The poultry industry is dismissing claims by a major media organization linking plant line speeds and cases of coronavirus.
The Trump administration is finalizing a rule to boost those speeds. The Washington Post says that it analyzed the impact of such a rule and found speeding up the lines at meat plants will also speed up the spread of the virus.
Tom Super with the National Chicken Council disagrees.
“The assertion is that, if the evisceration line, that the speed is. increased, that the part of the plant where the chicken is cut up, those lines would have to increase, and that’s not true,” Super states. “If a plant has a waiver or is granted a line-speed increase for the evisceration part of the plant, they will either put another line in the debone and cut-up lines, with more workers, with those safety precautions in place.”
Super says that the industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars since April to retrofit plants with COVID safeguards. He adds that those safeguards have reduced infections dramatically.
Related:
Unions sue Dept. of Ag over increased line speeds
