Colin Gordon

Iowa View contributor

The COVID-19 outbreak at Tyson Foods in Columbus Junction, 186 positive tests and two deaths at last count, is no accident. While the exposure to the virus was not deliberate, the same cannot be said for the public policy choices that lay behind that exposure.

For a generation, policy makers have dismantled the policies and institutions that once ensured the safety and security of working Iowans. This crisis has simply laid bare this basic fact: Our politics and priorities skew to the advantage of the most privileged among us, and leave the most vulnerable to fend for themselves.

For starters, why were these plants — even if they are considered “essential” — operating without enhanced protection for the people working in them? Are not the workers as “essential” as well? Four Midwestern states (Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska) are among the five nationwide that still do not have statewide “shelter at home orders.” In these states, the list of “essential businesses” is expansive and idiosyncratic, and the expectation that workers show up — regardless of the risks — is clear.

This choice would not be so fraught if either public agencies or the employers in question gave any consideration to working conditions in these plants. At the behest of Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, Iowa recently gutted its workers compensation system — dramatically paring back benefits for those injured on Tyson’s animal “disassembly” lines.

At the same time, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration has suffered waves of deregulation and defunding. It now has virtually no presence on the factory floor, and received not a whisper of attention or new resources in the CARES Act. New Department of Agriculture rules allow companies like Tyson to speed up the line — putting workers more at risk, and closer together.

In some states, unsafe working conditions are considered a “good cause” for quitting a job, but not in Iowa. Indeed, efforts were made in the last legislative sessions to dramatically narrow eligibility for an unemployment insurance system that already offers little more than half a paycheck to those who do qualify. And the system lacks the administrative and technical capacity to process claims whenever — as now — they are needed most.

Neither is paid sick or family leave an option. As the United States lags its peers, having no public program of paid leave, 12 states and the District of Columbia stepped up with state-level plans. Not Iowa. Some employers offer coverage, but this varies starkly by income. Higher-income earners tend to have it, while it's a coin flip for half of those in the bottom one-fourth.

This is the playing field for packinghouse workers. Public agencies and policies have not been on their side, and they also have lost collective voice and representation. The meatpacking industry in “right-to-work” outposts like Columbus Junction can drive down wages and workers’ ability to bargain for protections. In the 1970s, about half of packing workers belonged to a union; in 2019 that had fallen to just 16%. The loss of collective representation meant a dramatic decline in wages and, of course, the erosion of traditionally bargained benefits such as health insurance.

Food processors depend not just on low wages and light governmental oversight, but on the systematic exploitation of workers of color — many of them immigrants, some of these undocumented. These workers suffer without basic protections offered by union representation or nominal regulation and labor standards. Even if documented, they can have trouble accessing means-tested safety net programs. And they are — by occupation, region, language, and immigration status — especially vulnerable to wage theft.

In these respects, COVID-19 is the symptom and not the disease. It is not a virus that is killing Iowa’s workers, it is the laws and policies that — for too long — have failed to protect them.

Colin Gordon is senior research consultant for the Iowa Policy Project and a professor of history at the University of Iowa. Contact: cgordonipp@gmail.com.