Smithfield Foods to pay fine, develop new plan to prevent infectious disease in meat-packing plants

Under the agreement, Virginia-based Smithfield Foods will develop a plan to prevent infectious diseases at meatpacking plants nationwide and pay a $13,500 fine.

Smithfield's Sioux Falls plant was one the nation's worst COVID-19 hotspots during the early days of the pandemic. By June 16, 2020, four workers were dead and nearly 1,300 had tested positive for the virus, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. After an investigation, the federal agency said Smithfield did not do enough to space workers out or provide other safety measures such as face coverings or physical barriers.

The company's processing plant in Tar Heel, NC, is its largest, employing 4,500. Workers there told WRAL News in May 2020 that there was no social distancing and that close contacts were not notified when workers fell ill. These complaints mirrored the ones made in the South Dakota plant.

Smithfield has agreed to work with third-party experts to develop a new plan to prevent diseases from spreading in plants, which will include an assessment of medical safety measures from meatpacking plants’ administration on down to personal protective equipment for workers on butchering lines.

The company has at least seven processing plants in North Carolina that will be covered by the plan, once it's developed.

Smithfield’s spokesman, Jim Monroe, said the company admitted no wrongdoing and called OSHA's allegations “baseless.”

“Settling with OSHA and avoiding litigation allows Smithfield to continue the good relations it has with the agency, as we have the shared goal of workplace safety," he said.

The United Food and Commercial Workers had previously derided the $13,500 fine as a “slap on the wrist."

Employees at the South Dakota plant have said Smithfield did not do enough last year to prevent infections in the plant, where workers labored elbow-to-elbow as they processed nearly 5% of the country’s pork. The union at the plant has said that it had been attempting to negotiate for more coronavirus protections leading up to the outbreak. After cases kept accumulating, Smithfield shuttered its plant for nearly three weeks.

Smithfield has agreed to work with third-party experts to develop a new plan to prevent diseases from spreading in plants, which will include an assessment of medical safety measures from meatpacking plants’ administration on down to personal protective equipment for workers on butchering lines.

Smithfield already had a prevention plan in the works and is now focused on vaccinating its entire workforce against COVID-19, Monroe said.