OSHA Fines Smithfield 0.023% for Social Costs of Sioux Falls Coronavirus Outbreak

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined Smithfield Packaged Meats Corp. $13,494, the maximum allowed by law, for failing to protect employees at its Sioux Falls slaughterhouse from exposure to the coronavirus.

That’s $10.43 for each of Smithfield Sioux Falls’s 1,294 infected employees, or $3,373.50 for each of the four who died from coronavirus. Given the statistical estimate that each coronavirus case (not even considering death) imposes costs to public health and the economy of $46,000, OSHA is asking Smithfield to pay 0.023% of the $59.5 million cost of letting coronavirus spread insufficiently checked for three weeks among its Sioux Falls employees. Smithfield surely bore some of that statistical cost already in its lost productivity among its workers… but we’re not including in our tally the folks outside the slaughterhouse who caught coronavirus from poorly protected Smithfield workers.

South Dakota Voices for Peace, which speaks up for immigrants who work and live in Sioux Falls and all around our colorblind state (where “colorblind” means blind to the hazards people of color undergo as they do us white folks’ dirty work here in South Dakota), says this small OSHA response justifies the early protests against Smithfield’s callous inaction:

“Food production workers are the reason we have food on our table. The impact of COVID-19 was known. There was no element of surprise,” said Taneeza Islam, Executive Director of SD Voices for Peace and member of the SD Dream Coalition. “For Smithfield to not have mitigation plans in place to curtail the risk of exposure to the nearly 4,000 employees inside of those four walls is clearly a violation of OSHA regulations. There is now some vindication for these employees and families who have lost loved ones because of OSHA’s enforcement of these regulations here in Sioux Falls, SD” [South Dakota Voices for Peace, press release, 2020.09.11]

The United Food and Commercial Workers International that represents those sickened workers and 1.3 million others agrees says OSHA is letting Smithfield off easy:

“How much is the health, safety, and life of an essential worker worth? Based on the actions of the Trump Administration, clearly not much. This so-called ‘fine’ is a slap on the wrist for Smithfield, and a slap in the face of the thousands of American meatpacking workers who have been putting their lives on the line to help feed America since the beginning of this pandemic.

“OSHA has been asleep at the switch throughout this pandemic and this is just the latest example of the agency failing to do their job and take responsibility for worker safety. If we truly care about protecting workers and our nation’s food supply during this pandemic, the federal government must take action, beginning with an enforceable national safety standard, increased access to PPE and COVID-19 testing, and rigorous proactive inspections.

“Smithfield is a multi-billion-dollar corporation that failed to protect its workers, with multiple deaths and more than a thousand infections on their watch. This response by OSHA confirms that the company will not face any real consequences. The failure by the Trump Administration to hold Smithfield accountable makes clear that this White House cares more about industry profits than protecting America’s essential workers. Our country’s meatpacking workers, and the millions of American they serve, deserve and expect better from those sworn to protect us” [UFCW President Marc Perrone, press release, 2020.09.11].

Smithfield Foods agrees with the UFCW that OSHA are lazi doofi, but the Chinese-owned company plans to fight even that tiny tax on its externalities, a fine Smithfield VP Keria Lombardo says is “wholly without merit“:

“The fact is that the Sioux Falls community experienced an early spike in COVID-19 cases, which impacted our plant. We responded immediately, consulting with CDC, South Dakota Department of Health, USDA and many others. We also simultaneously and repeatedly urged OSHA to commit the time and resources to visit our operations in March and April. They did not do so.

“More than anything, the outcome of OSHA’s comprehensive, full-court-press investigation of our Sioux Falls facility validates the aggressive and comprehensive manner in which we have protected the health and safety of our employees amid the pandemic. Again, the citation is wholly without merit, and we plan to contest it.”

Smithfield has 15 business days after receiving the citation and penalty to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission [Jodi Schwan, “Smithfield Plans to Contest OSHA Citation, Calling It ‘Wholly Without Merit’,” Sioux Falls Business, 2020.09.11].

The North American Meat Institute quickly produces this graph showing that meatpackers have not just flattened but lowered the curve of infection in their abattoirs while the rest of Trumpistan as seen cases rise since spring:

…but the fact that meatpackers may have figured out how to prevent the spread of coronavirus more quickly than the rest of society doesn’t change their responsibility for slow response at the start, when they apparently thought they could just grind ahead with business as usual and a little extra hand-sanitizer. It took lots of bad press, plant shutdowns, and loss of profits to make them realize they had to impose and stick with stricter pandemic controls to keep the bacon and bucks flowing.

Thus, Big Meat’s rebuttal doesn’t exonerate Smithfield; it only reinforces the argument against the Trump/Noem wishez-faire approach to coronavirus and the argument for strict, ongoing interventions to control the pandemic.