakers, and health officials in the dark 
about the threats to workers and their communities.
    The select subcommittee has been investigating the five 
largest meatpacking companies to discover the true toll. What 
we have learned is staggering. A select subcommittee staff 
memorandum released earlier today shows that the true impact of 
the coronavirus on meatpacking workers at the five companies 
was close to three times as bad as what was previously known.
    Before today, it was estimated that just over 20,000 of the 
meatpacking workers employed by the five largest meatpacking 
companies were infected with the coronavirus. The select 
subcommittee's investigation found the true number to be nearly 
60,000. Before today, it was also estimated that fewer than 100 
workers at these five companies had died. The select 
subcommittee's investigation found the true number to be more 
than 250. Nearly 60,000 cases and more than 200 deaths just at 
these five companies.
    These infections disproportionately impacted communities of 
color. A 2020 CDC study found that 87 percent of workers at 
meat processing plants infected with the coronavirus were 
racial or ethnic minorities.
    Knowing the true scale of these outbreaks is important to 
understanding what happened to those working in the plants. 
Outbreaks in meatpacking plants were also drivers of the spread 
of the virus in their wider communities, leading to additional 
infections and deaths among those who never set foot in a 
facility.
    Meatpacking companies had a responsibility to do everything 
they could to keep their workers safe, and these statistics 
make clear that they fell short. When the pandemic began, 
meatpacking companies were too slow to respond to worker 
demands for safer conditions.
    While workers fought for greater protections, the large 
meatpacking conglomerates focused on protecting their profits. 
The National Economic Council recently found that meat 
processors have generated record profits during the pandemic at 
the expense of consumers, farmers, and ranchers. Gross profits 
for some of the leading beef, poultry, and pork processors have 
been at record-high levels. These sky-high profits have come at 
a time when consumers have been paying more to put food on the 
table and workers have risked their health and safety.
    Just as troubling, our investigation found that the Trump 
administration's response to the outbreaks in meatpacking 
plants was wholly insufficient. The Federal agency that had a 
duty to protect workers last year failed to do so. Under the 
Trump administration, OSHA issued only eight citations and less 
than $80,000 in penalties against these companies, despite the 
infection of tens of thousands of meatpacking workers and the 
deaths of hundreds. Had the Trump administration acted, these 
numbers could have been lower.
    OSHA's officials recently told the select subcommittee that 
they were limited in their ability to protect meatpacking 
workers last year because Trump administration appointees made 
a--and I quote--``political decision,'' unquote, not to seek 
additional authorities that would have allowed the agency to 
enforce coronavirus safety protocols more forcefully. This is 
unacceptable.
    Any argument that these deadly risks to meatpacking 
companies were necessary to keep food on the tables of American 
families is dangerous and wrong. We can and we must keep 
families fed and keep workers safe.
    The Biden administration has stepped up to fight for these 
workers by strengthening Federal enforcement of worker 
protections, leading an aggressive national vaccine campaign 
and, with funds appropriated by Congress, provided up to $600 
per worker in relief payments directly to frontline farmworkers 
and meatpacking workers who incurred expenses preparing for, 
preventing exposure to, and responding to the pandemic.
    Meatpackers and other essential workers are the foundation 
of this country. We must get a full accounting of what happened 
to them during the coronavirus pandemic so we can learn from 
these failures how to prevent a tragedy like this from ever 
happening again.
    I now yield to the ranking member for his opening 
statement.
    Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this 
hearing, appreciate our witnesses for coming to testify.
    But I first want to alert my colleagues on the subcommittee 
to an alarming letter that the National Institutes of Health 
wrote to Oversight Ranking Member Comer last week. This is a 
letter that just came out a few days ago.
    This letter was in response to the oversight work 
Republicans have been diligently pursuing to determine the 
origin of COVID-19. Of course, all the Republicans on this 
subcommittee have been calling on the majority to hold a 
hearing on the origins of COVID for over a year. Unfortunately, 
the majority still refuses to do that.
    In this letter, the NIH admits that the EcoHealth Alliance 
firm that was given over $50 million in taxpayer-funded grant 
money since 2014 was, in fact, conducting gain-of-function 
research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and, further, the 
NIH did not approve of that research.
    To inform my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the 
NIH definition of ``gain of function'' is any research that 
modifies a biological agent, like a virus, so that it confers 
new or enhanced activity to that agent.
    NIH required EcoHealth to report any experiment that 
conferred enhanced activity above 1,000 percent. The NIH told 
us that EcoHealth conducted just such an experiment, and, 
further, they said, EcoHealth failed to report this to NIH. 
It's all detailed in this letter from the National Institutes 
of Health.
    This is in direct violation of the terms of their 
multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded grant. Mr. Chairman, we 
need to have a hearing on this scandal. And this is laid out by 
NIH; this isn't an accusation being made. This is a response 
from NIH confirming that EcoHealth did this, violated the terms 
of their multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded grant and 
potentially led to the creation of this virus.
    In this experiment, EcoHealth took the backbone of a virus 
that was not known to infect humans and inserted the spike 
protein, the area of the virus that binds with human cells, of 
an unknown bat coronavirus. Then they tested its newfound 
infectivity on humanized mice. The new virus was found to be 
more active and more lethal in mice than the original virus. 
EcoHealth conferred it with a new or enhanced activity. Thus, 
by NIH's own words, this experiment is gain-of-function 
research.
    Now NIH is trying to hide behind semantics. They're now 
saying, well, this experiment did not meet the standards for 
further NIH review and, therefore, is not gain-of-function. 
This is a false assertion. Work that requires further review is 
simply a more dangerous subset of gain-of-function. Research 
can be gain-of-function without triggering further review.
    Interestingly, on October 20, the very day Mr. Comer 
received this letter, NIH removed the ``gain-of-function'' 
definition from their website. I wonder why.
    Mr. Chairman, we need a hearing to find out why. These 
alarming questions are the very reason that this subcommittee 
exists, to get answers to these serious questions.
    If that wasn't enough, EcoHealth's mandatory annual report 
that disclosed this information was almost two years late--
between September 30 of 2019, when EcoHealth's report was due, 
and August 3 of 2021, when EcoHealth finally reported that they 
received more than $21 million in grant funds from American 
taxpayers that the company may not have received if it had 
timely disclosed to NIH that it had created a virus that would 
trigger the cessation of its experiments.
    This is a serious financial incentive to lie. This is a bad 
actor and a bad steward of taxpayer dollars, and I see no 
reason for the government to continue to work with such a 
company.
    Mr. Chairman, we need to call EcoHealth to come before this 
committee and explain why these violations of terms of a 
multimillion-dollar grant, paid for by American taxpayers, 
actually occurred. We need to do our job and immediately 
perform congressional oversight into this scandal.
    This committee and many others have heard Dr. Fauci and 
other administration officials say that the U.S. did not fund 
gain-of-function research at the lab in Wuhan, China. Yet it 
turns out that this was not accurate, and the NIH is saying 
that they weren't completely aware of what type of research was 
going on in Wuhan.
    If Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins were simply unaware, then we 
should have a hearing on why the Federal Government is not 
conducting proper oversight into its grant recipients. If Dr. 
Fauci and Dr. Collins were aware of these experiments and still 
made those assertions, that would be serious, considering the 
implications. And, again, we need a hearing to get to the 
bottom of this, to get answers to these serious allegations 
that are now confirmed by the National Institutes of Health.
    So, again, I'm going to respectfully ask, Mr. Chairman, 
that we hold a hearing on the origin of COVID-19.
    You routinely say that we need to defend public health. We 
now have evidence of a Federal grant recipient blatantly 
violating its grant, failing to report this violation, and then 
delaying their annual report for two years, presumably to avoid 
NIH scrutiny.
    These actions are a direct assault on our public health 
infrastructure. Anyone who truly cares about defending public 
health and preparing for the next pandemic would want and 
demand that we hear from EcoHealth Alliance and Dr. Fauci on 
this matter. We need to understand who knew what and when they 
knew it and what other types of experiments are being done at 
American taxpayer expense.
    This is the letter from the National Institutes of Health. 
I'll be happy to share it with you, Mr. Chairman. But these 
serious questions deserve answers. This is the committee set up 
to have these kind of discussions. We have to have a hearing on 
this, and I would further reiterate that we do just that.
    With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Scalise.
    I'm pleased today to welcome today's witnesses.
    I would first like to welcome Ms. Debbie Berkowitz. Ms. 
Berkowitz is a worker safety and health policy expert and 
advocate currently at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and 
the Working Poor at Georgetown University.
    She was previously the Worker Safety and Health Program 
director at the National Employment Law Project, working to 
develop policies to improve conditions for workers in the meat, 
poultry, and food industry. She has also worked for OSHA, the 
United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and the AFL-CIO.
    I also welcome Ms. Rose Godinez. Ms. Rose Godinez is legal 
and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Nebraska. Ms. Godinez is the daughter of meatpacking plant 
workers.
    She led a lawsuit against beef processors on behalf of 
meatpacking workers who felt unsafe and sought additional 
protections during the pandemic. Ms. Godinez is also an 
advocate for strengthening worker health and safety protections 
in meatpacking plants in response to the pandemic.
    I would like to also welcome Ms. Godinez's parents, Maria 
and Carlos, who have accompanied her here today from Nebraska. 
You're welcome as well.
    Next, I welcome Mr. Martin Rosas, president of United Food 
and Commercial Workers Union, District Union Local 2, in Bel 
Aire, Kansas. Mr. Rosa started his career in 1989 as a worker 
at the Cargill plant in Dodge City, Kansas, and has spent more 
than 29 years advocating on behalf of workers in meatpacking 
plants.
    Finally, I would also like to welcome Magaly Licolli--I 
hope I'm not butchering these names too much--co-founder and 
executive director of Venceremos, a worker-based organization 
in Arkansas whose mission is to ensure the human rights of 
poultry workers and ensure safer working conditions.
    Thank you all for taking the time to testify about this 
critical issue. I look forward to hearing from our panelists 
today about what we can do to ensure the safety of the workers 
who keep America fed.
    Will our four witnesses please rise and raise your right 
hands?
    Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to 
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
so help you God?
    You may be seated.
    Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the 
affirmative.
    Without objection, your written statements will be made 
part of the record.
    Ms. Berkowitz, you are recognized for five minutes for your 
opening statement.

STATEMENT OF DEBBIE BERKOWITZ, PRACTITIONER FELLOW, KALMANOVITZ 
    INITIATIVE FOR LABOR AND THE WORKING POOR, ON BEHALF OF 
                     GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

    Ms. Berkowitz. Good afternoon, Chairman Clyburn and members 
of the subcommittee, and thank you for the opportunity to 
testify today.
    In most meat and poultry plants in the United States, 
thousands of workers, the overwhelming majority of whom are 
Black, Latino, and immigrant workers, are crowded together on 
production lines, working shoulder-to-shoulder, most wielding 
knives or scissors, going at breakneck speeds, crowded together 
in lunchrooms, bathrooms, and in locker rooms.
    So it was not surprising that COVID-19 began spreading 
quickly at the start of the pandemic in these plants and 
workers got really sick and started dying. What is stunning is 
that, despite CDC recommendations to the public and businesses 
about using social distancing to slow the spread of COVID, the 
meat industry decided to thumb their noses at this first 
recommendation and just keep those crowded conditions in place.
    As all other industries operating during the first few 
months of the pandemic, factories such as Ford and other 
industries, including supermarkets, retooled and reconfigured 
to separate workers, the meat industry decided they would not 
change.
    The cost to workers and their communities of this decision 
is staggering. More workers have died from COVID-19 in the last 
18 months in the meat and poultry industry than died from all 
work-related causes in the industry in the past 15 years. And I 
bet it's more than that now that we have better numbers.
    Once it spread in the plants, this deadly disease spread to 
the workers' families and to their communities. The National 
Academy of Sciences published a study that looked at the cost 
to communities near meat plants and found in excess of between 
236,000 and 310,000 COVID cases and 4,300 to 5,200 deaths just 
as of July 2020. Further, the USDA itself found a tenfold 
increase of COVID cases in rural communities where the meat 
plants were located.
    Let's be clear: The wildfire spread of COVID among meat and 
poultry workers was not inevitable. It was preventable. It was 
a direct result of the meat industry, unlike almost all other 
industries in the United States, deciding to prioritize their 
own profits for a few over the health of their workers and 
their communities.
    The meat industry knew what they needed to do to protect 
workers. This was not rocket science. But the industry failed 
to implement the measures needed to mitigate the spread of the 
disease in the plants.
    They had been warned over 15 years ago in the Bush 
Administration that a pandemic like COVID could be coming and 
would spread rapidly in meat plants and they needed to prepare 
to make changes to protect workers and their community, but 
they did not.
    Further, the big players in this industry--Tyson, with $42 
billion in revenue in 2020, more than in 2019; Smithfield, with 
$16 billion in revenue for 2020; JBS, with $270 billion in 
revenue for 2020--used their political muscle with the previous 
administration to assure that they could get away with failing 
to mitigate the spread of COVID in their plants.
    The USDA repeatedly intervened to pressure local and state 
health departments to let plants with hundreds of COVID-
infected workers and many already dead to keep operating 
without effective mitigation measures, including the JBS plant 
in your report.
    Terrified meatpacking and poultry workers and their 
families filed complaints with OSHA, and OSHA refused to 
inspect the plants, giving them a pass. OSHA totally abandoned 
their responsibility to protect workers in the last 
administration.
    The meat industry tried to hide the true scope of the work 
and public health disaster that they had caused. As we've heard 
here today, they have never published their own data on how 
many of their workers tested positive. And most states, some 
pressured by the meat industry, who may have had some data 
refuse to make any data public. Now we know that the numbers 
are three times higher than what we thought, and it's 
staggering.
    The industry, from the very beginning, thumbed their noses 
at the CDC guidance. In February 2020, when CDC recommended 
social distancing, the former CEO of Smithfield simply said to 
public officials, ``We're not doing this. Social distancing is 
a nicety for the laptop set.''
    In March 2020, when CDC recommended that infected and 
exposed workers self-isolate or quarantine, the industry 
decided they would not follow these recommendations either. The 
industry, in fact, incentivized sick workers to come back to 
work and kept exposed workers in the lines.
    When CDC recommended masks, workers were told to use their 
hair nets or, in Tyson's, to wear sleep eyewear over their 
faces. By April 15, huge plants were closed because thousands 
of workers in these plants were sick, overwhelming hospitals.
    What was the industry's reaction to the spread of COVID in 
their plants? It wasn't to protect workers. They ran full-page 
ads in major newspapers that stunningly announced, ``If we have 
to protect workers, there will be meat shortages.''
    The industry said they had to choose between feeding us or 
protecting their workers. That is a false choice. They should 
have and could have done both. This was about pure corporate 
greed and the meat industry maintaining their profits at the 
expense of the workers who fed America.
    Thank you.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Ms. Berkowitz.
    We will now hear from Ms. Godinez.
    Ms. Godinez, you are recognized for five minutes.

  STATEMENT OF ROSE GODINEZ, INTERIM LEGAL DIRECTOR, AMERICAN 
               CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NEBRASKA

    Ms. Godinez. Good afternoon, Chairman Clyburn, members of 
the select subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to 
testify here today.
    I am Rose Godinez. I am the interim legal director at the 
ACLU OF Nebraska. I am also a proud Latina and daughter of 
former meatpacking plant workers and relative to many others 
currently working in the plants.
    In this testimony, I am going to cover three topics. First, 
I will relay what happened inside of meatpacking plants. Next, 
I will describe the advocacy efforts of meatpacking workers and 
the ACLU fighting for a safe workplace. Next, I will give you 
four actions that you in Congress can take to ensure 
meatpacking workers are safe while facing COVID variants.
    I am grateful to be before you today and to have both of my 
parents, who retired shortly before the pandemic from 
meatpacking plants, alive and behind me today, particularly 
because Latinos, immigrants, and meatpacking workers were 
significantly over-represented in COVID-19 cases in Nebraska 
during the peak of the pandemic.
    According to Nebraska DHHS, Hispanics accounted for 60 
percent of COVID-19 cases last summer despite only comprising 
11 percent of the overall state population. This was largely 
due to the spread in meatpacking plants, whose work force is 
made up of over 50 percent immigrants.
    As of May 2021, over 7,000 meatpacking plant workers 
contracted COVID, 256 were hospitalized, and 28 have died. This 
hearing is critical to reflect upon the thousands of workers 
whose lives were lost during the pandemic and to chart next 
steps to protect their colleagues who continue to work in the 
industry.
    Beginning with what happened inside meatpacking plants, I 
will summarize the story of our own plaintiffs in the 2020 
lawsuit. Please note that we use pseudonyms for the workers due 
to fear of retaliation from management.
    Alma and Antonio worked on the production line at a 
Nebraska plant. After emigrating from Cuba, they were hired to 
work at the plant a few years ago. It was a tough job. Their 
hands and wrists often ached from grueling hours on the kill 
floor, but it paid decently.
    In late April, after working shoulder-to-shoulder with 
other workers, Antonio and Alma became symptomatic. ``I told my 
supervisor that my eyes were hurting and that I had symptoms 
that were getting worse, and he basically told me to go back to 
work,'' Antonio said.
    They arranged for tests on their own. Both resulted 
positive. They battled COVID for seven weeks and received only 
pay for two of them and at a lower hourly rate. Later, they 
discovered that other workers hadn't been paid at all for the 
time they were sick at home.
    When they came back, there was still no onsite testing. 
Workers continued working in cramped processing rooms and were 
only given one mask. When the masks became soiled with blood 
and sweat, workers were forced to pull them down below their 
nose or take them off completely so they could breathe. In the 
windowless cafeteria or break rooms, dozens of workers squeezed 
together around tables, separated by thin, flimsy nylon 
barriers that provided very little protection.
    In December 2020, we filed a lawsuit seeking to establish 
that the plant needed to implement basic COVID-19 protections. 
Prior to the lawsuit, we had tried every possible advocacy 
tool, including turning to the Nebraska Department of Labor, 
filing OSHA complaints, and attempting to pursue remedies 
through the Nebraska legislature, which were ultimately 
unsuccessful due to industry opposition.
    Each effort failed to achieve the steps that were needed 
and necessary to save lives. But we are not giving up hope, 
because we are here before you.
    In closing, I'd like to talk to you about what you can do 
to protect meatpacking workers, now and into the future.
    First, enact the Safe Line Speeds in COVID-19 Act to 
prevent line-speed increases during the pandemic. We would 
support similar legislation to go beyond the pandemic, as the 
meatpacking industry has a track record of alarmingly high 
injury rates, often due to the line speeds.
    Second, you could call on OSHA to issue an emergency 
temporary standard similar to that that was issued for the 
healthcare industry just recently.
    Third, ensure OSHA actually responds to and investigates 
complaints made by workers and advocates, and consider adopting 
a Federal requirement that OSHA respond during a reasonable 
amount of time and that, if they should issue citations, that 
they take effect immediately.
    Fourth, support comprehensive immigration reform. The 
reason you don't see meatpacking workers in front of you today 
and the reason they hesitated to testify at the Nebraska 
legislature is simply because they aren't U.S. citizens and 
they fear retaliation should they voice complaints about their 
employer.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I look 
forward to answering your questions.
    Chairman Clyburn. Well, thank you very much for being here.
    We will now hear from Mr. Rosas.
    Mr. Rosas, you are recognized for five minutes.

     STATEMENT OF MARTIN ROSAS, PRESIDENT, UNITED FOOD AND 
                   COMMERCIAL WORKERS LOCAL 2

    Mr. Rosas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Clyburn and members of 
this committee, for the opportunity to testify about the impact 
of the coronavirus pandemic on the meat and processing workers.
    My name is Martin Rosas. I'm a UFCW International vice 
president and president of the United Food and Commercial 
Workers Local 2 in Kansas.
    UFCW is America's largest food and retail union, which 
represent 1.3 million members across this Nation--hardworking 
men and women in grocery stores, meatpacking plants, and food 
processing, among other industries. The workers we represent 
come from every state and congressional district as 
Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
    I have over 30 years of experience in the labor movement, 
and I began my career in 1989 at the Cargill processing plant 
in Dodge City, Kansas, as a general worker. My local is the 
largest packing local in the union, representing over 17,000 
members in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and all major industry 
players in this industry.
    The companies within my jurisdiction represent well over 30 
percent of the meat processing nationwide. I have visited most 
of these plants during this pandemic. Our members remained 
working on the front lines of this pandemic every single day, 
even in a time most of us were confused, uncertain, and feared 
for the well-being of our loved ones.
    And finally the workers were recognized as essential. 
However, this recognition must not come in the form of words 
but with real, meaningful, enforceable health and safety 
protections, wages, and benefits, including other health 
benefits, sick leave, and reliable childcare.
    The risks these members face from this pandemic are real. 
I'm sure you have heard, read, and watched all the outbreaks 
happen in these meatpacking plants. The members we represent 
have contracted in startling numbers COVID-19. So many have 
died. At Seaboard Foods in Guymon, Oklahoma, for example, in a 
plant of 2,200, over 1,000 workers contracted the virus and at 
least seven have died.
    My request is not for those who have died but for those 
hundreds of workers who still suffer the long-term consequences 
of this disease and to protect those who are going to bring the 
food to our tables.
    In the beginning, not enough was done to protect these 
essential workers. The harsh reality is that many of these 
companies were slow to act in the early days of this outbreak, 
and whatever progress was achieved was because of the union 
demanding action.
    From the beginning, we called on these companies to sit 
down with us to discuss the much-needed protocols. By early 
April 2020, we urged the companies to implement safety 
measures. They have been included in my written testimony in 
front of you.
    During the following months, I personally went into the 
plants to see what was happening. Some of the demands that we 
identified were not in place.
    These workers were living in fear. They did not know 
whether these companies were willing to protect them, but they 
were also afraid to miss work because they don't have 
sufficient leave benefits. Some of the companies, like Seaboard 
Foods in Guymon, Oklahoma, which is not named in the report 
that was provided to you, was threatening employees for missing 
work, afraid to go to work and to be exposed to this deadly 
virus and bring it back home. Sadly, some of those became 
reality.
    In April 2020, President Trump issue an executive order 
invoking the Defense Production Act to give an order to these 
companies and literally giving a green light to these companies 
to disregard the well-being and the safety of these workers. At 
a time when the Federal Government was not requiring any COVID-
19 safety measures, the executive order gave the authority to 
these companies of the meatpacking industry to remain open.
    By July 2020, encouraged by Trump's executive order, some 
of the companies dropped many of their safety measures. The 
strict use of face masks was no longer enforced. Employers 
encouraged sick employees to attend work by using attendance 
bonus programs, knowing the high risk of spreading the virus.
    Companies and some states stopped sharing infection numbers 
with the union, so we did not know the real number. It's why 
the number was wrong for some of the early assessments. 
Nevertheless, we went into the field to see the human side of 
this pandemic, where members were left to work in unsafe and 
unsanitary working conditions.
    One of our members was Alejandro. Alejandro was 33 years of 
age, working at the Seaboard Foods in Guymon, Oklahoma. He was 
told to came back to work or lose his insurance. He had 
diabetes, thus needed his insurance. The company made him 
believe that he would lose his benefits if he didn't come back 
to work. He came back to work, and within two weeks he 
contracted the virus and died from COVID-19.
    In the meantime, OSHA did not step in to make the necessary 
adjustments and implement protocols to protect these workers. 
Literally, OSHA was missing in action.
    Some of the safety measures instituted by some of these 
companies have been useful, when other ones give just a false 
sense of security.
    The meatpacking workers continue to be at risk and continue 
to do the most dangerous jobs in this industry. Thereby, to 
protect the food supply, we call on you, Democrats and 
Republicans, Members of this body, to take action to give the 
tools to OSHA and to USDA to protect these workers.
    Thank you, sir. And I'm here to answer any questions that 
you guys might have.
    Ms. Waters. [Presiding.] Thank you very much, Mr. Rosas.
    Finally, we will hear from Ms. Licolli.
    Ms. Licolli, you are recognized for five minutes.

STATEMENT OF MAGALY LICOLLI, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 
                           VENCEREMOS

    Ms. Licolli. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Magaly 
Licolli. I represent Venceremos, a human rights organization in 
Arkansas that works to ensure the dignity of poultry workers. 
I'm grateful for the opportunity to testify today.
    Having worked directly with numerous poultry workers in 
Arkansas the past seven years, I've heard firsthand from the 
very beginning of the pandemic how poultry companies exposed 
workers to contracting and dying from COVID-19.
    When the pandemic hit the U.S. in January 2020, poultry 
workers immediately knew they were at higher risk for 
contracting the virus because they work extremely close to each 
other and without meaningful protections.
    Between March and April of last year, there were numerous 
outbreaks at meat processing plants across the country, leading 
to over 6,000 cases and 20 deaths among meatpacking workers.
    In response to this meat processing crisis, former 
President Trump issue an executive order declaring that 
meatpacking plants must stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Despite the government declaring meatpacking workers 
essential in April of last year, neither the government nor the 
companies followed through on their public promises to protect 
workers' health and safety. For example, OSHA never enforced 
its own COVID-19 guidelines for meat processing companies. 
Therefore, workers felt completely abandoned and unprotected, 
as they were unable to file complaints with OSHA that would 
result in an inspection once they fell sick, and COVID began to 
spread through meat processing plants and communities.
    Tyson Foods, another poultry company, didn't act 
immediately to prevent the spread of the virus and responded 
only when their public image began to take a hit, and it was 
too late for thousands of workers.
    The first case of COVID-19 in the U.S. occurred in January 
2020. In March, we had to organize calls to action and 
campaigns targeting Tyson, George's, Simmons, and Cargill 
demanding essential protections. Workers from Tyson and 
George's plants in Arkansas organized hundreds of workers to 
sign worker petitions in rallies outside those plants.
    It wasn't until late April, after more than 5,000 cases had 
developed among meat processing workers, that Tyson finally 
provided its plant workers with PPE.
    However, the response to worker demands and negative press 
were mostly public relations crisis management, and did little 
to actually protect workers. For instance, the scanners that 
Tyson installed to screen workers for COVID were strictly for 
show, because such devices can't detect asymptomatic cases.
    Instead of implementing well-known actual preventive 
measures as spelled out in CDC guidelines, such as distancing 
workers, the workers I spoke to said that Tyson complied 
incompletely or not at all and that any social distancing 
practices and such measures did not extend to other common 
areas, such as break rooms and restrooms.
    This made it clear that measures that would cost the 
companies money or slow the output of plants were off the table 
and further illustrated the low value these companies placed on 
their workers' lives and well-being.
    During that time, we saw the first big COVID outbreaks at 
various plants throughout Arkansas. I remember receiving many 
calls from workers letting me know how terrified they were to 
see how fast their coworkers were getting infected with COVID. 
The company did nothing to notify workers who had been exposed 
to COVID, and they did nothing to quarantine those workers.
    Soon, the outbreaks spread so quickly that the companies, 
such as Tyson, lost much of their work force. Their response 
was to increase line speeds to maintain production levels, 
cramming workers even more closely together and making 
conditions more dangerous. Many workers also had to take on 
jobs and operate equipment that they were not trained for, 
creating a severe safety hazard.
    Poultry workers should have never been put in the position 
of choosing between their livelihoods and their lives. We 
should provide humane working conditions, enforcement of safety 
standards, basic leave, and affordable healthcare for these 
essential workers.
    In addition, the USDA must stop allowing companies to 
increase line speeds in processing plants and withdraw all 
existing line speed waivers.
    Poultry workers' lives, dignity, and humanity are more 
important than company profits. It's immoral that companies are 
able to profit from the injury, suffering, and death of 
workers, and it must end now.
    Thank you so much.
    Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Ms. Licolli.
    I now yield to Mr. Raskin for five minutes for questions.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
    I first want to welcome my distinguished constituent, 
Debbie Berkowitz, who is a nationally renowned expert in the 
field of occupational safety and health and a passionate 
advocate for our Nation's workers. It's my great honor to 
represent her in Congress.
    And thank you, Debbie, for all the great work you do.
    Last year, while workers faced these epidemic COVID-19 
outbreaks, meatpacking companies were raking in record profits. 
One of the biggest companies, JBS, reported a 32-percent 
increase in sales in 2020 and rewarded shareholders with $2.3 
billion in dividends and stock buybacks. Another company, 
Tyson, spent more than $675 million on dividends and stock 
buybacks through the period of the pandemic.
    At the same time, at least 59,000 meatpacking workers got 
COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic, triple the 
number that we originally understood, and at least 269 of these 
59,000 died from COVID-19.
    Mr. Rosas, given the profits of companies like JBS, could 
companies like these have afforded to protect workers better 
during the early COVID outbreak period by adjusting line 
speeds, increasing spacing, or providing workers with better 
sick leave policies?
    Mr. Rosas. Thank you, Congressman Jamie Raskin.
    Absolutely, they can easily prevent most of those problems 
by slowing the line speed and staggering people's breaks and 
really provide an adequate social distancing in those plants, 
and if they would provide workers with meaningful leave of 
absence.
    One of the reasons and one of the problems that we 
confronted was where the companies were refusing to slow the 
production lines, putting profits ahead of worker safety and 
well-being. I definitely believe that can be preventable.
    And like I mentioned earlier, one of the biggest challenges 
that we confronted was, when President Trump invoked the 
Defense Production Act, some of these employers feel like they 
got a green light to disregard the human factor into their 
operations.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much.
    Under the last administration--and I remember many members 
of our committee urging OSHA to act--OSHA actually did little 
or nothing to protect the workers.
    At one JBS plant in Greeley, Colorado, nearly 300 workers 
tested positive for COVID-19, at least six of them died, in the 
span of just six months. And OSHA fined the company just over 
$15,000, which is less than 1/100,000th of one percent of the 
money that they paid out in dividends and stock buybacks during 
that period.
    Another large outbreak took place at Smithfield's facility 
in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, last spring. More than 1,200 
workers were infected; at least four died. Six months later, 
OSHA fined the company just $13,494.
    Ms. Berkowitz, why were the fines against JBS and 
Smithfield and other meatpackers so small? Do you believe that 
larger fines would have promoted greater compliance and 
seriousness about the health of the workers during this period?
    Ms. Berkowitz. Thank you for the question, Representative 
Raskin. And I'm delighted to be here with my Congressman.
    Totally. OSHA totally abandoned its mission to ensure 
employers could protect workers in the last administration. And 
after thousands and thousands of workers got sick in 
meatpacking and so many died in these plants, OSHA did little 
more than slap them on their wrist, which, in a way was a 
signal to the industry, ``Don't worry, you're not going to be 
held accountable for what you did.'' And it did nothing. And, 
you know, conditions continued to deteriorate.
    I have to tell you that the OSHA law is very weak. And so, 
when OSHA barely did anything--you know, there are other 
complaints workers filed, and OSHA didn't even, you know, cite 
or do an inspection or anything.
    Workers can't sue their employer. All they have to protect 
their worker safety rights is OSHA, and when OSHA fails, they 
have nothing.
    And the other thing that's pretty outrageous is JBS, 
Smithfield, they are contesting these little citations. And, 
under the OSHA law, when you contest a citation, you don't have 
to correct the hazard. And conditions are deteriorating in 
these plants. And I know of one plant where they tried to file 
another complaint, but nothing's happened.
    So thank you.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, thank you for your work. This is just an 
absolute scandal and an outrage, that the workers in 
meatpacking plants have been left exposed like this.
    Ms. Licolli, did any of the workers that you worked with 
ever suffer retaliation from their employers for speaking out 
about unsafe work environments and conditions?
    Ms. Licolli. Well, workers in Arkansas began to organize 
themselves back in March, because--I want to say that most of 
the workers have preexisting conditions and have developed 
respiratory problems due to the high exposure of chemicals.
    So, back in March, when everybody was sent home, workers 
had to stay on their lines, so unprotected that they couldn't 
file any complaints through OSHA. So they began--they didn't 
have any other option but to fight. And so they began drafting 
or creating these worker petitions to ask more workers to join.
    Tyson, obviously--they had to be very careful because, 
obviously, organizing inside a non-unionized plant is very 
dangerous for workers. And, yes, many workers suffer 
retaliation in terms of, like, workers have to come to work 
while sick because they get punished for missing work if they 
get sick.
    So all of these preexisting conditions led them to organize 
because they didn't have any other option. They felt so 
unprotected during those times. And they keep fighting, because 
there is no protections right now whatsoever.
    And so companies like Tyson and George's, obviously, all 
the time are intimidating workers to not organize, to not speak 
up, to not be on the media. Workers cannot testify in front. We 
always have to protect their identities, their names, where 
they work, because they are at high risk of being fired for 
doing this.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say, 
some of these companies are treating the workers in the plants 
not much better than the animals that go through them. And this 
is a scandal. And I wish that OSHA would get back to the job 
it's assigned to do.
    I yield back to you.
    Chairman Clyburn. [Presiding.] Thank you for yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes the ranking member.
    Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    It's interesting that OSHA is not a part of this hearing. 
And I'll reiterate, what we should be having a hearing on is 
things like this latest scandal that the National Institutes of 
Health just confirmed, that you've got EcoHealth Alliance, a 
company that got millions and millions of taxpayer dollars, 
very likely violated the very terms of that taxpayer-funded 
contract by performing gain-of-function research at the lab in 
Wuhan where many, many scientists have suggested this virus 
started.
    We need to have a hearing on that. We need to get to the 
bottom of these kinds of allegations of major, major scandals 
that involve the very genesis of the virus that killed over 
700,000 Americans now, millions globally. We still haven't had 
a hearing on what really went on. And this latest National 
Institutes of Health letter, just a few days ago, is one more 
example of why we need to focus on that.
    Something else that we hear about every single day from 
families is the inflation crisis. There's an inflation crisis 
hitting families right now. We're experiencing record price 
increases for everything people buy. This is a problem that my 
Democrat colleagues want to ignore, but, sadly, American 
families don't have that luxury.
    When Democrats in the majority recklessly dumped almost $2 
trillion into the economy this spring, they poured gasoline on 
this inflationary fire.
    If you looked recently at the Consumer Price Index, the 
latest report just a few days ago showed that prices increased 
5.4 percent just in September, compared to the previous 
September--5.4-percent increase.
    To quote The New York Times, quote, ``Thanksgiving of 2021 
could be the most expensive meal in the history of the 
holiday.'' The cost of a turkey in 2019 was $12.96. This year, 
it's $21.76, nearly doubling. Prices for potatoes are up 3-1/2 
percent. Canned vegetables are up 3.8 percent. All of the 
staple items that families are going to be buying, or trying to 
buy, to have a Thanksgiving dinner with their family are up 
dramatically.
    Energy prices are also through the roof right now. Energy 
costs overall are up over 40 percent; gasoline, 40 percent. 
People can't even fill up their cars because their credit cards 
are being maxed out before their gas tank is filled up.
    Unfortunately for the American people, these increases are 
likely to keep coming. Everybody sees that the inflation 
they're paying in higher prices is a result of all the 
increased spending, trillions in new spending, that we've seen 
this year.
    And there's no end in sight. There's still an attempt, as 
we speak, to try to bring trillions more in new spending to the 
floor today or tomorrow. We don't know. That's what they're 
trying to get the votes to pass.
    Larry Summers, the former Secretary of the Treasury for 
President Clinton and the Director of the NEC for President 
Obama, continues to express increasing alarm at the situation. 
He recently said, quote, ``We're in more danger than we've been 
during my career of losing control of inflation in the United 
States.''
    The White House chief of staff recently retweeted economist 
Jason Furman when he said that inflation is, quote, a ``high-
class problem.'' This is not a high-class problem. In fact, 
inflation is probably the largest tax increase on middle-and 
lower-income families. Whether it's someone who works in a 
meatpacking plant, someone who drives an Uber, someone who's 
working a minimum-wage job, inflation is the thing that's 
hitting them the hardest today.
    It's crushing American families that are trying to feed 
their kids and pay their bills. Prices are rising faster than 
their paychecks. Inflation is absolutely a tax on everyone but 
especially the lower-income families in America.
    Rather than recognize what those policies have done, it 
seems like this majority continues to spend trillions more 
dollars. It's only going to make things worse. When you look at 
the prices for everything people buy, it keeps going up. And 
it's going to keep going up if these policies continue.
    So I would go back again and just urge, Mr. Chairman, that 
we have a hearing on the origin of COVID, we have a hearing on 
this NIH latest scandal that they themselves have exposed, that 
gain-of-function research happened. EcoHealth Alliance used 
multimillions of dollars of taxpayer money to fund it, and we 
see the deadly consequences. We need to have a hearing on this.
    And, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Clyburn. I thank the ranking member for yielding 
back.
    The chair now recognizes Ms. Waters for five minutes.
    Ms. Waters. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I am so pleased that you're holding this 
hearing, because, at the height of the pandemic, we were 
hearing stories about what was happening to many of our 
essential and frontline workers, but we heard some of the worst 
stories that were being heard about what was happening in these 
meatpacking plants.
    We heard about people who got sick, and they were told by 
the owners and managers of these plants that they could not 
take off, and if they took off from their job, even though they 
were sick, they would be fired.
    And so you had people who were trying to come to work every 
day, who were sick, but that's all they had, was the earnings 
from these plants, and if they took off, they would lose the 
ability to put food on the table.
    And so the stories were horrific. And, if I can recall, I 
think I heard some of these horrific stories not only about the 
ones we're hearing today but, I believe, in Utah, some of the 
other states that these stories were coming from.
    And so, as I understand it, in a briefing with this select 
subcommittee, a career OSHA official said that the Trump 
administration made a political decision not to pursue new 
authorities to help protect workers.
    Ms. Berkowitz, you spent six years as a senior official at 
OSHA. How would you describe OSHA's response under the Trump 
administration to the outbreaks in the meatpacking plants?
    Chairman Clyburn. Turn on your--is your mic on?
    Ms. Berkowitz. Apologies. Thank you, Congresswoman Waters.
    OSHA totally abandoned its mission. They went AWOL. They 
looked the other way. The Secretary of Labor at the time, 
Eugene Scalia, told OSHA, don't respond to complaints that were 
coming with inspections. I heard that they didn't even give out 
N95 respirators for inspectors to be able to do inspections in 
these plants if they wanted to.
    In March, the AFL-CIO and hundreds of different 
organizations petitioned the agency, March 2020: Just set some 
requirements, so employers would know what to do. And they 
refused to set requirements, so that there were no 
requirements. And, as I said before, you know, workers were 
left on their own, and it was really a dire and horrible 
situation.
    Ms. Waters. There was an example given about what happened 
in Merced County, California, where senior Trump appointees 
working for the Department of Agriculture intervened on behalf 
of a meatpacking company in an effort to intimidate the public 
health division.
    Did you hear about that?
    Ms. Berkowitz. Yes. I heard about it as it was happening. 
The company called the USDA and said, ``Come help us.'' And 
even though it said right on the USDA's website that they could 
not keep plants open and local health departments could close 
the plants, the political appointees at the USDA Food Safety 
and Inspection Service intervened and basically said, you've 
got to keep these plants open.
    They did that--you know, luckily, in California, you had a 
great attorney general, and the Justice Department there 
intervened, and the plant was shut down. But, in Illinois--and 
I believe that plant, the JBS plant, is in your report--the 
local health department said, ``We can't do anything. USDA said 
that they are in control.''
    It happened in Illinois at a Smithfield plant that actually 
was closed, and then they called USDA and said, ``Tell the 
health department to let us open.'' I remind you, this is 
without mitigation measures that they were opening up, so it 
would continue to spread in the plant and into the community.
    Ms. Waters. Wow.
    Well, I would just like to do a little bit of a comparison 
here. We understand the Biden administration is providing $1.4 
billion in pandemic assistance to coronavirus-impacted food 
workers, distributing up to $600 per worker in relief payments 
to frontline meatpacking workers, and mandating crucial 
vaccines and coronavirus testing of course.
    Are you aware of the difference between what was happening 
in the Trump administration and what is being done now? And 
what more needs to be done?
    Ms. Berkowitz. Right. I am very aware. And, hopefully next 
week, OSHA will be issuing that emergency temporary standard 
that will affect all meatpacking companies. Either they get a 
vaccine or they have to be tested, and that is very important.
    So this new administration has a lot of work to do, but 
it's really, you know, turned the table on what's been 
happening.
    So thank you.
    Ms. Waters. Thank you so very much.
    And I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentlelady for yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes Dr. Green for five minutes.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good to see you. Thank 
you for putting this together, and I want to thank the ranking 
member as well.
    Today's hearing is simply an effort to distract from failed 
economic policies of the Democrat Party.
    It was the Democrats who extended the massive unemployment 
insurance program, incentivizing people not to work. By January 
2021, 18.2 million Americans were still receiving unemployment 
benefits, while 40 percent of the businesses were struggling to 
fill their jobs.
    It was the Democrats who put in place an eviction 
moratorium, harming thousands of small businesses and retirees 
and further encouraging people to stay home and not work.
    It is the Democrats that are forcing vaccine mandates on 
private businesses, causing a tremendous number of workers to 
leave the work force.
    And it is the Democrats that have dumped trillions of 
printed dollars into our economy, causing massive inflation, 
inflation to hit a 30-year high, and government deficits to 
skyrocket.
    Because of these policies, Americans are having to pay too 
much money for too little products because there are too few 
workers.
    COVID-19 has impacted every industry. Few businesses have 
come out unscathed. So let us face head-on the real problems: a 
work force shortage and a supply chain crisis caused by 
economically illiterate policies.
    But what are the Democrats trying to do? Ram through 
trillions more in spending with their so-called Build Back 
Better Act. It's not just meat prices that are going up; 
everything is becoming more expensive--gas, electricity, milk, 
clothing, used cars, rental cars, you name it.
    The price of lumber has skyrocketed 193 percent, causing 
the price of a new single-family home to rise $24,000 since 
this time last year. That's how inflation works.
    It's caused by the government, not the private sector, as 
evidenced by LBJ's Great Society spending that contributed to 
the stagflation of the 1970's.
    The solution to these problems is not more government 
interference; it's less. The Federal Government needs to get 
out of the way and let America's businesses and workers do what 
they do best. Then we need to stop this reckless spending. 
Otherwise, we risk repeating the ``Great Malaise'' of the 
1970's or much worse.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield.
    Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes Mrs. Maloney for five minutes.
    I don't see Mrs. Maloney, so the chair--Chair Maloney?
    Mrs. Maloney. Hi. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much.
    Chairman Clyburn. OK.
    Mrs. Maloney. Can you hear me?
    Chairman Clyburn. Yes, we can hear you now.
    Mrs. Maloney. OK.
    Meatpacking facilities were the sites of some of the first 
and largest outbreaks of the coronavirus in the Nation. 
Thousands of essential meatpacking workers were infected, 
falling ill in disproportionately large numbers compared to 
workers in other industries. Many of these workers were 
compelled by their employers to be at work even when they were 
feeling sick, as we just heard in this testimony.
    Ms. Godinez, I understand you represented workers in a 
lawsuit to address the safety conditions in meatpacking plants. 
Why did the workers you represented feel so unsafe going to 
work?
    Ms. Godinez. Sure. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    There are a number of reasons why the workers didn't feel 
safe, but, first of all, they understood that this was an 
airborne virus, that, by standing shoulder-to-shoulder, elbow-
to-elbow, they were going to contract the virus.
    And distancing was not only not available on the line, but 
it also was not available in the break rooms, in the cafeteria 
rooms. They have a very limited amount of time to go get in the 
break room, take off their gear, their protective gear--and I'm 
not talking about COVID-19 protective gear--in locker rooms 
where the lockers are stacked on top of each other, you're 
changing clothes right on top of another worker. And then you 
go into the cafeteria and you're only separated by a very thin, 
flimsy barrier, and you're taking off your mask, you're eating 
right in front of others.
    And then the other reason why workers felt unsafe is simply 
because they kept seeing their coworkers not come back the next 
day, and sometimes they didn't come back at all, and only 
discovered that someone had passed away because of a Facebook 
GoFundMe page.
    And, overall, there was a lack of transparency. There was 
no contact tracing. They didn't know if they had been exposed. 
They didn't know if they were exposing their children or family 
members. So they knew they were risking their lives by going 
into the meatpacking plants, and that was an unnecessary risk.
    Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
    In April 2020, a large coronavirus outbreak at a Smithfield 
plant in Sioux Falls quickly spilled over into the wider South 
Dakota community. What began with a few cases among workers 
ultimately resulted in more than 1,000 cases being linked to 
this plant. Despite this, leaders in the meatpacking industry 
refused to admit that their plants were driving infections as 
late as mid-May 2020.
    Ms. Berkowitz, how did meatpacking plants drive coronavirus 
infection rates into surrounding communities, particularly 
rural communities?
    Ms. Berkowitz. Thank you.
    You know, we know from the----
    Mrs. Maloney. We can't hear you. Turn on your mic.
    Ms. Berkowitz. Thank you.
    We know from the beginning of this pandemic that workplace 
exposures were significant drivers of spreading the coronavirus 
out into the communities. In meatpacking plants, especially in 
that plant, Smithfield in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, it whipped 
like wildfire among the workers, and then brought it back home 
to their family members, who got sick, who infected other 
people in the community. That's sort of how it happened.
    And I want to make it clear that the only reason we even 
know that this virus was spreading the way it did is that the 
children of the Smithfield workers and the local union actually 
started talking about it to the newspaper. The children of the 
Smithfield workers actually formed a Facebook group because 
their parents were too scared to speak out.
    And so there have been study after study showing that, you 
know, the numbers now, which are so staggering, are just the 
meatpacking workers themselves, but there's an exponential 
component to what the real effect of the industry's failure to 
mitigate the spread of COVID in their plants is, with the 
spread in the community. I mean, rural communities were hit 
incredibly hard because the meatpacking industries and the 
hospitals were overwhelmed.
    Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
    And, Mr. Rosas, in April 2020, you called on meatpacking 
companies to slow their line speeds to guarantee safe social 
distancing between workers. Why did you make this demand? And 
did the meatpacking companies comply? Did they respond 
appropriately to your demand?
    Mr. Rosas. They were open to have a discussion in regards 
to the line speed, slowing the line speed. However, as soon as 
President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act on this 
industry, some of the employers such as Seaboard Foods in 
Guymon, Oklahoma, which is not mentioned quite often in this 
whole investigation, they ran top line speeds, they increased 
the line speeds.
    So we don't get a very positive response based on the fact 
that they feel protected by the administration and the OSHA 
negligence of protecting its workers.
    Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
    My time has expired, and I yield back. Thank you.
    And thank you all for your testimony.
    Chairman Clyburn. I thank the chair for yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes Dr. Miller-Meeks for five minutes.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And thank you to the witnesses.
    Let me just say that I represent Iowa's Second 
Congressional District. I'm in a rural area. It is the home to 
multiple meatpacking plants.
    In fact, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, 
because I was a state senator for these areas, I personally was 
in contact and toured with individuals from the JBS plant in my 
hometown of Ottumwa to discuss mitigation strategies. And, 
also, they were in contact with the Iowa Department of Public 
Health, and I put them in contact with the Wapello County 
Public Health, our home county.
    This is what they did: screening for symptoms, temperature 
screening before you entered the plant; testing, COVID-19 
testing every week; physical barriers within the plant, which 
were not flimsy, as the report notes, that if it was temporary 
plastic, it was until they could get thicker plastics up; 
social distancing; increased air sanitation and ventilation.
    Everyone was provided PPE, which was changed. They 
increased the number of shifts so that workers could've been 
spaced out further. They set up tents to have separate 
cafeterias and then staggered all the shifts for people going 
to eat in the cafeteria, so separate dining facilities.
    They had increased access to medical healthcare services 
and health benefits, and if they were sick and vulnerable, they 
were told to not come into work. They also provided education 
and resources.
    And I mention this because one of the things I advised them 
to do, after reading early on in the pandemic that a salt 
shaker was the contact source for someone in Italy, also asked 
them not to have any silverware, plastic silverware, or salt 
shakers or anything that could be communally touched.
    So, Dr. Berkowitz, you focus in your testimony in the early 
days of the pandemic and the meatpacking industry response. And 
let's not forget that even experts like Dr. Fauci didn't know 
what was going on in those early months and guidance was 
changing daily.
    So I just mention that, in April and May, we were already 
instituting in these meatpacking facilities in my district--
they were already issuing mask mandates, temperature screening, 
testing, PPE.
    And so the guidance was changing even with the CDC. And JBS 
distributed masks to employees in March, prior to it being 
recommended by the CDC in April. And even Democrats in the U.S. 
House of Representatives didn't institute a mask mandate until 
July 2020.
    We also did contact tracing. And I spoke with our local 
county public health. And, if you'll recall, people don't spend 
24 hours a day at their workplace; they are at home or in their 
community. And our contact tracing showed that most of our 
spread came from in the home or other living conditions or in 
transportation with carpooling.
    Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that this chart be 
entered into the record.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. There has been a declining rate of COVID 
among meat and poultry workers since May 2020. As you can see 
from this chart, the industry clearly has made significant 
process in their COVID-19 mitigation strategy, consistently 
having a lower case average than the U.S. as a whole since last 
November.
    Prior to any vaccine mandate, on March 12 of this year, I 
administered vaccines at a vaccine clinic at JBS. We vaccinated 
over 800 employees on that day. And here we are now, in October 
2021, with three FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines produced by the 
Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed.
    And I would like to discuss how the meatpacking industry is 
working to vaccinate their work force. As I said, I personally 
administered vaccines. Their vaccination rate as of yesterday 
is 85 percent, and the JBS plant in Marshalltown was 88 
percent. They have reached this rate of vaccination through 
voluntary programs and providing easy access to employees, not 
harmful mandates.
    Do we know of any other medical conditions for those who 
unfortunately--and any death is tragic. Do we know of any other 
medical conditions that would have put them more vulnerable?
    Mr. Rosas, do you believe that widespread vaccination is 
the way out of this pandemic?
    Mr. Rosas. Give me one second, ma'am.
    I'm back in the video. Can you guys hear me OK?
    Chairman Clyburn. Yes.
    Mr. Rosas. Not necessarily. I don't believe vaccination is 
the only way out of this problem.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. OK. Thank you for that.
    Mr. Rosas. We must----
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Many farmers had to euthanize their 
herds. Do any of you know how many farmers committed suicide? 
Because that happened in my district when farmers had no place 
to take their hogs or their beef or their chickens.
    From September 2020 to September 2021, the price of bacon 
has increased 17.6 percent; the price of chicken, 7.6 percent.
    We could easily be being a conversation about the massive 
surge of migrants at the southern border who are not being 
COVID-19 tested; or the rate of inflation; the supply chain 
shortages which we have right now, which are not going to get 
better and I actually have ideas to address. We could be 
talking about and doing investigations on the botched 
Afghanistan withdrawal or the origins of COVID-19, which we 
have already heard from Ranking Member Steve Scalise.
    So let me be clear: I support vaccines and have personally 
administered them in all 24 counties in my district. But, while 
we face rampant inflation coupled with a labor shortage--we 
have farmers who had nowhere to take their herds and had to 
euthanize them and then commit suicide--we must not make it 
worse. When we do, it is those in the margins, low-income 
families and rural Americans, who feel it the most.
    Thank you so much, Chair. I yield back my time.
    Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentlelady for yielding back.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Foster for five minutes.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Just first, I would like to respond briefly to my 
Republican colleagues' fixation on this claim that the NIH 
somehow funded dangerous research in China that somehow led to 
the coronavirus outbreak.
    First off, Congress has had a hearing on the origins of the 
coronavirus on July 14 in the Science Committee Investigations 
and Oversight Committee that I chair, along with Ranking Member 
Jay Obernolte, who's an example of a thoughtful and deliberate 
and fact-based Member that has become, unfortunately, 
increasingly rare on the other side of the aisle. We had a very 
good hearing, and I urge members to look at the video of that 
hearing and the transcript.
    On this committee, we asked NIH last week if American 
dollars were used to fund gain-of-function research by 
EcoHealth Alliance or the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the 
answer was an unequivocal ``no,'' in part because the virus 
under investigation was not capable of infecting humans.
    NIH also confirmed, the research focused on a genetically 
distinct virus which could not be the source of the coronavirus 
that has impacted the world.
    Anyway, there's a lot more to be said there, but the 
starting point would be the rational discussions we have of 
this issue on the Science Committee Oversight Subcommittee.
    Now, the coronavirus outbreaks have affected meatpacking 
facilities in almost every part of this country. At one 
Smithfield plant in St. Charles, Illinois, just outside my 
district, previous estimates have put the number of infections 
in March and April 2020 at 64, including three deaths. However, 
based on internal company documents obtained by this select 
subcommittee, we now know that 110 of 519 workers at that plant 
were infected in just those first two months. That's over 20 
percent of the plant.
    This select subcommittee's data show that this trend was 
repeated throughout the country, with numerous meatpacking 
plants having much higher numbers of infections than previously 
disclosed.
    So, Ms. Berkowitz, why has it been so difficult to get an 
accurate count of the number of infections and deaths at 
meatpacking facilities during the pandemic?
    Ms. Berkowitz. Because there's no Federal agency that's 
collecting this data. There's no requirement for the industry 
to submit this data, like, to OSHA. And the industry didn't 
make its data public. And states that may have had some data 
based on the testing that was sent to them, many of them didn't 
make it public.
    So I think this is really something for the committee to 
look at, to give powers to OSHA or the National Institute for 
Occupational Safety and Health to, sort of, do a look-back on 
what happened in terms of not being able to get data.
    The only data that was collected was for healthcare 
workers, but for high-risk meat and poultry, the Federal 
Government did not collect this data.
    Mr. Foster. And, in your view, was not having an accurate 
and publicly available count of infections and deaths dangerous 
to plant workers and their communities?
    Ms. Berkowitz. Yes, it was very dangerous, because the 
industry could get away with what we just heard by just, sort 
of, making up numbers and putting it on a chart and saying, 
``Look, our numbers are less than everywhere else.''
    Or what happened was--and some politicians did this as 
well--is just blame it on, you know, the workers and their 
exposures at work. But meatpacking requires--they work 10 hours 
a day, they come home. They are just home; it's not like they 
go out and party at night. They're exhausted.
    So it did really prevent workers from having the tools they 
needed to really ask for and get better protections.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. You may know I'm a scientist. And if a 
scientist stands up and says something that they know is not 
true, it's a career-ending thing. And apparently it doesn't end 
the careers of meatpacking CEOs.
    Well, thankfully, we have strong and sensible unions, like 
the UFCW. They're pushing for worker vaccinations, and plants 
have, as a result, gotten safer.
    So I'd like to enter into the record a press release from 
the UFCW highlighting their 96-percent vaccination rate.
    Chairman Clyburn. Without objection.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you.
    You know, I guess it's a scientific fact that, if our whole 
country was as sensible as UFCW workers, we would be looking at 
this pandemic in the rearview mirror and our medical personnel 
and our first responders would be enjoying a well-deserved 
break instead of what they're dealing with.
    However, it seems as though the meatpacking plants were 
caught flatfooted in 2020 with no plan to protect their workers 
from the virus, although they had been warned about the risks. 
In 2007, the Federal Government cautioned the food and meat 
industry that it was, quote, ``not a matter of if but a matter 
of when'' the epidemic would occur. And the industry and others 
like it were instructed to plan for, quote, ``the systematic 
application of infection control and social distancing 
measures.'' And these warnings were amplified and repeated by 
the Department of Labor under President Obama.
    So, Ms. Berkowitz, you know, based on the warnings they 
received, did they do all they could and all they were 
instructed to do to prepare for a pandemic?
    Ms. Berkowitz. No. From my experience from talking to 
workers and local unions and community groups from plants all 
over the country, companies were flatfooted. They just wanted 
to keep going the way they were.
    I mean, the report 15 years ago said: Stockpile masks. You 
know, start thinking about how you can--you're going to get--
maybe 40 percent of your work force is going to be sick. Spread 
workers apart. Slow it down.
    And, instead, actually, like, 15 meat plants went in--
poultry plants--and said, we want to speed up our lines, keep 
workers closer together.
    So, no, they were not prepared. They just thumbed their 
noses at that report.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you.
    Ms. Berkowitz. Thank you.
    Mr. Foster. My time is gone. I yield back.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Foster. If you have some 
more questions, I'm going to yield to you after I yield. I'll 
yield you some of my time.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Jordan for five minutes.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Again, I ask the question, why don't Democrats want to know 
where this virus started, how this virus started?
    You know, think about the important information we learned 
last week. Peter Daszak with EcoHealth got our tax dollars, 
American tax money, in a grant. We learned that EcoHealth 
failed to comply with the grant. They did gain-of-function 
research and didn't notify us. And they didn't report in 
general for two years. During that two years when they didn't 
report, they got 21 million more dollars from the American 
taxpayer.
    This summer, July 23, 2021, the NIH notified Mr. Comer and 
the Congress that EcoHealth were in compliance with their 
grant, even though, as I said, they weren't. July 28, 2021, 
they sent--excuse me. On July 23, 2021, they notified EcoHealth 
that they weren't in compliance. Five days later is when they 
sent the letter to Chairman Comer saying, in fact, just the 
opposite, that EcoHealth had, in fact, done the reporting they 
were supposed to do.
    What did we learn last week? Last week, October 20, 2021, 
the National Institutes of Health told us: Oh, we were wrong. 
We were wrong. They weren't in compliance. Even though they had 
told us they were, they weren't in compliance.
    And, on that same day they told us that, on their website 
they changed the definition of what gain-of-function research 
really is.
    What I find interesting, too, is last week--no, actually, 
not last week; two days ago--two days ago, there was an op-ed 
in the editorial board at The Washington Post--not just an op-
ed, the editorial board at The Washington Post said this: Mr. 
Daszak insists that the laboratory could not be the source of 
the pandemic, of the virus.
    But the final two paragraphs, they say this: Unanswered 
questions keep emerging about Mr. Daszak and the Wuhan 
Institute of Virology. Why did he not disclose? Why didn't Mr. 
Daszak disclose his 2018 proposal to the Defense Advanced 
Research Projects Agency for research on bat coronaviruses with 
the WIV and others which called for engineering a modification 
onto spike proteins of chimeric viruses that would make them 
infect human cells in a way the pandemic strain in fact did? 
What does he know about the data bases of viruses the WIV took 
offline in 2019 and never brought back? Does he know what 
research the WIV may have done on its own during or after their 
collaboration? What was being done at the Wuhan Institute of 
Virology in the months before the pandemic?
    Pretty important questions. It would seem to me that the 
Select Committee on Coronavirus would kind of like answers to 
those. After all, The Washington Post says we need answers to 
those.
    In fact, here's how they conclude their op-ed. Here's what 
the editorial board at The Washington Post says: Mr. Daszak 
must answer these questions before Congress. His grants were 
Federal funds, and it is entirely appropriate--I would add 
required--for Congress to insist on accountability and 
transparency. He might also help the world understand what 
really happened in Wuhan.
    Amen to that. It's not often I agree with The Washington 
Post editorial board, but they get it. It seems to me the only 
entity that doesn't get it is the committee in Congress that's 
supposed to look into the coronavirus, the Select Committee on 
Coronavirus. Why we won't go after this issue, why we won't 
bring in Mr. Daszak--that should be our witness.
    I think this is an important subject, and I applaud that, 
but the main focus should be how this thing started so that we 
never get one of these things again. But for some reason, they 
don't want to do it.
    The gentleman from Illinois talked about a fact-based 
approach. This is a fact-based approach. I'd like to get the 
facts. And the one guy that knows it is Mr. Daszak. He was the 
guy put on the World Health Organization team. He's the guy who 
misled us for two years, didn't report as he was supposed to 
under the grant where he got American tax dollars and did gain-
of-function, which he was not permitted to do, under that grant 
proposal. He did all that. Yet Democrats don't seem to want to 
talk to him.
    I'd like to talk to him. I'd like him to be sitting right 
there at that table where all of us, not just Republicans, but 
Democrats, could ask him questions too. We might be able to get 
to the bottom of this.
    But this idea that everyone has downplayed the lab leak 
theory, which to me seems now to be, like, the most likely 
explanation for how we got this terrible virus--no, they want 
us to believe it was a bat to a penguin to a hippopotamus to 
people and all this stuff.
    I'd like Mr. Daszak here, and why the majority party won't 
do it I'll never know. But let's hope--let's hope they do it, 
particularly in light of everything we learned last week and 
the fact that the NIH changed the definition of ``gain-of-
function'' last week, the same day they notified us of how 
EcoHealth had been out of compliance and had been misusing the 
grant dollars of the hardworking people of this great country.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
    As I promised, I'm going to yield a portion, if not all, of 
my five minutes to Mr. Foster.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. It just--you know, I serve on--well, more 
than two committees, but, you know, it strikes me that there is 
a mistake that's often made on the other side of the aisle, to 
mistake speaking falsehoods rapidly for intelligence and truth.
    And, you know, when you see things, statements like we just 
heard, where----
    Mr. Jordan. Will the gentleman yield?
    Mr. Foster [continuing]. People haven't understood, for 
example, the elementary difference between human cells and 
mouse cells with humanized ACE2 receptors, you know, if you're 
going to talk about scientific issues, at least take the time 
to understand the----
    Mr. Jordan. Would the gentleman yield?
    Mr. Foster. No. I have been yielded the time, and it's not 
mine to----
    Mr. Jordan. Well, I wasn't asking you. I was asking the 
chairman.
    Mr. Foster. I'd prefer to just continue on my line of 
questioning and go back to the subject, actually, of this 
hearing, though I really--I'd urge anyone interested in this 
issue to look at the thoughtful discussion that happened on a 
bipartisan basis in the House Oversight Committee, which will 
continue to be looking at this issue.
    All right. Well, let's see, if we just--well, maybe I'll 
just try----
    Mr. Jordan. It's a----
    Mr. Foster [continuing]. To get back to the----
    Mr. Jordan. Mr. Chairman?
    Mr. Foster [continuing]. Get back to some of the subjects 
here. Let's see, I'm shuffling my papers here.
    OK. You know, it really--if we get back to this issue 
about, you know, why, despite being warned, you didn't see a 
response, you know, a response and a preparation ahead of time 
in the meatpacking industry, you know, is it just the economic 
issues? You know, are there noneconomic issues? You know, the 
fact that the workers are, you know, not at the top of the 
socioeconomic ladder, is that part of it?
    Any thoughts on that, of why it seemed to be so uniquely 
bad in the meatpacking industry?
    Ms. Berkowitz. I've been doing worker safety and this work 
for almost 40 years, and I think what's happened over the last 
20 years is the industry has gotten a lot more concentrated, so 
now you have these huge companies that have unlimited 
resources.
    But you also have, sort of, a very terrified work force. I 
mean, in poultry, only 30 percent is union. But even in some of 
the plants, workers are too scared to speak out because of 
retaliation because they are largely refugees, and they're 
worried if they speak out, they'll lose their job. They're 
immigrants workers who may know some people with some issues, 
and they don't want, you know, any trouble.
    And so the industry sort of gets away with things because 
you don't have--you know, like, Amazon has a work force that's 
willing to speak out, and they don't care if they get fired. 
It's a very different work force in meatpacking.
    I mean, these really are the hardest-working people. They 
do great jobs. They're proud of what they do. But I couldn't 
get one meatpacking worker, even a union plant, to speak to the 
press for the first five months of the pandemic. They were 
terrified. But I got their children, and then Rose, who's a 
lawyer and a child, who really stepped up in a big way.
    Mr. Foster. I see. And the children being citizens?
    Ms. Berkowitz. Yes.
    Mr. Foster. Yes. Because that's always the implicit threat 
in these. You see it in warehouse workers from time to time as 
well, that, OK, just the fear that, you know, if you speak up, 
even if you're legal to work, your sister will be deported, or 
that sort of implicit threat.
    And you see it again and again. You see it driving down 
wages, driving down working conditions. And this is a secondary 
symptom of that same thing.
    Ms. Godinez, do you have thoughts on this?
    Ms. Godinez. Yes. I just wanted to add to the retaliation 
point, Nebraska Appleseed came out with a report and touched on 
this retaliation point. And over 80 percent of workers noted 
that either their supervisor didn't care for their safety and 
that they strongly disagreed that their supervisors followed 
company policies.
    And then toward your question about why meatpacking plant 
workers were affected specifically, I just want to highlight 
that it was people of color, and that's due to existing social 
and economic inequities.
    Only 20 percent of Black and Latinx workers are able to 
work from home. And we know, obviously, in the meatpacking 
industry, you're not able to work from home; you're going to 
risk going to work and exposing yourself.
    Additionally, we're also talking about workers that are 
highly likely to be uninsured. That goes for both Black workers 
and immigrant workers.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you.
    And I think the lesson we should all draw from this is 
that, when you have work forces like that, that you have a 
higher duty to prepare for pandemics to protect those workers, 
which will fall predominantly--you know, the suffering will 
fall to them when----
    Chairman Clyburn. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank 
you so much--well, maybe my time has expired.
    I notice that the ranking member is not here, so I'm going 
to yield to Mr. Jordan----
    Mr. Jordan. Appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Clyburn [continuing]. So that he may make a 
closing statement.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes, I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.
    Again, I fail to see why we wouldn't want Mr. Daszak to 
come in front of this committee. I hope that will be the case.
    I would just point out too, the gentleman from Illinois 
talks about--one of the witnesses at your so-called origin 
hearing was a signer of the now-infamous Lancet letter, which 
Dr. Birx told us in a deposition was completely out of step 
with the science, the individual Stanley Perlman.
    And I don't--you know, the gentleman from Illinois and Dr. 
Fauci are the smartest people on the planet, but I don't 
pretend to be some scientist, I have never said that. I was 
just reading from The Washington Post editorial board. I don't 
know what all that stuff means. All I know is those are pretty 
darn important questions that we need answers to, and the one 
guy who can do it is the one guy who lied to us.
    Think about this. We had a guy who got American taxpayer 
money to do research in China on bat coronaviruses. The 
proposal said, do not do gain-of-function research, and report 
if you do, and report periodically to the NIH. He did gain-of-
function research, didn't report it, and didn't report 
periodically. And during the timeframe when he failed to do 
that, he got 21 million more dollars of American tax money.
    Now, if that doesn't warrant bringing him and sitting him 
right there and letting all of us ask questions, including Mr. 
Foster, I don't know what does. I do not know what does.
    And, oh, guess what? It's not just Jim Jordan and 
Republicans; it's The Washington Post. ``Mr. Daszak must answer 
these questions before Congress.'' I could not agree more.
    It has been a year and a half--more than a year and a half 
of Americans losing their First Amendment liberties because of 
all kinds of edicts and mandates from government. We'd at least 
like to know what started it all. But obviously Mr. Foster 
doesn't care, and it seems like the chairman of this good 
committee doesn't care either.
    But I would again come back to a fundamental question. 
There's only one committee, only one select committee that's 
supposed to look into the coronavirus issue, and it seems to me 
the first question we'd be most focused on is: How did this 
thing start?
    And now The Washington Post agrees with me. Holy cow. 
Jordan and The Washington Post on the same page, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Clyburn. That is strange, isn't it?
    Mr. Jordan. You would think Democrats would want to find 
the answer to that. But no, no, they don't want to do it. They 
just want to talk about how much smarter they are than the rest 
of us. OK, fine.
    The good folks I represent in west-central Ohio, they may 
not be as smart as Mr. Foster, but they're good people, and 
they would like to know how this thing started.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Clyburn. Well, thank you very much for yielding 
back, and I thank you for your closing statement.
    I want to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony 
today.
    The coronavirus pandemic caused enormous pain for 
meatpacking workers and their communities. They were failed by 
the companies they worked for and by the previous 
administration. Congress and the Biden administration are 
committed to remedying those failings. We will continue to act 
in order to protect the health and safety of meatpacking 
workers and all workers across the Nation.
    The pandemic exposed and exacerbated longstanding problems 
in our society that have been left unaddressed. Now we have an 
opportunity to ensure that the working families of America 
don't just recover from this crisis but they emerge stronger, 
safer, and more financially secure than ever before. We must 
not let this opportunity slip away. We must deliver for 
America's working families.
    An important step toward that end is the continuation of 
the select subcommittee's investigation into the impact of the 
coronavirus on meatpacking workers. There is more left to learn 
so that we can better protect them in any future pandemic.
    I want to thank all of you once again for being here today.
    And, Ms. Godinez, I want to thank your parents for their 
work on behalf of all those hardworking men and women who have 
kept Americans fed. Thank you for your commitment to the 
workers who feed America.
    And, with that, this hearing is closed.
    [Whereupon, at 4:16 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
    
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