December 26, 2021
Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, last year assigned a team of dedicated employees to enforce social distancing and sanitize surfaces at a South Dakota slaughterhouse where COVID-19 infected nearly 1,300 workers, the president of the local labor union …
October 28, 2021
Workers at the leading U.S. meatpacking plants experienced cases and death from COVID-19 that were up to three times previous estimates, according to a report by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis seen by Reuters. The U.S. House …
June 9, 2021
The union at a Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in South Dakota said it would head to contract negotiations armed with the authorization to call a strike. A strike authorization at the Sioux Falls chapter of the United Food and …
September 22, 2020
The U.S. government is falling behind global rivals when it comes to protecting meatpacking workers from Covid-19 infections, even though the nation’s plants were among the first to confront rampant cases across factories. In Germany, the government is ready to …
September 21, 2020
Smithfield Foods Inc. thought it was doing great. In the first quarter of this year, the pork giant’s earnings were up 190% over the same period in 2019. Then the pandemic hit, and the close quarters of meatpacking plants made …
September 11, 2020
The U.S. Labor Department said on Thursday it cited Smithfield Foods for failing to protect employees from the coronavirus, making it the first major U.S. meatpacker to face a fine after outbreaks at slaughterhouses infected thousands of workers. The citation …
June 15, 2020
Smithfield Foods Inc. is missing about a third of its employees at a South Dakota pork plant because they are quarantined or afraid to return to work after a severe coronavirus outbreak, according to the workers’ union. Tyson Foods Inc. …
May 7, 2020
A U.S. federal judge has dismissed a worker advocacy group’s lawsuit accusing Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest pork processor, of failing to adequately protect employees from the novel coronavirus at a plant in Missouri. Smithfield is already taking many …
May 6, 2020
America’s meat-processing plants are starting to reopen but not all workers are showing up. Some still fear they’ll get sick after coronavirus outbreaks shut more than a dozen facilities last month. Employees are taking leave, paid and unpaid — or …
April 27, 2020
A lawsuit filed on behalf of workers at a Smithfield Food plant in Missouri claims conditions at the plant are putting workers and the public at risk of contracting the coronavirus. The lawsuit, filed on April 23 by an advocacy …