President Donald trump has signed a decree involving the Law on the defence industry to give the meat the value of the critical infrastructures, which must continue to work during a pandemic coronavirus.
As said the official representative of the White house, this decision led discussions of a number of major meat producers in relation to plans to reduce the spread of the coronavirus in its plants, covering up to 80% of production capacity. This leads to the fact that 20% of the slaughterhouses in the country will feed the entire population.
Factories are already beginning to close, and Smithfield Foods, the market leader, has already closed plants in Kodai in Wisconsin, Martin city Missouri, and Sioux falls in South Dakota. The company also stated that they «advance» stop working in Monmouth, Illinois, where many of the 1,700 employees of the plant have found a coronavirus. Plant in Monmouth produces about 3% of fresh pork, and in Sioux falls gives about 130 million servings per week, according to the statements of the company.
Trump is going to force meat plants to reopen. This is movement so that’s good. What happens if unions balk at returning to work? As @still_a_nerd says «Speeding up»
The Article states 80% of meat production at risk 😬
https://t.co/24dszDVmwL
— Mark Freeman (@markfreeman_us) April 29, 2020
In response to concerns about worker safety officials in the White house told Newsweek that the Minister of labor Eugene Scalia will work to create security standards, ensuring that workers in factories will not put lives at risk, continuing to provide the country with food.
The official spokesman added that the administration trump is considering the possibility of providing special guidelines in respect of employees who are at the highest risk of complications from the coronavirus. «For example, in relation to an employee, which is more than 65 years of age, or who have health problems, we will cooperate with labor Department to ensure that the recommendations suggest that workers have to stay home.»
Despite the pandemic, trump publicly stated that there are no problems with the supply of products. On Monday he retweeted a post The-Counter, non-profit news magazine, where it was said that «there is no shortage of meat, ready to go on the shelves».
Because of possible disruptions in supply may take time to re-fill the shelves, but The Counter says there are «many millions» of pounds of meat in the freezers and frozen products to solve problems with possible short-term supply disruptions.
