{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senators-warren-and-booker-to-osha-your-persistent-failure-to-protect-workers-at-meatpacking-facilities-from-escalating-deadly-covid-19-outbreaks-is-disgraceful", "Senators Warren and Booker to OSHA: Your Persistent Failure to Protect Workers at Meatpacking Facilities From Escalating, Deadly COVID-19 Outbreaks is Disgraceful", "2020-12-22", "2020", "2020-12", "Democrat", "Senate", "MA", "Elizabeth Warren", "W000817", "www.warren.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "December 22, 2020\n\t\t\t Senators Warren and Booker to OSHA: Your Persistent Failure to Protect Workers at Meatpacking Facilities From Escalating, Deadly COVID-19 Outbreaks is Disgraceful \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tA new\r\nstudy finds that meatpacking facilities are associated with\r\ncommunity spread of COVID-19, leading to hundreds of thousands of cases and\r\nthousands of deaths in the U.S. OSHA has refused to establish\r\nemergency workplace safety standards Text\r\nof Letter (PDF) Washington, DC - United States Senators Elizabeth Warren\r\n(D-Mass.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) sent a letter to the Occupational Safety and\r\nHealth Administration (OSHA) asking why the agency is still failing to take any\r\naction to protect meatpacking workers during a raging global health pandemic in\r\nwhich meatpacking plants are serving as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)\r\nhotspots that are harming their employees and surrounding communities, the\r\nmajority of which are immigrant communities and communities of color. Their\r\nletter follows the recent release of a\r\nstudy that explicitly identified meatpacking facilities \"as (COVID-19)\r\ntransmission vectors into the surrounding population (that) accelerate the\r\nspread of the virus\" and are associated with hundreds of thousands of\r\ncases and thousands of deaths. The senators sent a letter to OSHA in September 2020\r\ncriticizing the agency's delayed and ineffective response to COVID-19\r\noutbreaks occurring at meatpacking facilities across the U.S. that have\r\nsickened and killed many workers. In response, OSHA wrongly asserted that\r\nenforceable, emergency health and safety standards are \"not necessary at\r\nthis time.\" Since the September 2020 letter to OSHA, an additional 8,974\r\nmeatpacking workers have tested positive for COVID-19 and 54 workers have died\r\nof COVID-19 across another 69 meatpacking plants. \"Given these ongoing concerns, we would like to know whether you plan\r\nto take any action while you are still in office to protect workers and\r\ncommunities during this surge in the pandemic, or if you plan to end your\r\ntenure by continuing to fail the workers you are sworn to protect,\" wrote\r\nthe lawmakers. Amid OSHA's continued refusal to engage in substantive enforcement of worker\r\nprotections or to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring\r\nenforceable worker safety protections specific to the pandemic, COVID-19\r\noutbreaks at meatpacking plants have worsened. Rather than taking significant\r\naction to protect worker safety in meatpacking facilities, DOL has instead\r\nreduced transparency about employers violations of workers' rights. In the\r\nabsence of standards and enforcement, workers' health and safety are left to\r\nthe whims of employers who know there isn't a cop on the beat - as is\r\nevidenced by repeated outbreaks at the same large meat-processing plants\r\noperated by the same industry giants. \"Your persistent failure to act continues to endanger these workers and\r\nthe communities where they live, work, and play. It has been clear since the\r\nonset of this pandemic that OSHA must promulgate an ETS to guarantee\r\nenforceable health and safety protections for workers specific to this\r\npandemic. The agency's failure to take action under your watch is disgraceful,\r\nand workers, their families, and their communities deserve better,\" the\r\nsenators concluded. Senators Warren and Booker have been working to hold the meatpacking\r\nindustry accountable for workers' rights and safety violations throughout the\r\npandemic: \r\n In May 2020, Senator Warren requested\r\n     the Department of Labor Inspector General (IG) open an investigation into\r\n     OSHA's handling of inspections and citations during the COVID-19 pandemic,\r\n     and the DOL's failure to issue an OSHA ETS, which the IG's office agreed\r\n     to consider in June.\r\n In July 2020, Senators Warren\r\n     and Booker\r\n     released information from their investigation into whether Tyson\r\n     Foods, JBS USA, Cargill and Smithfield Foods used the COVID-19 pandemic --\r\n     and warning of meat shortages -- as cover to increase prices for American\r\n     consumers while exporting record amounts of meat abroad, and successfully\r\n     lobby the President with a false pretext to sign an executive order that\r\n     gave them cover to continue operating in an unsafe fashion that endangered\r\n     workers, many of whom are people of color.\r\n Since releasing their July\r\n     2020 findings, Senator Warren\r\n     sharply criticized OSHA on September 10 for failing to hold Smithfield\r\n     Foods and other meatpacking companies accountable for putting thousands of\r\n     lives at risk, sending a message to the industry that OSHA is working for\r\n     big business, not workers.\r\n On September 22, Senators\r\n     Warren and Booker\r\n     pressed OSHA regarding the agency's delayed and feckless response to\r\n     the dozens of reports of COVID-19 outbreaks affecting thousands of workers\r\n     in hundreds of meatpacking facilities across the country.\r\n In October 2020, Senators\r\n     Warren and Booker\r\n     released the Department of Labor's inadequate, half-page response to\r\n     their inquiry about why OSHA failed to take quick and sufficient actions\r\n     to enforce workplace safety laws and protect workers in meatpacking\r\n     plants.\r\n In April 2020, Senator Warren\r\n     introduced the\r\n     Essential Workers Bill of Rights to ensure workers have the full suite\r\n     of rights, protections, and benefits they need and deserve during the\r\n     COVID-19 pandemic, including enforceable health and safety protections\r\n     through an OSHA ETS.\r\n ###\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t  \n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t \n\t\t\n\t\t\tPrint\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tEmail\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tTweet\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t \n\t\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n    \n\t\n\t\n    \n    \n    \n    \t\n    \t\n\t    \t  \n\t\t    \n\t\t    \n\t\t    \tPrevious Article", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senators-warren-and-booker-to-osha-your-persistent-failure-to-protect-workers-at-meatpacking-facilities-from-escalating-deadly-covid-19-outbreaks-is-disgraceful"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7896299250423908, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}