[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
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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
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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
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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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