The Corona Cabinet of the Federal Government meets at the start of the week. One topic will be the recent accumulation of coronavirus cases in meat processing plants. A new case from Osnabrück should provide the necessary emphasis.
Due to numerous coronavirus infections in the workforce, a meat processing company in Dissen stops production. Tests had shown that 92 employees of the company are infected, as the Osnabrück district announced. The affected employees and their contact persons would be sent to quarantine, it said. The state of Lower Saxony is now advising how to proceed – the main question is whether the company represents a systemically relevant area of the food industry.
According to the information, 62 of the people who tested positive live in the Osnabrück district, some in collective accommodation. “Among them are numerous employees who are employed by subcontractors.” According to the information, the determination of the contact persons had not yet been completed. The districts of Gütersloh, Steinfurt, Wesel and Vechta have also been informed, “in which the other 30 people who tested positive live,” said the Osnabrück district.
Corona-Kabinett advises on issues
The disease Covid-19 had recently broken out in several German slaughterhouses, for example in the cities of Coesfeld and Oer-Erkenschwick in North Rhine-Westphalia. The meat industry has been criticized for many years because of precarious working and accommodation conditions and is now also calling on politicians.
The so-called Corona cabinet of the federal government should meet on Monday to discuss the grievances. Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil from the SPD wants to bring in proposals to change the Occupational Health and Safety Act. According to reports, a proposed resolution provides for an extensive ban on work contracts in slaughterhouses.
Heil had announced that the government would “clean up properly in this area”. In addition to decent entrepreneurs, there are “too many black sheep”, and subcontracting is “a root of the problem”. The Corona Cabinet meets twice a week with those ministers who are responsible for issues related to the pandemic.
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