Gotta have meat!

The world's biggest meat companies, including Smithfield Foods Inc, Cargill Inc, JBS USA and Tyson, have halted operations at about 20 slaughterhouses and processing plants in North America as workers fall ill, stoking global fears of a meat shortage.

[...]

United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered meat-processing plants to stay open to protect the country's food supply, despite concerns about the coronavirus outbreaks, drawing a backlash from unions that said at-risk workers required more protection.

With concerns about food shortages and supply chain disruptions, Trump issued an executive order using the Defense Production Act to mandate that the plants continue to function.

[...]

The order is designed in part to give companies legal cover with more liability protection in case employees catch the virus as a result of having to go to work.

[...]

Before issuing the executive order, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that signing the order, "... will solve any liability problems," adding, "And we always work with the farmers. There's plenty of supply."

The executive order, released on Tuesday evening, said the closure of just one large beef-processing plant could result in 10 million fewer individual servings of beef in a day.

  alJazeera

And how would he get his hamberders...hambergers...you know what he means. Stop making fun of his spelling.

Unions were not impressed. Some farmers said it was too late because pigs had been euthanised already instead of the pork going to market.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) said in a statement that if workers were not safe, the food supply would not be either.

[...]

"When poultry plants shut down, it's for deep cleaning and to save workers' lives. If the administration had developed meaningful safety requirements early on as they should have and still must do, this would not even have become an issue," Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said in a statement.

[...]

Administration officials and some Republicans on Capitol Hill have said businesses that are reopening need liability protection from lawsuits employees might file if they become sick.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, speaking to reporters on a teleconference on Tuesday that mainly centred on immigrants working in the healthcare sector, was asked about Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell's pushing for business liability protections as they reopen their operations.

"Is he saying if an owner tells a worker he needs to work next to a sick person without a mask and wouldn't be liable? That makes no sense," Schumer said.

You think?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: