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Ministry announces more serial tests
The Bavarian Health Ministry rejected the criticism. “The SPD’s allegations are in fact incomprehensible,” a ministry spokesperson told BR. Protecting the population from infection with the coronavirus is a priority for the ministry. For this reason, the Bavarian State Office for Food Safety and Health (LGL) began conducting an assessment of the 1,000 slaughterhouse employees in Lower Bavaria after the first employees with positive tests were known.
700 employees have already been evaluated on Tuesday, the remaining 300 exams are planned for today. The evaluation of the new tests takes around 48 hours. The 14 positive results so far don’t come from tests in the series that started Tuesday, but from previous tests.
“It is also clear that work in the slaughterhouse in itself does not lead to a situation of particular infection, but that communal accommodation must be taken into account,” stressed the ministry spokesman, and announced that LGL will soon carry out more tests in series of employees in Bavarian slaughterhouses. kick off.
LGL: transmission through food is unlikely
At the request of the BR, LGL announced that it was currently developing a concept for these series tests. Underlying the research program was the sometimes high proportion of contractors in this area, who often lived in shared accommodation.
According to the LGL, consumers do not have to worry about crown cases in slaughterhouses or harvesting aides: “According to the current state of scientific knowledge, the pathogen is unlikely to be transmitted to humans through food.”
Also a Green Party politician for national tests.
Greens member of the state parliament and chairman of the environment and consumption committee in the state parliament, Rosi Steinberger, also called for immediate crown tests for all employees of the slaughterhouse in Bavaria. “Shared employee accommodation should also be checked for hygienic conditions to protect against infection,” he emphasized.
The common practice that important areas such as killing and disintegration would be outsourced to subcontractors, “that people would have to do piece work for the cheapest wages and live precariously in shared accommodation” “were not worthy of our society”, Steinberger said. In a request to the state government, the Greens politician is now requesting information on the circumstances under which crown tests must be conducted in the meat industry and if collective adaptations are verified for compliance protection against infection.
SPD insists on a special control program
In addition to the tests, SPD MPs Müller and von Brunn require a special monitoring program to verify health and safety at work, which also takes into account the adaptation of employees. “First of all, in all companies where work is very close and employees are housed in shared accommodation.”
Müller and von Brunn also urge rethinking in the slaughter industry and on farms that employ harvest workers. The workers in the slaughter industry, who come mainly from Eastern Europe, often find themselves in inhumane and unreasonable conditions, so their health cannot be protected. The enormous price pressure and the “stingy mentality is great” in the meat industry would have to end. “This includes avoiding the practice of highly questionable employment contracts with subcontractors and outsourcing to the cheapest contractors!”
Lower Saxony is also testing all slaughterhouse employees
Before the Corona outbreak in Lower Bavaria, hundreds of employees in North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein had been infected with the virus in slaughterhouses. Following other federal states, Lower Saxony has also announced that it will test all employees at the slaughterhouse for the coronavirus. Social Affairs Minister Carola Reimann (SPD) announced that there would be 23,700 employees at 183 meat processing companies.
The increasing number also sparked a debate on working conditions in the meat industry and the situation in slaughterhouse accommodation. Union representatives in particular harshly criticized the situation and demanded better protection for slaughterhouse employees. At the request of the Greens, working conditions in the meat industry in the afternoon were also the subject of a current hour in the Bundestag.
