Virus Outbreak at German Meat Factory Adds to Crisis

(Bloomberg) --

The shuttering of another German slaughterhouse to stem a coronavirus outbreak added to calls for tighter rules in an industry long criticized for poor working conditions and crowded accommodation for seasonal staff.

Production at the meat plant in Lower Saxony was halted Monday after 92 of its workers tested positive for Covid-19, the district of Osnabrueck said in a statement. The infected staff, many of whom live together, have since been quarantined.

More than 1,000 workers at European slaughterhouses from Ireland to Germany have contracted the disease, highlighting the growing challenges the global meat industry faces from the pandemic. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has called the situation “alarming,” will discuss proposals to better protect the industry’s workers with her cabinet of ministers on Wednesday, according to an official.

German Labor Minister Hubertus Heil has vowed to crack down on the industry’s practice of hiring subcontractors that bus in seasonal workers from central and eastern Europe, many of whom are put up in communal housing to cut costs. Heil said Monday that he wants tougher controls ensuring hygiene, labor and minimum wage laws are adhered to after food companies tried to water down or even circumvent them in the past.

“It’s time to clean up this industry,” Heil said at a briefing in Berlin. The minister said he’s optimistic that Merkel’s Cabinet will greenlight new rules on Wednesday.

Authorities in Germany’s leading livestock states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and North-Rhine Westphalia have insisted that meat-plant workers should be tested for the virus. That was after a spate of infections at German slaughterhouses.

A total of 81 cases have been detected at a poultry plant in Bavaria in the past week, a spokesperson for owner PHW Group said Monday. On May 8, state officials ordered the closure of Westfleisch’s Coesfeld plant after more than 250 workers were infected. Food company Vion also closed a slaughterhouse in Bad Bramstedt this month after a third of its meat-processing workers came down with the disease.

While there have been several outbreaks in meat factories, the general infection rate in Germany has slowed in recent weeks. The number of new cases has been below 1,000 for more than a week and is far from the more than 6,000 daily infections reported in early April.

There were 617 new cases in the 24 hours through Monday morning, bringing the total to 176,369, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. This compares with 519 new cases reported on Sunday. Numbers published on weekends tend to fluctuate more than during the week.

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