The Washington Post - USA (2020-07-31)

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A14 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020


Economy & Business


ENERGY


Trump lets Keystone


pipeline ship more oil


President Trump has approved
the existing Keystone pipeline to
ship 29 percent more Canadian
crude into the Midwest and Gulf
Coast after TC Energy’s decade-
old expansion project was stalled
again this month by legal
hurdles.
Trump issued a new
presidential permit for the base
Keystone line, allowing TC to
boost capacity by 170,000 barrels
per day t o 761,000, TC
spokesman Terry Cunha said on
Thursday. The first 50,
increment begins flowing next
year.
The additional Canadian
crude oil on the line will help
meet growing U.S. refinery
demand, CEO Russ Girling said
on a conference call.
When Trump came to office,
he revived TC’s proposed
Keystone XL pipeline, which has
been delayed by opposition from
landowners, environmental
groups and tribes. It would give
Canada expanded access to its
top oil market after its existing
pipelines ran full in recent years.


The U.S. Supreme Court
reinforced this month a lower-
court ruling that blocked a key
environmental permit, blocking
substantial U.S. construction.
TC expects Keystone XL to
enter service in 2023.
Construction is underway in
Canada, and TC is working on a
revised 2020 U.S. work plan
focusing on areas that have all
approvals, Girling said.
— Reuters

RESTAURANT INDUSTRY

Calif. Pizza Kitchen
files for bankruptcy

C alifornia Pizza Kitchen has
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
in Houston, becoming the latest
restaurant chain to try to cut
debt as it grapples with the
pandemic.
“For many restaurants, the
Covid-19 pandemic will be the
greatest challenge they will ever
face; for some, it may also be
their last,” CEO James Hyatt said
in a declaration filed Wednesday
as part of the bankruptcy.
The company, which operates
more than 200 restaurants in the
United States and abroad, has
reached an agreement with a

majority of its senior creditors
on a restructuring plan. It’s
looking to reduce its debt by
$230 million, more than half of
the total, and raise additional
funding from existing lenders to
buttress its balance sheet, court
filings say.
As the pandemic took hold in
the United States in mid-March
and California Pizza Kitchen
faced restaurant closures and a
drop in revenue, the company
took a $30 million secured loan
from a group of its first-lien
lenders. That loan was “really a
bridge,” as the company’s
balance sheet and lease footprint
are “not manageable,” the
declaration said.
Casual dining chains have
been struggling to stay afloat as
lockdown measures force them
to close restaurants. Pizza Hut
franchisee’s NPC International
Inc., the holding company of
Chuck E. Cheese CEC
Entertainment Inc. and the U.S.
arm of Le Pain Quotidien, have
sought bankruptcy protection
since the pandemic started.
— Bloomberg News

ALSO IN BUSINESS
Coca-Cola i s wading further into

the market for boozy beverages
with an alcoholic version of its
popular Topo Chico mineral
water. The soft drink giant,
which aspires to be a “total
beverage company,” said it will
offer Topo Chico Hard Seltzer in
“select cities” in Latin America

later this year. The company also
confirmed to Bloomberg News
that it plans to offer the product
in the United States i n 2021.

NBCUniversal’s Peacock has
signed up 10 million users,
making the new streaming

service a rare bright spot at
Comcast Corp.’s pandemic-
ravaged entertainment division.
Comcast disclosed the early
Peacock results while reporting
its second-quarter earnings on
Thursday. NBC has said it hopes
Peacock will reach 30 million to
35 million active users by 2024.
Peacock, which is free and
supported by advertising, made
its debut to Comcast subscribers
in April and expanded
nationwide on July 15.

Juul Labs has filed an
application with the Food and
Drug Administration to continue
selling its e-cigarettes in the
United States, the company
announced Thursday, a highly
anticipated milestone that will
determine the fate of the once-
highflying company. Juul said it
is seeking authorization for its
device as well as its Virginia
tobacco and menthol-flavored
pods with 3 percent and
5 percent nicotine
concentrations. Mango, mint and
other flavors that the company
stopped offering last year after
facing regulatory scrutiny for
allegedly attracting minors
weren’t included.
— From news services

DIGEST

JAIME REINA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Tourists sunbathe a t Playa d’en Bossa in Ibiza, Spain, on Thursday.
A top Health Ministry official said t here is no second wave of the
coronavirus in the country despite a s urge in infections. The
pandemic has dealt a major blow to Spain’s key tourism sector, which
makes up about 12 percent of its economy.

BY HANNAH DENHAM
AND ABHA BHATTARAI

Tyson Foods is launching week-
ly on-site coronavirus testing for
employees at all 140 of its U.S.
production facilities, making it
one of the first major American
employers to commit to such reg-
ular and expansive testing of its
workforce.
The food conglomerate behind
Tyson, Jimmy Dean and Hillshire
Farm has grappled with out-
breaks of the novel coronavirus at
its meat-processing plants that
have sickened thousands of work-
ers and led to supply chain slow-
downs. Company spokesman
Gary Mickelson said the strategy
is being piloted at three work sites
but declined to say which loca-
tions.
With face masks, temperature
checks and hand-sanitizer dis-
pensers now common in Ameri-
can workplaces, systematic test-
ing shows the lengths to which
companies may go to ensure the
safety of their workers — and
ultimately their customers — as
U.S. coronavirus infections surge
past 4.4 million. Tyson’s an-
nouncement Thursday also illus-
trates that the nation’s piecemeal
response to the pandemic has
forced businesses to take a more
proactive approach to a public
health crisis that has resulted in a
recession.
In May, Walmart executives
said the retail giant was exploring
administering coronavirus and
antibody tests for its 1.5 million
U.S. workers. Kroger, the nation’s
largest grocery chain, offers free
home testing kits to employees
with symptoms of covid-19, the
illness caused by the novel coro-
navirus. Amazon, which is build-
ing its own testing lab, has piloted
a program to test warehouse
workers and says it will spend $
billion on employee testing this
year. The company also has as-
sembled a team of scientists, engi-
neers and other specialists to
oversee the testing of front-line
employees. (Amazon founder and
chief executive Jeff Bezos owns
The Washington Post.)
“There is a lot of uncertainty in
the world right now, and the best
investment we can make is in the
safety and well-being of our hun-
dreds of thousands of employees,”
Bezos said in a news release in
April.
On Thursday, McDonald’s an-
nounced that the Mayo Clinic
would advise the fast-food giant
on coronavirus prevention strate-
gies at its more than 38,000 res-
taurants. And companies as dis-
parate as Grubhub and Derma-
logica have hired epidemiologists
— scientists who study how dis-
ease spreads and is controlled —
to help them draw up safety rules.
Most major retailers now re-
quire that workers and customers
wear masks in their stores. Some,
like Apple and Walmart, also are
checking employees’ tempera-
tures at the beginning of their
shifts.
Testing can vary in accuracy
and the length of time it takes for
people to receive their results.
Viral swab tests, like those used at
drive-through clinics, tell people
whether they’re infected with the
coronavirus that day. But experts
say the window between when
someone contracts the virus and
when the infection becomes de-


tectable varies from person to
person and can range from 2 to 14
days. Even more uncertainty sur-
rounds asymptomatic people.
Some testing sites also have a
backlog of results to be distribut-
ed, resulting in delays.
Mickelson said that Tyson em-
ployees will receive lab results in 2
to 3 days. “We follow CDC guid-
ance, which includes isolation of
team members if they have symp-
toms or test positive,” he said,
referring to the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Preven-
tion.
Tyson’s new strategy “will help
further our efforts to go on the
offensive against the virus,” Don-
nie King, Tyson Foods group pres-
ident and chief administrative of-
ficer, said in a news release. “Add-
ing more resources and technolo-
gies reinforces our commitment
to protecting our team members,
their families and plant commu-
nities.”
The monitoring system will use
an algorithm to select employees
without symptoms for testing.
The number tested each week will
be adapted on the basis of how

many positive cases turn up at
each plant site, as well as on the
basis of case numbers in the sur-
rounding community, the compa-
ny said. Tyson facilities also con-
duct daily health screenings as
employees enter work sites, and
any employees who have covid- 19
symptoms will be tested. Any em-
ployees who come into close con-
tact with those who have covid- 19
symptoms or have tested positive
in the workplace will be tested, as
well.
The company also created a
chief medical officer position and
said it will expand its health ser-
vices team by 50 percent, or near-
ly 200 nurses and administrative
employees, to oversee on-site test-
ing and treatment of workers who
contract the virus.
Matrix Medical Network
helped design Tyson’s testing pro-
tocol, following CDC guidelines,
the company said.
“The new monitoring program
we helped Tyson create is a sci-
ence-first approach that’s really
on the cutting edge of how work-
places can best mitigate the risk
of the virus,” Daniel Castillo, Ma-

trix Medical’s chief medical offi-
cer, said in the Tyson news re-
lease. “You’ll likely see many oth-
ers adopt a similar approach in
the coming months because it’s a
process that looks both at people
showing symptoms as well as
those who do not.”
Meatpacking has been among
the industries hit hardest by the
pandemic. At least 93 workers
have died, and more than 16,
have been exposed to or infected
by the virus, according to the
United Food and Commercial
Workers International Union.
In April, an investigation by
The Washington Post found that
Tyson and two other large meat
processors failed to provide em-
ployees with protective equip-
ment, instead telling them to keep
working even as the spread of the
coronavirus across the country
turned crowded plants into infec-
tion hot spots.
A few days after the investiga-
tion was published, the federal
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration outlined new pro-
cedures for meatpacking plants to
protect workers: sanitizing

shared equipment, placing physi-
cal barriers between employees at
workstations, providing personal
protective equipment and sick
leave without penalty.
Coronavirus outbreaks at more
than 20 such facilities, including
some owned by Tyson Foods, led
to a number of plant closures and
meat shortages. But at the end of
April, President Trump signed an
executive order encouraging
meat plants to reopen to guard
against shortages. At least 7,
confirmed cases of coronavirus
infection have been tied to Tyson
employees, The Post reported in
June.
Mickelson, the Tyson Foods
spokesman, declined to disclose
the cumulative number of em-
ployees who have tested positive
or have died of the virus. As of
Thursday, the company said, it
has tested nearly a third of its
120,000 U.S. workers and has few-
er than 1,200 active cases. The
company formed a coronavirus
task force in January and has
implemented protective mea-
sures including symptom screen-
ings, the wearing of face masks,

physically separating worksta-
tions and assigning employees to
monitor social distancing.
T he company formed a corona-
virus task force in January and
has implemented protective mea-
sures including symptom screen-
ings, the wearing of face masks,
physically separating worksta-
tions and assigning employees to
monitor social distancing.
The food workers union, which
represents 24,000 Tyson employ-
ees, on Thursday lauded the com-
pany’s efforts and called on others
in the industry to take similar
steps to monitor and slow the
spread of the coronavirus.
“We welcome this important
step by Tyson Foods, which dem-
onstrates the leadership needed
to strengthen COVID monitoring
across the industry,” Marc Per-
rone, president of the union, said
in a statement. “UFCW is urging
all companies in the industry to
follow Tyson’s lead and take im-
mediate action to expand COVID
monitoring as we work to flatten
the curve.”
[email protected]
[email protected]

Tyson Foods adopts weekly coronavirus


testing for workers at all its U.S. plants


The policy covers 120,000 employees of the meat processing company in an industry hit hard by the pandemic


TED S. WARREN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Tyson Fresh Meats processing plant in Wallula, Wash., w as closed for more than a week from April into May after more than 100 workers fell ill with covid-19.


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