Truman
It was 1952. Harry Truman was in the last year of his Presidency, and the United States was bogged down in the Korean War. Almost 40,000 Americans soldiers were dead in four years on the Korean peninsula, and now the battle had staggered to a stalemate along what would ultimately be the demarcation line between South and North. The United States was a nation at war, but one undeclared by Congress.
And then the United Steel Workers went on a nationwide strike. Truman, expecting the kind of dedication and sacrifice that Americans made for so long in World War II, was incensed at both union and management for allowing the impasse. They refused to reach an agreement. Truman, with typical decisiveness, decided he’d had enough. He nationalized the steel industry, ordering workers back to the mills, all under his authority as a President at war.
Overreach
The Supreme Court quickly heard the case, Youngstown Sheet and Tube v Sawyer. It might be considered the end of the “New Deal” era in one sense. After years of increasing Presidential power dealing with the Great Depression, then World War II, and finally the new Cold War era of nuclear threat, the Supreme Court restrained Presidential power. They ordered that the President’s order be withdrawn.
Truman reluctantly followed the Court’s demand, and the steelworkers went back on strike. It took fifty more days, and threats by Truman to draft the entire steel industry into the army, to force labor and management to an agreement.
Food Crisis
Last Sunday John Tyson, Chairman of Tyson Foods, placed a full-page advertisement in the New York Times. He said, in part:
“As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain. As a result, there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed.” (Time).
This ad came on the heels of dramatic closures of food processing plants, many in the Midwest, due to COVID-19. The “poster” plant was the Smithfield Foods Plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where 350 employees, 10% of the workforce, tested positive for the virus. The plant was shut down. It produces 5% of America’s pork (NPR).
Other processing plants in the United States followed suit, as testing revealed high rates of infection throughout the industry. Conditions at the plant, including shoulder-to-shoulder workstations, contribute to the contagion.
Defense Production Act
The question for President Trump was how to protect the American food supply chain, and how to protect the plant employees. Yesterday he took action similar to Truman’s order back in 1952. Trump ordered the plants to re-open, using his authority under the Defense Production Act. His order emphasized liability protections for management, preventing them from being sued by their workers for getting sick. But there was little in the order to change the conditions that created the problem in the first place. The workers are still at risk, and are being placed in an impossible position (WAPO).
Workers face a stark choice: risk COVID-19 infection by going to work, or stay at home and not get paid. And the communities surrounding the plants are in a similar position. The plants staying open will get paychecks circulating in town. But they also risk virus contagion throughout the community.
There is no question that COVID-19 has caused a nationwide emergency. And there is no question that a threat to the American food supply is a serious problem. But that problem cannot be resolved by simply throwing the workers back into “the disease” without guaranteeing protections.
Trump
The powers of the Presidency have vastly increased since 1952. The Congress, both Democrat and Republican, has consistently turned over what used to be legislative authority to the Executive Branch. While Truman depended on his war making authority to demand that Youngstown Sheet and Tube reopen, President Trump has more specific powers granted under the Defense Production Act.
But with those added powers should come added responsibility. The President needs to do as much to protect the workers in those plants as he does to protect the stockholders from liability. And if that can’t be done, then America may have to do without their skinless, boneless chicken breasts or pork loins or 80-20 ground beef until those workers can do their work, safely.
