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meatpacking
'A Slap in the Face': Trump Moves to Gut Biden-Era Rules Reining In Meatpackers
"We need robust enforcement of antitrust and fair trade practice laws to finally protect producers from meatpackers’ fundamentally unfair and illegal practices," said one campaigner.
Jul 06, 2026
A leading government accountability watchdog group on Monday ripped the Trump administration's move to rescind Biden-era rules enacted to protect ranchers and farmers from abuse by meatpacking corporations and boost competition in the key industry.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced the reversal of three Biden administration rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921. One of the rules prohibits meatpackers, swine contractors, and poultry companies from retaliating against producers for actions like joining associations, speaking with regulators, or seeking other buyers.
Another rule mandated improved transparency in poultry grower contracts. The third rule‚ which was set to take effect this month, would have limited how poultry companies use the tournament payment system.
USDA said it plans to start the revocation process with proposed rulemakings scheduled for later this month and October.
Farm groups and antitrust advocates argue the move removes protections against monopolistic, deceptive, and retaliatory practices by dominant meatpacking and poultry companies.
“For years, meat corporations have abused hardworking farmers and ranchers. Now, the Trump administration is proposing to undo long-overdue progress made to level the playing field," Emily Miller, staff attorney at Food & Water Watch, said Monday in a statement. "This move is a slap in the face to all those who have long fought for fair treatment in livestock and poultry markets."
The USDA's move comes amid increased meat sector consolidation, which studies by Food & Water Watch, More Perfect Union, and others have found results in higher consumer prices and lower farmer profits.
Over the course of his two terms in office, Trump has boosted the meatpacking industry at the expense of worker rights, competition, and public health. His administration refused to issue binding rules requiring businesses to institute safety measures amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and he invoked the Defense Production Act to classify meatpacking plants as critical infrastructure and force them to stay open even as the coronavirus ravaged industry workers.
Trump has also supported corporate monopolization in meatpacking, and his administration has shut down a Department of Justice antitrust probe of alleged industry collusion. Just four meatpackers control approximately 80% of the market. Meanwhile, cattle producers who in 1980 received 63 cents for every dollar paid by consumers for beef were receiving just 37 cents four decades later.
"We need robust enforcement of antitrust and fair trade practice laws to finally protect producers from meatpackers’ fundamentally unfair and illegal practices," Miller said on Monday. "These rollbacks will do the opposite. We won’t rest until USDA does its job by putting producers above corporations.”
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DOJ Shuttered Antitrust Probe of Meatpackers Before Trump’s ‘Performative’ Investigation Demand
"The law is clear," said one advocacy group, "what's been missing is the political will to use it."
Nov 17, 2025
The US Department of Justice shuttered an antitrust probe into the heavily consolidated meatpacking industry shortly before President Donald Trump announced that he had asked the department to investigate whether companies are unlawfully colluding to push up beef prices.
Bloomberg reported late last week that Trump administration officials "formally notified companies recently that they were closing a probe into sharp price increases" during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The probe began during Trump's first term and continued through the Biden administration, which used executive action to target price gouging in the meatpacking industry.
The Trump Justice Department's decision to close the antitrust investigation came weeks before Trump, in a post on his social media platform, said earlier this month that he had instructed the DOJ to "immediately begin an investigation" into meatpacking companies. Just four corporations—Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef—control roughly 80% of the beef market in the United States.
Critics viewed the president's announcement as a performative move intended to deflect criticism of his failure to take substantive action to bring down beef prices. Trump has falsely claimed that the prices of all grocery products are down except for beef.
The advocacy group Food & Water Watch noted that Trump's call for a price-fixing probe came just three months after the Republican president "rescinded a Biden administration executive order meant to tackle these exact meatpacker abuses."
"Farmers and consumers need real action to bring down prices and protect producers—not performative announcements," said Tarah Heinzen. "If Trump is serious about investigating beef packers, his [US Department of Agriculture] must also vigorously defend the prior administration’s Packers and Stockyards Act rules."
Farm Action, a watchdog that fights corporate abuses in the agriculture sector, said that DOJ probes of the kind ordered by Trump often "end quietly" without any meaningful action.
"For this one to matter, it must end with enforcement," the group said last week. "If investigators uncover anticompetitive behavior, the DOJ has powerful tools to act. Under the Sherman Antitrust Act, it can take the packers to court, break them up, prosecute executives, force changes that protect farmers, and prevent further consolidation."
"The law is clear," Farm Action added, "what's been missing is the political will to use it."
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JBS Doesn’t Deserve a Place in Our Markets or on Our Plates
Even in industrial meat production, an industry known for its corruption and poor conditions, JBS stands out for the scope and severity of its violations.
Aug 20, 2025
Earlier this summer, JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking corporation, was approved to list on the New York Stock Exchange. The move was celebrated in business media as a milestone of corporate growth and a testament to the leadership of JBS’ 33-year-old CEO of their US division Wesley Batista Filho. But behind the headlines lies a far more troubling story, one of exploitation, impunity, and environmental devastation that should not be ignored.
Turning a blind eye to abuses at a company as large and powerful as JBS is dangerous, with the harms extending far beyond the meatpacking industry. Consumers, advocates, and investors must stop normalizing this behavior. We have the power and the responsibility to demand better.
JBS has built its empire not through innovation or sustainability, but through exploitation. Price fixing, child labor, wage theft, bribery, tax avoidance, deforestation, animal cruelty—these are not isolated scandals. They are core ingredients of JBS’ business model. And while many corporations would work to correct and address their abuses, JBS has repeatedly treated legal penalties and reputational damage as just another cost of doing business.
Even in industrial meat production, an industry known for its corruption and poor conditions, JBS stands out for the scope and severity of its violations. The company recently agreed to pay over $80 million to settle a beef price-fixing lawsuit. Earlier this year, the company was cited for illegally employing migrant children, some as young as 13, on overnight cleaning shifts in its slaughterhouses. Meanwhile, workers across its global operations report being injured, silenced, or discarded when they speak up.
We must stop sending the message that corporations can endanger workers, break the law, and destroy the environment without consequence, as long as they remain profitable.
A recent federal lawsuit filed by Salima Jandali, a former safety trainer at JBS’ Greeley, Colorado plant, alleges that she faced racial and religious harassment, was retaliated against for raising safety concerns, and was pressured to falsify injury reports. Her allegations closely mirror a separate class action lawsuit filed by Black workers at another JBS facility in Pennsylvania who describe enduring racist slurs, being passed over for promotions, and working in unsafe conditions.
Beyond the factory floor, JBS has long been linked to illegal deforestation and environmental destruction in the Amazon, both directly through its supply chains and indirectly through pressure on local ecosystems. The company’s climate footprint is staggering, with greenhouse gas emissions that rival those of entire countries. And yet, instead of reckoning with this impact, JBS continues to expand production and avoid accountability.
In Brazil, where the company is headquartered, the recent passage of most of the so-called “devastation bill” further weakens environmental safeguards and accelerates the damage. Now that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva approved the bill, even with some environmental restrictions, it continues to grant free rein to agribusiness giants like JBS that profit from the destruction of forests and the displacement of Indigenous communities.
This is not a case of a few bad actors or isolated scandals. JBS has thrived because of weak enforcement, political influence, and a financial system that rewards short-term gains over long-term responsibility.
Just months before its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) debut, JBS subsidiary Pilgrim’s Pride made a $5 million donation to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. This is the context in which JBS was allowed to access US capital markets. Even though top proxy advisory firms, including Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, urged shareholders to vote against the listing, citing serious governance concerns and lack of transparency, their warnings were ignored, and just this June, JBS began trading on the NYSE.
JBS now generates over $39 billion a year from its US operations alone, profits that are often routed through tax havens in Luxembourg, Malta, and the Netherlands. And when caught breaking the law, JBS often faces only minor consequences that rarely match the scale of the harm.
We must stop sending the message that corporations can endanger workers, break the law, and destroy the environment without consequence, as long as they remain profitable. There is another path forward. Consumers, advocates, and investors need to reject this status quo and demand change.
That starts with consumers actively choosing not to buy JBS products. Investors can divest from JBS and urge their asset managers to do the same. Universities, pension funds, and retirement plans can reexamine whether their portfolios are supporting a company with this kind of track record. At the same time, policymakers must push for stronger corporate accountability, not just in meatpacking, but across industries that harm people and the planet.
JBS should not be rewarded with more money, more access, and more influence. Instead, we must make JBS the example and let it serve as a warning about the costs of putting profit above all else. The future of our food system, our environment, and our communities depends on drawing the line and holding it.
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Report Warns Trump Would Likely Worsen GOP's Assault on Child Labor Laws
"It's really urgent that we address our federal standards and raise them for children across the country," a co-author said.
Oct 16, 2024
A number of mostly Republican-controlled states have weakened child labor protections in recent years and a second Trump administration would likely escalate the deregulatory push, as per plans laid out in Project 2025, according to a report released Wednesday.
The 55-page report, Protecting Children From Dangerous Work, was prepared by Governing for Impact, the Economic Policy Institute, and Child Labor Coalition. It includes harrowing stories of teenagers killed on the job, documents right-wing plans for increased minor involvement in dangerous work, and calls for action by the U.S. Labor Department to strengthen and codify legal protections for workers under age 18.
Child labor violations in the U.S. nearly quadrupled between 2015 and 2022, according to Labor Department data.
The new report documents right-wing efforts to loosen child labor protections, particularly in the past four years, during which time lawmakers in 30 states have moved to do so. At least eight states—Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, and West Virginia—have tried to roll back protections on child labor hours or hazardous work just since the start of 2023, the report says.
"At the time when we're seeing violations on the rise, and we're simultaneously seeing states go back on their commitment to raising standards to be above federal minimums, I think it's really urgent that we address our federal standards and raise them for children across the country who may be working in hazardous environments or in an environment that is not appropriate for someone of their age," Nina Mast, an analyst at the Economic Policy Institute and a co-author of the report, told The Guardian.
The policy agenda of Project 2025, a 920-page manifesto which many observers consider a blueprint for a second Trump administration, includes explicit mention of child labor issues. Many of the authors worked for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during his first administration.
The chapter on the Labor Department, written by Jonathan Berry, who himself worked in the department under Trump, says that "some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs" and that "with parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations."
The right-wing push to deregulate child labor has led several states to adopt laws that are below federal standards established by the Fair Labor Standards Act, leading to confusion for employers and employees, the new report says.
Agriculture is a sector where child labor is particularly common and is subject to its own regulations. The Obama administration tried to push through legal protections for minors in the sector in 2012 but met with major resistance from industry groups.
Still, even without further action from Congress, the Labor Department has the authority to strengthen protections for minors in agriculture and other sectors, the report authors argue. In the 2000s, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health issued a series of recommendations on child labor, some of which the department didn't implement—but still could, they wrote.
A detailed investigation by The New York Times last year showed that much of the exploitation of child labor, both in farms and factories, is targeted at migrants.
The new report cites a particularly awful example of the dangers of such exploitation. In July 2023, Duvan Thomas Pérez, a 16-year-old, was working as a cleaner at a chicken processing plant in Mississippi—as he did on nights after school—when a moving component of a machine drew him in and killed him. He was employed in violation of current law, the report says, pointing to the need for better enforcement of the rules already on the books.
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Workers Get Boot as Boar's Head Plant Behind Listeria Deaths Shuts Down
A union statement said the closure was "especially unfortunate" because workers shouldn't be punished for the deadly outbreak, but a deal protecting employees' livelihoods was reached.
Sep 13, 2024
About 500 workers lost their current jobs when Boar's Head on Friday announced the closure of the Virginia meatpacking plant behind a deadly listeria outbreak.
A chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, which represents the workers, said in a statement that the closure was "especially unfortunate" given that the workforce was not to blame for the outbreak, which killed at least nine people nationwide.
The UFCW announced that it had reached a deal with the company to allow the workers to transfer to another Boar's Head facility or receive a severance package "above and beyond" what's required by law.
"Thankfully these workers have a union they can count on to always have their backs," the union statement said.We received some unfortunate news – the Boar's Head plant located in Jarratt, Va. is closing indefinitely, impacting hundreds of workers at the facility. Read our statement: https://t.co/h551b80cF0
— UFCW Local 400 (@UFCW400) September 13, 2024
The outbreak caused nine deaths and 57 hospitalizations, and led to the recall of millions of pounds of Boar's Head deli meat. The company has already been targeted in a number of wrongful death and other lawsuits.
Listeria, a bacterial illness, originated from the Boar's Head plant in the small town of Jarratt, Virginia, as genome sequencing tests confirmed in late July. The company said this week that the contamination had come from liverwurst processing and announced it would discontinue the product.
A 2022 inspection of the plant found that it posed an "imminent threat" to public health, according to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) records released this week. At the time, the plant already had "rust, mold, garbage, and insects on the plant floors and walls," The New York Times reported.
Sarah Sorscher, a food safety expert at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the Times that "they shouldn't have allowed this company to keep producing ready-to-eat products, lunch meat that's going to go on people’s tables, when they're seeing this level of violation. Consumers had to die before this plant got shut down, really is the bottom line."
More recent USDA records, which were released in late August, also showed wretched conditions at the plant.
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Boar's Head Plant Tied to 9 Listeria Deaths Had Mold, Flies, and Puddles of Blood
"It shouldn't take people dying for the plant to take food safety issues seriously; USDA is supposed to be there to ensure that that happens," an expert said.
Aug 30, 2024
In the year leading up to a deadly listeria outbreak, the Boar's Head plant where it started had insects on meat, "dirty" machinery, water leaking from pipes and pooling, mold, rancid smells, "heavy meat buildup" on walls, and puddles of blood on the floor, according to United States Department of Agriculture documents released to CBS News.
The deli meat plant in Jarratt, Virginia, which has been temporarily shut down, has been cited for at least 69 instances of noncompliance with federal food safety regulations since August 2023. The listeria outbreak, which is the largest in the U.S. since 2011, has killed nine and caused 57 hospitalizations across many states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Millions of pounds of Boar's Head's products were recalled this summer.
The revelations about conditions at the plant led experts to question the adequacy of the USDA's inspection system.
"We have food safety regulators because we want them to take action before consumers die," Sarah Sorscher, the director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told The Washington Post. "It shouldn't take people dying for the plant to take food safety issues seriously; USDA is supposed to be there to ensure that that happens."
Jerold Mande, a former food safety official at both the USDA and Food and Drug Administration, indicated that the inspection protocol needs updating.
"Most of what they're doing is relying on their sight, smell and other things to detect problems," Mande told the Post. "They could be armed with tools to detect bacteria in real time, but they're not."
U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors turned up dozens of violations at a Boar's Head plant in Virginia now linked to a nationwide recall of deli meats, including mold, mildew and insects repeatedly found throughout the site. https://t.co/N8yTUwF8kL
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 29, 2024
All nine people who have died have been over the age of 70. Listeria is a bacterial illness most dangerous to people who are older, pregnant, or immunocompromised. It kills about 255 people in the U.S. every year—third among food-borne illnesses.
Gunter Morgenstein, an 88-year-old hair stylist in Newport News, Virginia, contracted the disease after eating a Boar's Head liverwurst purchased at Harris Teeter on June 30. The food reminded him of his home country of Germany, which he was forced to flee as a child to escape Nazi rule. He died on July 18 after 10 days in the hospital, The New York Times reported. The bacteria had reached his brain.
Genome sequencing tests determined in late July that the strain of listeria found at the Boar's Head plant matched the one found in the multi-state outbreak.
Barbara Kowalcyk, a public health and food safety expert based at George Washington University, questioned why the Virginia plant was allowed to continue operating after all of the noncompliance findings.
"The first thing I thought when I read the report is 'Where is the leadership of this establishment and where are the regulators?'" Kowalcyk said. "When you see repeated violations within days and chronically over that length of time, it suggests that their food safety system is not working as intended. Whatever corrective action is being taken is obviously not being integrated into their system."
It's not yet clear what penalties or legal action Boar's Head could face for its role in the outbreak.
CBS News reporter Alexander Tin broke the story about the unsanitary conditions at the Boar's Head plant after receiving the USDA documents following a Freedom of Information Act request. The 69 instances of noncompliance dated from August 1, 2023 until August 2, 2024.
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'Egregious': DOL Finds US Meatpacking Plants Illegally Employed 100+ Children
The federal probe revealed that Packers Sanitation Services had children as young as 13 "working with hazardous chemicals and cleaning meat processing equipment including back saws, brisket saws, and head splitters."
Feb 17, 2023
Federal investigators revealed Friday that one of the nation's largest food sanitation companies illegally employed at least 102 children in dangerous jobs at 13 meatpacking facilities across eight states, leading to $1.5 million in fines.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) said its Wage and Hour Division "found that children were working with hazardous chemicals and cleaning meat processing equipment including back saws, brisket saws, and head splitters."
The probe determined that children ages 13 to 17 unlawfully worked for Kieler, Wisconsin-based Packers Sanitation Services Inc. at plants in Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Texas.
Jessica Looman, principal deputy administrator of the DOL's Wage and Hour Division, said the child labor violations "were systemic" and "clearly indicate a corporate-wide failure by Packers Sanitation Services at all levels."
"These children should never have been employed in meatpacking plants and this can only happen when employers do not take responsibility to prevent child labor violations from occurring in the first place," Looman charged.
Michael Lazzeri, the division's regional administrator in Chicago, said that "our investigation found Packers Sanitation Services' systems flagged some young workers as minors, but the company ignored the flags."
"When the Wage and Hour Division arrived with warrants, the adults—who had recruited, hired, and supervised these children—tried to derail our efforts to investigate their employment practices," Lazzeri noted.
The DOL—which found at least three cases where illegally employed children were injured on the job—fined the company $15,138 for each child who was not legally employed, the highest possible penalty under federal law.
As The New York Times reported:
Some researchers have criticized the civil monetary penalties, which are set by Congress, as "woefully insufficient" to protect workers and to deter employers from violating labor laws.
"It's really shameful that the level of fine is so low," said Celine McNicholas, director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, a research group that seeks to improve conditions for workers. "It's not sufficiently toothy enough to prevent the use of child labor in the meatpacking industry."
Despite such criticism, Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda framed the case as an example of accountability, delcaring Friday, "The Department of Labor has made it absolutely clear that violations of child labor laws will not be tolerated."
"No child should ever be subject to the conditions found in this investigation," Nanda said. "The courts have upheld the department's rightful authority to execute federal court-approved search warrants and compelled this employer to change their hiring practices to ensure compliance with the law. Let this case be a powerful reminder that all workers in the United States are entitled to the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act and that an employer who violates wage laws will be held accountable."
In a lengthy statement Friday, Packers Sanitation Services said that it was "pleased to have finalized this settlement figure."
"We have been crystal clear from the start: Our company has a zero-tolerance policy against employing anyone under the age of 18 and fully shares the DOL's objective of ensuring full compliance at all locations," the statement continued, noting internal audits and the hiring of "a third-party law firm to review and help further strengthen our policies."
The statement highlighted that none of the illegally employed children still work for Packers Sanitation Services, and "the DOL has also not identified any managers aware of improper conduct that are currently employed" by the company.
The revelations come amid a renewed national debate about child labor laws sparked by Republican legislators in Iowa pushing rollbacks to allow children as young as 14 to work in jobs including animal slaughtering, logging, and mining.
The proposal in Iowa is part of a trend of GOP state lawmakers across the country advocating relaxed child labor laws in recent years.
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