Safety
Will Take a Back Seat. It Always Does.
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| Social Distancing? Source |
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
“The USDA’s primary stakeholders are major food producers and manufacturers,” 1
Trump using the Defense
Production Act to force the meat industry to stay open was a smart move on the
part of the industry bosses and investors. Most likely, the idea never arose in
Trump’s addled brain without a little help and that would have come from the
industry lobbyists. Lobbying is a US political term for bribery, encouraging
politicians to hand over taxpayer money for their clients.
There have been hundreds of
thousands of pigs and chickens slaughtered during the coronavirus pandemic. But
we should not be fooled in to thinking that the pressure to keep the plants
running has anything to do with the industry profiteers caring about working
people. Like all the major corporations that are pushing to open up the economy
(behind the scenes many of them) they must get the labor process working again
because it is the labor process, or more accurately, the labor aspect of it,
that is the source of their profits. "Tyson Foods is offering workers s $500 bonus in May and another in July..." for good attendance, writes Business Week. The working class produces more value in
the labor process than it receives in wages. A portion of this surplus value is
the capitalist’s profit. It is this that is behind the drive to open the
economy from the capitalist’s point of view. Those who earn the most money in society produce the least value.
To foster the impression that
workers’ health is paramount, Trump has directed Agricultural Secretary Sonny Perdue
to “ensure that meat and poultry
processors continue operations consistent with the guidance for their
operations jointly issued by the CDC and OSHA.” Now tell me sisters, brothers and comrades in the
workplaces of the US; when did you last see OSHA representatives wandering
around your work area making sure you were safe? Exactly! You haven’t. OSHA
turns up when workers die. The only way to make the workplace safer is workers’
organization and ultimately control of work itself.
I’m not trashing the
inspectors here. On OSHA’s own website we can see why it has virtually no physical presence in the workplace
unless tragedy hits, “Federal OSHA is a small agency; with our state partners we
have approximately 2,100 inspectors responsible for the health and safety of
130 million workers, employed at more than 8 million worksites around the
nation — which translates to about one compliance officer for every 59,000
workers.” Yet despite this pathetic presence the US Chamber of
Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers still opposed it.
Nothing must stand in the way of profits. That’s what freedom is all about.
The industry bosses are
worried that if their workers or families get sick it will open the companies
up to lawsuits. And they will get sick as in this industry, workers work very
close together, elbow to elbow as they put it. “But with Trump citing national security, its easier
for companies to say, ‘we’re just following orders’” saysone industry analysis in Bloomberg Business Week. This lets the profiteers
off the hook. They care about people not profits they would have us believe but
it will be the state or the taxpayer more accurately that will cover that end
of the deal.
So as I write, lobbyists from
all major industries are scurrying around Washington competing with each other
for stimulus money, for taxpayer funds. It’s not just the meat industry wanting
to change the rules. Saks Fifth Avenue, the fancy New York City store has its
lobbyists up there trying to bribe politicians to change the law so it can
qualify for financial aid. The non-profit businesses (I don’t believe there is
such a thing as a non profit business) has their lobby, the American Society of
Association Executives trying to bargain for them, including local chapters of
the “professional Golfers Association of
America”.
Saks has hired a former top
Senate aide who the company hopes will convince Senator Chuck Schumer to
support their position. Saks’ main store is in Schumer’s district.
Harry’s the shaving company
we see advertised all the time on the Internet has hired a former Trump
fundraiser Brian Ballard to get them some state aid. Harry’s might do well as Joshua
Kushner, the brother of Trump’s pale faced cretin of a son in law is a Harry’s
director. Literally, “…hundreds of retailers, commercial real
estate firms and insurers want an ‘American Recovery Fund’” to assist with
the rescue, the Wall Street Journal writes. 2
Folks might remember the
Savings and Loan scandal and the Resolution Trust Corp. When the Savings and
Loans went bankrupt the RTC took the worst of them and liquidated the assets
and the best of them it sold back to the same folks that had caused the problem
at bargain basement prices. The debt of the Savings and Loans the US taxpayer
paid.
So they’re all socialists now
just as they were back in 2008 when US capitalism was dragged from the edge of
the abyss by the taxpayers and socials measures. This will be the second time
in a decade the US taxpayer has come to the rescue. The money that is being
handed out in Washington now will have to be paid back by future generations.
It is always the working class and our next generations that pay the price for
capitalist crisis and waste.
The headline in the Wall
Street Journal article quoted in this commentary, “Lobbyists Step up Their Bid to Sway Virus
Aid” says it all. Every US worker with a brain knows that lobbyists are a bunch
of crooks, many of them former Senators who retire and use their knowledge of
the game to line their pockets and their corporate allies in industry.
Hundreds of millions of
dollars are spent in advertising and lobbying to encourage meat consumption. Beef alone
is a $95 billion-a-year business, according to the USDA. And the North American
Meat Institute (NAMI) estimates that, in total, the meat industry contributes
about $894 billion to the US economy. Between 1990 and 2018, American
farms increased food-animal production by nearly 66% to 103 billion pounds.
“Annual red-meat and poultry consumption
in America will reach 222 pounds per person for the first time in 2018,
according to food-availability estimates by the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA). The numbers measure how food supplies move from production to retail
for domestic consumption. At 222 pounds per person, overall meat consumption
comes out to the equivalent of more than 800 quarter-pound burgers per
person when measured by weight, or about 2.4 burgers per day.” From, “The
average American will eat the equivalent of 800 hamburgers in 2018”
The US Department of Agriculture issues dietary
guidelines but often reject suggestions made by experts in the field. The meat
industry has historically had “huge
influence” on the USDA, says Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and
epidemiology at Harvard. 3
Money
and wealth is at the heart of this and the advocates for the investors and
major food producers in the US determine what we eat, how we eat it and when.
From the factory floor to the halls of the US Congress, they determine policy
and both capitalist parties support them. It is this process, a market driven
industrial food and agricultural industry that leads to disease like the
coronavirus pandemic we are facing today. The use of chemicals and hormones in
the production of beef and other meats necessary for this type of food
production as with all commodity production, as the quicker it gets to market
and the sale is made, the faster the rate of return of capital and the
continuation of the cycle of madness.
Not
only should we eat less meat, the production of food should be a public not a
private venture. All the institution of government are designed to facilitate
this unhealthy process and maintain a situation where a handful of corporations
control what we eat.
“I was told we could never say ‘eat less meat’ because USDA would not
allow it.” says Dr. Marion Nestle, another
health expert who participated in developing the USDA guidelines in the past.4
There you have it.
1Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health https://time.com/4130043/lobbying-politics-dietary-guidelines/
2 Lawyers Step up Their Bid to Sway Virus
Aid. Wall Street Journal 5-4-20
4 ibid
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