COVID Workplace Safety Failures: OSHA Refused Emergency Standards While Trump Ordered Meatpacking Plants to Remain Open
Tier 3Documented2020-03-01 to 2021-01-20
Factual Summary
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump administration's Occupational Safety and Health Administration declined to issue any emergency temporary standards to protect workers from the virus, despite receiving formal requests from labor unions, congressional Democrats, and public health organizations. OSHA received more than 8,000 COVID-related complaints from workers across multiple industries, including reports of deliberate concealment of outbreaks, lack of personal protective equipment, inadequate social distancing, and retaliation against whistleblowers. Through the end of the Trump administration, OSHA issued fewer than a dozen citations related to COVID-19 workplace safety violations, with total penalties amounting to less than $80,000.
On April 28, 2020, Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to compel meatpacking plants to remain open. The order classified meat and poultry processing as critical infrastructure, effectively overriding decisions by state and local health authorities who had moved to close facilities experiencing severe outbreaks. The executive order did not include any new workplace safety requirements, mandatory testing protocols, or enforceable protections for the approximately 194,000 workers employed at these facilities.
Meatpacking plants became among the most dangerous workplaces in the country during the pandemic. Workers stood shoulder to shoulder on processing lines in cold, enclosed environments where the virus spread rapidly. By the end of 2020, at least 59,000 meatpacking workers had been infected with COVID-19 and at least 269 had died, according to data compiled by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Some estimates placed the death toll higher.
OSHA's enforcement response was widely criticized as inadequate. After more than six months of the pandemic, the agency issued its first two COVID-related citations against meatpacking companies in September 2020. JBS, the world's largest beef and pork producer, was fined $15,615 for violations at its Greeley, Colorado, plant, where six floor workers and one office employee died and 290 were infected. Smithfield Foods was fined $13,494 for violations at its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant, where at least 1,294 workers were infected and four died. The combined fines for both plants totaled less than $30,000, amounting to less than $2,500 per worker who died at those two facilities.
A congressional investigation by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis examined OSHA's enforcement failures at meatpacking plants operated by Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, and JBS USA. Emails obtained by investigators revealed that OSHA and the USDA waited months to address outbreaks at these facilities. The subcommittee's hearing, titled "How the Meatpacking Industry Failed the Workers Who Feed America," documented the gap between the industry's profits and the protections afforded to its workforce.
After taking office in January 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order 13999 directing OSHA to consider whether emergency temporary standards for COVID-19 were necessary. OSHA subsequently issued a healthcare-specific emergency temporary standard in June 2021. In his second term, Trump revoked Biden's executive order.
Primary Sources
1. Executive Order 13917, "Delegating Authority Under the Defense Production Act With Respect to Food Supply Chain Resources During the National Emergency Caused by the Outbreak of COVID-19," April 28, 2020
2. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, hearing transcript: "How the Meatpacking Industry Failed the Workers Who Feed America," 117th Congress (2021)
3. OSHA citations against JBS USA and Smithfield Foods, September 2020
4. OSHA complaint and citation data, 2020, available through the Department of Labor
Corroborating Sources
1. Washington Post: "After 200 meat plant workers die of covid-19, OSHA issues two fines," September 13, 2020
2. ProPublica: "After Hundreds of Meatpacking Workers Died From COVID-19, Congress Wants Answers," 2021
3. Economic Policy Institute: "Rescind EO 13999 Directing OSHA to Consider Whether Any Emergency Temporary Emergency Standards for Covid-19 Were Necessary," 2025
4. World Socialist Web Site: "OSHA fines meatpacking industry $30,000 after 203 COVID-19 deaths and 18,000 infections," September 18, 2020
5. National Center for Biotechnology Information (PMC): "The Sad, Sad Story of OSHA's Failure to Protect Workers From COVID-19," 2022
Counterarguments and Context
The Trump administration argued that existing OSHA general duty clause authorities were sufficient to address COVID-19 workplace hazards and that emergency temporary standards were unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. Administration officials contended that the meatpacking executive order was necessary to prevent disruptions to the national food supply chain, and that plant closures would have caused widespread food shortages and economic damage. The meatpacking industry argued that it implemented safety measures voluntarily, including installing physical barriers, distributing masks, and reducing line speeds. Supporters of the administration's approach noted that pandemic conditions were unprecedented and that OSHA's existing regulatory framework was not designed for airborne infectious diseases. However, the factual record shows that OSHA declined to issue emergency standards despite having statutory authority to do so, that the executive order to keep plants open contained no enforceable worker protections, and that the agency's eventual fines were negligible relative to the scale of illness and death that occurred.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because the underlying facts are documented through primary evidence, including the executive order itself, OSHA citation records, congressional investigation transcripts, and public health data. No court adjudicated whether the administration's failure to issue emergency standards was unlawful, but the factual record of infections, deaths, and enforcement inaction is extensively documented. The entry addresses the administration's regulatory and executive decisions, not the behavior of individual meatpacking companies.