“I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a meat processing plant but the worklines are elbow to elbow, facing another employee across the processing line. That isn’t going to change unless they are required to do so because doing so would make plants less efficient and less profitable. And they aren’t required to do so.”
Been awhile since I have been in a big plant but you are correct on the setup. They could set them up with lots of spacing etc. but that would be much less efficient, that may be coming, more expensive, but not impossible to do, would add some cost to meat not sure it would be prohibitive expense/cost to retail. That steer is an individual thing not standard like a bolt, screw or car fender so it takes a human not a machine (at least right now) to cut process efficiently.
Perdue said meat packing plants would be back to 100% in less than two weeks. Getting back to 100% in any time frame is impossible if the production lines are changed.