It marks the nadir of the increasingly broken meat industry. Trump’s “order” was, in fact, the result of meat industry executives requesting his relief from legal liability for worker deaths. It is not just the nature of the job; there is systemic disregard for the safety and dignity of the people working in the meat industry. The magical thinking that imagines calling meat “essential” in a time when schools, bypass surgeries and funerals are not, amounts to a sort of state-sponsored witchcraft. In the past months, we have relied upon the bravery of essential workers.

Source: Washington Post May 11, 2020 12:00 UTC