大統領令で操業続ける米食肉工場、移民労働者が直面する感染の恐怖

【ソールズベリーＡＦＰ＝時事】米デラウェア州の鶏肉加工場で働くハイチ系移民のティナさん（27）は毎日、出勤前に短い祈りをささげる。同僚が次々と新型コロナウイルスに感染していく中、その日も自分の番が来ないことを願うのだ。（写真は資料写真）
　米国では新型ウイルス感染により閉鎖される食肉加工場が相次ぎ、食肉製品の流通への影響が広がっている。ティナさんもできれば出勤したくはないが、ドナルド・トランプ米大統領は食肉産業を戦略的に不可欠な産業と位置付けており、その操業にはティナさんのような低賃金労働者の存在が欠かせない。
　ティナさんの勤務先は、ジョージタウンにある鶏肉大手パーデューの食肉包装工場だ。ジョージタウンにはハイチ系移民が多く暮らし、パーデューが主な雇用主となっている。
　ティナさんには子どもが３人おり、自分が感染すれば家族にも危険が及ぶ。しかし、仕事を失いたくなければ、工場でのシフト勤務を続けるほかないと感じている。「毎日出勤しては、何事も起きないよう神様に祈るだけです」
　工場内では、誰がウイルスに感染しているか知る手立てはない。「誰もが体調を崩すことを恐れながら、今も近い距離で作業している」と語るティナさん。従業員を守るための対策は不十分で、対応も遅すぎると訴える。「検査で誰が陽性になったか、会社は教えてくれません。私の隣にいた人なのか、会話を交わした相手かどうかも、全く分からないのです」

■大統領令で操業継続、移民労働者がまず犠牲に
　米国の鶏肉包装業界は、ハイチ系やヒスパニック系の人々を低賃金で雇用して成長してきた。それはつまり、新型コロナウイルス感染症（ＣＯＶＩＤ-１９）でまず犠牲になるのも、そうした移民労働者だということを意味する。
　ほとんどの移民労働者は解雇を恐れて工場勤務を続ける。「熱があっても、薬を飲んで出勤するんだ」と、パーデュー本社のあるメリーランド州ソールズベリーでハイチ系移民向けにクレオール語ラジオ局を運営するハバクック・ペションさん（４５）は語った。
　ペションさんも、パーデューの工場に勤めていたいとこ（４４）を新型コロナで亡くしたばかりだ。いとこは４月に入ってすぐに呼吸困難になり、妻が手を尽くして病院に入院できたが「２週間たたずに死んでしまった」という。
　米国内のＣＯＶＩＤ-１９による死者が７万人を超える中、牛肉、豚肉、鶏肉を加工処理する米食肉大手の工場では、生産ラインや休憩時に密集状態になりやすい従業員の間で感染が急速に広がり、閉鎖に追い込まれる事例が相次いでいる。
　食品流通が滞る恐れに直面したトランプ大統領は４月末、戦時下において企業に直接命令を下す権限を米大統領に付与する「国防生産法」に基づき、パンデミック（世界的な大流行）の間も食肉工場の操業を継続するよう命じる大統領令に署名した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/05/11-13:18）

Tina says a little prayer every time she heads to work at a Delaware poultry plant, a plea that this will not be the day that the invisible killer picking off her colleagues comes for her.
With the coronavirus shutting down meat plants and threatening the country's food supply, she would rather not be there at all, but President Donald Trump has designated the sector as strategic, and low-paid workers like her as essential.
The 27-year-old mother works shifts at the Perdue packing plant in Georgetown, a major employer among the thousands of fellow Haitians settled in the area. If she wants to hold on to her job, she feels she has little choice but to clock in for her shifts, despite the risk to her and her family.
Every day I come, I just pray to God that nothing happens, said Tina -- one of few workers who would agree to speak to a reporters, although even she declined to provide her full name for fear of reprisals.
I want to go home, I have three kids at home, a baby, but I can't do that, she told AFP, speaking behind a mask. I have no choice, bills are coming from left to right.
With no way of knowing who might be carrying the virus, everyone is afraid of getting sick, people still works close together.
They don't tell us who has been tested positive. Was that person beside me, talking to me, you never know.
Tina believes too little was done, too late, to protect workers like her.
I just think that they should close a few weeks so they can clean the whole plant, she said.
The number of coronavirus infections has recently soared in the Delmarva peninsula, which reaches south out of Delaware to eastern Maryland and the northeast of Virginia.
The poultry packing industry has thrived off the cheap labor provided by Haitians and Hispanics, but it also has meant that they have been the first to be cut down by the disease.
- Fear of hospitals-
The small town of Salisbury, the historic base of Perdue, is home to a community of some 5,000 Haitians, at least 40 percent of whom are infected, according to Habacuc Petion, the owner of Oasis radio, which broadcasts in Creole to an estimated 20,000 listeners in the Delmarva area.
Many work for Perdue, and are refusing to stay home for fear of being sacked.
Even if they have fever, they take a pill and go to work, said Petion.
COVID-19 touched home, said the 45-year-old. My cousin was 44, working at Perdue plant. Beginning of April, he could not breathe, his wife convinced the medics to take him to the hospital. In less than two weeks he died.
The disease's toll has also been boosted by a fear of hospitals and by the language barrier for many Haitians, doctors said.
When they see people dying in New York hospitals, the lack of material and people put in dumps, they are scared thinking they won't receive the care they need -- and end up dying, said Nadya Julien, a Haitian nurse practitioner in Laurel, Delaware.
Some who speak Creole but little English have trouble explaining their symptoms, she said.
She herself contracted the disease and was hospitalized for six days in April, a story she tells her patients to help them overcome their fears.
- 'Temptation' -
Nurse practitioner Emanie Dorival said she alerted the local authorities very early to the number of cases piling up in her surgery in Seaford, Delaware.
We are a rural area, she said. We don't have the capacity in our hospitals if 200 cases show up.
While she agrees the poultry industry is essential she says there is a way to keep it safe for the workers and the community.
Several major US plants where farmers send cattle, pigs and poultry have shut due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 between employees, who are often in close proximity on production lines and on breaks.
Faced with the threat of disruption to the nation's food supply, Trump has ordered meat and poultry plants to remain open during the pandemic that has claimed almost 70,000 lives.
Perdue has said it is doing all it can to ensure workers' safety, taking temperatures, providing protective equipment and practicing social distancing on the production line. Where it is impossible to keep workers a safe distance apart, it said it has installed screens.
It also increased workers' wages -- which Petion described as a temptation that a lot of people can't resist.
Local health authorities are meanwhile stepping up testing for the virus, with factory workers at the front of the line. In Salisbury, some 1,500 people underwent tests on Friday and Saturday at the town's sports stadium. The results are expected this week.