The Regional Health Agency (ARS) Brittany announced on Sunday May 17, 2020 that the number of Covid positive people in the Kermené slaughterhouse in Côtes-d’Armor, a subsidiary of the Leclerc group, has now reached 69 cases. These people are isolated at home and followed up. After a first patient, detected on Wednesday, then five other confirmed cases, a massive screening campaign of 209 staff members resulted in the detection of 63 additional cases.
A complementary screening campaign is scheduled for Tuesday, May 19. Kermené has six sites in Brittany, with 2,700 employees, for a turnover of 9.3 billion euros. Management and union representatives from Kermené did not respond to our calls.
Biosecurity, we know
In the food industry, biosecurity has been known for ages. Wash your hands several times a day, work with gloves, masks, charlottes, it’s compulsory every day. And yet it happened … I do not understand…
Stéphane Douchain, CFDT delegate of the Tradival slaughterhouse in Orléans (Loiret), remains stunned.
Its factory has been closed since Monday: 34 employees tested positive for Covid-19 out of 400. Systematic temperature measurement at the staff entrance, everything has been permanently disinfected, everything has been implemented
, repeated hand washing, mandatory masks, distance, hydroalcoholic gel, etc. I really do not understand…
The track of the taskmen
Michel Le Goff is not not surprised
. At the Bigard slaughterhouse in Quimperlé (Finistère), Five cases found before May 11
, notes this CGT delegate. The CGT demanded it, but there has since been no systematic screening … ” since it was before May 11.
Production continued further during containment. It was to be expected: it took a long time to get the masks. And then, with our working conditions, proximity is often essential. And the masks quickly become wet in this atmosphere…
Michel Le Botte, CFDT delegate for agri-food Brittany, approves: The agri-food industry has gone all out during containment, which necessarily increases the risks.
But Michel puts forward another hypothesis: Many slaughterhouses use laborers, who work by volume or by the day. This is also the case in Kermené. Did they have the same level of safety training?
Nadine Hourmant, FO manager of France Poultry (ex-Doux) at the Châteaulin abattoir (Finistère), shares this hypothesis. We have a lot of posted workers who often live in a collective, precarious way.
In addition, his company presented five positive cases (out of 400 employees). But the situation is pretty well under control. In the food industry, we know how to do it: we reacted very quickly, with distances, disinfected changing rooms, staggered schedules, etc.
No relaxation
The big boss of another big slaughterhouse in central Brittany remains worried and very careful
. No case detected in his group, for the time being
. But with the deconfinement, the general resumption of activity, he feared that the epidemic would start again. More than ever, a very strict security protocol will remain necessary …
The same caution worries Fabien Guimbretière, CFDT national secretary general of the food industry. I hope there will be no relaxation with the deconfinement.
Yes, for him too, the track of very precarious workers and temporary workers will have to be examined. As well as the working conditions: the cold, the ventilated humidity in the slaughterhouses would be a track? Health authorities to investigate.
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