Portside

A report from the CDC about safety procedures at a meatpacking plant whose workers were falling ill at an alarming rate early on in the pandemic is raising new questions about political interference at the agency.

The secretive titan behind one of America’s largest poultry companies, who is also one of the President’s top donors, is ruthlessly leveraging the coronavirus crisis—and his vast fortune—to strip workers of protections.

Historical discrimination, demographics, and public funding have left home care workers at the very bottom of the American work hierarchy. The wages these workers earn are painfully low: the median salary for a personal care aide is $19,910 annually, or $9.57 an hour; a home health aide earns $20,820 or $10.01 per hour. On the Bureau of Labor Statistic's list of 30 fastest-growing jobs, personal and home care aides are the worst paid.

"Workers increasingly serve businesses that do not officially 'employ' the worker — a distinction that hampers organizing, erodes labor standards and dilutes accountability," said Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel for the National Employment Law Project, which advocates on behalf of low-wage workers. A recent Federal Reserve study showed that nearly 7.5 million people who are working part time — contract workers included — would rather have full-time jobs.

In recent months, regulators have demanded millions of dollars from companies that hired independent contractors to hang drywall, install cable, staff call centers, give manicures and perform other jobs in which the government said workers were really functioning as company employees.