The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on February 1 launched an investigation into widespread COVID-19 infections and deaths in US meatpacking plants. Representative James Clyburn, Chairman of the Subcommittee, sent letters to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods and JBS USA.

The letter to OSHA claims that under the Trump administration OSHA “failed to adequately carry out its responsibility for enforcing worker safety laws at meatpacking plants across the country, resulting in preventable infections and deaths.” Since April, “54,000 workers at 569 meatpacking plants in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus, and at least 270 have died.” The letter cites to data captured by the Food and Environment Reporting Network (FERN) who has been mapping outbreaks of the coronavirus in the food system since April. The Subcommittee is now calling on OSHA to take all necessary steps under statutory authority or authority granted by President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on Protecting Worker Health and Safety to protect workers from COVID-19, “by issuing clear guidance to employers, enacting an emergency temporary standard, and enhancing enforcement efforts.”