Smithfield's Sullivan Blasts Senators' Report on Meat Companies Response to COVID-19 BY LISA M KEEFE, MEATINGPLACE.COM

Smithfield’s Sullivan Blasts Senators’ Report on Meat Companies’ Response to COVID-19

by Lisa M. Keefe, meatingplace.com

Seeking support for a couple of workplace-reform initiatives, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey excoriated major meat processors in a report of their findings of an investigation into how meat companies performed in the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a release outlining their conclusions, and calling for an “Essential Workers Bill of Rights” and passage of the Farm System Reform Act, the senators accused Tyson, Cargill, Smithfield and JBS USA of using the pandemic as “cover while they failed to protect workers, dramatically increased prices for American consumers while exporting record amounts of meat abroad, and successfully lobbied the President with a false pretext to sign an executive order that gave them cover to continue operating in an unsafe fashion.”

The report also said the companies, in statements provided in June at the senators’ request, “evaded most of the questions sent by the senators.”

The findings include statements from meat plant workers and labor advocates. It also included the responses that the senators received from the four companies in their entirety. Cargill, JBS and Tyson submitted responses that ranged from three to five pages long. Smithfield Foods’ CEO Ken Sullivan’s submitted a 14-page response that, like the other documents, outlined the steps that the company has taken to manage the pandemic while still maintaining operations.

Sullivan’s submission, however, stood out for its pointed criticism of the exercise itself, saying “the aggressive and accusatory tone of your letter suggests your offices have already formed conclusions without an attempt to speak with us or understand the industry,” that the senators’ letter “is fraught with misinformation about our company and industry that appears to be strictly gleaned from media outlets that have made statements and infer- ences that grossly mischaracterize us, our values and response to COVID-19” and “a fundamental misunderstanding of our food supply chain, the agricultural sector and the role exports play in a healthy farm economy.”

Sullivan also complained about the “partisan” nature of the inquiry, saying “We have no interest in being a political pawn for either party. ... We are apolitical in our determination to fight through this crisis, and we wish representatives in Washington could unite on the need to feed Americans during a national emergency.”

Smithfield’s response included another 86 pages of Smithfield employees’ names and titles who “hereby express their support for our company and this response,” the document said. ▫