The Trump Administration, under the guise of “threatened meat shortages” during the COVID-19 pandemic, lifted regulations in beef, pork, and poultry processing industries. Production lines are sped up and workers must stand closer together, resulting in more injuries and corona virus infections. “We’re very much back in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle,” says David Michaels, former head of OSHA, quoted in The New Yorker (07/20/20), referring to the 1906 expose of the meat-packing plants that led to labor and consumer protection legislation. For a vivid picture, read about the appalling conditions in Chicago’s pork industry a century ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
