The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently cited DL Poultry and Olson Meat Company with failing to protect workers against COVID-19.  Fines of $52,000 and $9,000 respectively were proposed.

Doug Parker, Chief of the California OSHA stated, "we have identified certain industries as priorities in our strategic enforcement efforts to make sure employers have adequate COVID-19 infection prevention procedures in place".  He added " certain industries where workers have been disproportionately affected and these citations are the first of many to be issued in the coming weeks and months".

The State department noted that DL Poultry and Olson Meat put their workers at risk for serious illness because they did not ensure physical distancing of at least six feet in the processing areas, neither did they install barriers between the workers".

From this report it is apparent that California is more active in enforcing worker health and safety requirements than the Federal OSHA.  The magnitude of fines is obviously greater than the proposed $13,000 imposed by the Federal OSHA on Smithfield Foods, Sioux Falls hog plant and the JBS Greeley, CO. beef plant. The Smithfield plant, responsible for five percent of the nation's pork production recorded 13,000 cases of COVID-19 representing 18 percent of the workforce.