Tyson faces new legal challenges over its pandemic response
Tyson Foods is facing new challenges in its effort to dispose of lawsuits that accuse the company of failing to protect workers from injury and death caused by COVID-19.
In the past few months, the U.S. Department of Justice has sided with Tyson workers on a key element of the case; a federal judge in Texas has rejected the company’s claim that its actions were dictated by the federal government, and the U.S. Court of Appeals has questioned the logic underlying the company’s defense.
Adding to Tyson’s woes is a recent report by the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which faulted the company’s safety precautions at a Texas plant and concluded the nation’s meatpacking companies had “prioritized profits and production over worker safety.”
The subcommittee concluded that 269 American meatpacking workers have died of COVID-19, and infections among meatpackers have topped 59,000. Those totals, which are almost three times previous estimates, are based on data supplied by Tyson and four other meatpackers: JBS, Cargill, National Beef and Smithfield.
Read more: https://missouriindependent.com/2021/11/05/tyson-faces-new-legal-challenges-over-its-pandemic-response/