How can the President order meat-packing plants to continue operations? (Logistical, not political!)

[Corraleno]

Just now, Dreamergal said:

Ethics is a privilege whether you agree or not. Have you seen a person who has grown up in a vegetarian family come to America ? One of the first thing they will run to is McDonald's. They do not care where the meat came from.

I literally have no idea what point you are trying to make here. Who is forcing poor vegetarians to eat McDonalds burgers? Are these people being held captive in a place where beans or lentils are unavailable or astronomically expensive? I don't get how "when vegetarians from India have enough money to fly to the US, they all go out and eat burgers" somehow implies that choosing beans over beef is a sign of privilege. If anything, your story would indicate the exact opposite. For less than the price of a McDonalds burger, which has 13 grams of protein, you can buy 2 cans of precooked beans (4 cups, total of 60 grams of protein) or a pound of dried beans which make 8 cups of cooked beans, equal to 120 grams of protein. You get almost 10 times as much protein for less cost with beans — how are the bean eaters the privileged ones and people who choose to buy crappy burgers produced by exploited workers the people who are too poor to afford ethics?

[ktgrok]

10 hours ago, GGardner said:

From what I understand, there are a couple of things going on.  At least one of the plants was closed, not by management, but by local authorities.  Not getting into states' rights vs federalism, but presumably an executive order could try to override the local order.  Now, as you point out, how well the plant would be able to operate if half the employees are out sick is an open question.  I guess, in theory,  the state or federal government could send in the national guard or other troops to try to help operate the plant, but who knows how long it would take to train new people?  The other thing this order did was to try to reduce the legal liability meat cutting plants would face if they were responsible for their workers getting sick.  Presumably, this would encourage any companies that voluntarily shut down to stay open.

At the end of the day, though, OP is spot on -- without healthy workers, these plants can't operate, even if they are "open" in some sense.

 

sure...but are we worried about liablity or about people getting sick?

8 hours ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

I would love to see changes in unsafe working conditions.  These workers are at risk for so much more than COVID.  But I don't see how suspending liability gets us there.  It seems like it would do the opposite.

exactly

6 hours ago, Plum said:

’m sure there are things they can do to help prevent it from spreading in the factory. Someone at every other post, not shoulder to shoulder. Face shields with masks. I don’t know. I’m not a meat processing expert. I do hope this allows the experts to come in and figure this out so they can tell the meat processors how to do it with safety in mind and not only profits. Meat prices are going to go up no matter what. It’s a matter of how much of an impact all of this will have on the supply and how much the new guidelines will cost. 

There absolutely are things they can do to make it safer. Except...there have been things they can do to make it safer for employees for all sorts of issues, like amputations, etc, and they haven't done that, so I don't have much faith they will do this either. 

 

[TechWife]

3 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

 

 

 

This is with not so great disruption. If you have further food system disruption, security will collapse. This will happen.

 

Don't tell this will never happen in America. To avoid this happening in America, this has to be done. As someone who has come from a country with food riots, stampedes and having people die of starvation, food supply is very, very important. So don't tell me this is about "dammit hamburgers or porkchops". It food breaks, society breaks, law and order breaks.

Every single war in history has been won by starving the enemy. Food supply is that important. We are at war, even though we don't think we are. But if we close down the economy in a presidential election year, it shows how serious this is. So yeah, this is needed. They will train the NG, the army someone to do this. It will not be pretty, but it will be done. 

 

I completely agree with you about the dangers disruptions to our food supply chains pose. Venezuela has been  unstable for a long time - their employment situation, imports & distribution networks have been disrupted since long before COVID-19 - they tried a coup, in fact. 

[ElizabethB]

Just now, TechWife said:

 

I completely agree with you about the dangers disruptions to our food supply chains pose. Venezuela has been  unstable for a long time - their employment situation, imports & distribution networks have been disrupted since long before COVID-19 - they tried a coup, in fact. 

We might have enough in the US, but we would impact the global food supply.  The UN is already warning about 265 million deaths from starvation because of Coronavirus.

[Paige]

My daughters and I are mostly vegetarian with some fish occasionally and we have been having a hard time finding beans and lentils lately. It's not just about the meat, but it could be about hoarding. I can get canned easier than dry but they are more expensive. 

I like the Tasty Bites packets for easy quick lunches and when we don't like to cook. I used to be able to buy a 6 pack for 9 and now it's $20+ if they are even in stock. They used to be on my subscribe and save and I haven't been able to reorder since January.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Paige

[mathnerd]

2 hours ago, Paige said:

My daughters and I are mostly vegetarian with some fish occasionally and we have been having a hard time finding beans and lentils lately. It's not just about the meat, but it could be about hoarding. I can get canned easier than dry but they are more expensive. 

I like the Tasty Bites packets for easy quick lunches and when we don't like to cook. I used to be able to buy a 6 pack for 9 and now it's $20+ if they are even in stock. They used to be on my subscribe and save and I haven't been able to reorder since January.

Costco had generic brand dry pinto beans (I think that it was 25 lb packaging) last week when I shopped there. Our local area has a very large Indian population, so, our Costco also carries 8 lb bags of Organic Moong beans, chickpeas, toor dal and channa dal. I have also bought a soup mix of 8 different organic dry beans blended in a bag from Costco.

[Meriwether]

7 hours ago, TracyP said:

BlsdMama, I think everyone might be barking up the wrong tree here. I worked at a turkey processing plant once upon a time. It actually does not seem like a particularly high risk situation for spreading covid. However, the majority of employees live in the same apartment complexes. They often live with extended family and friends - all of whom work at the same place. I think this is far more likely to be the cause of the spread. But maybe I'm wrong. Thoughts?

Yes.

[Guest]

16 hours ago, BlsdMama said:

This is actually a shockingly complex question.

The pat logistics answer to your question is this: Capacity changes.

Capacity is impacted by machines, layout, people, conditions, input, etc and each has an impact on output.  Capacity is the maximum output that could potentially be achieved when the process is working at 100%.  So, machine goes down? Capacity decreases.  Fewer people? Plant is still open, capacity decreases.  Will they put out 800 hogs in a day? No.  Do they redistribute personnel and maintain an output of 200/day? Sure.

The complexity is in this though:

My familiarity is only with the hog industry.  My dad is part of a very large farmer owned cooperative.  Once upon a time, you kept your own boars (male studs) and your own sows (breeding females.)  However, it's become more efficient to keep the boars and sows on one major farm, then put the feeder pigs (3 week old little pigs) on a semi and send them out to the grower farms.  The grower farms have inside temperature controlled climates.  Pigs are now bred so lean and so specific that their ability to handle stress is impacted. Their immune systems are lower and their ability to handle stress is impacted so they don't grow as well or get sick more easily.  To decrease exposure, pigs are essentially held in quarantine - one large group comes in, one large group goes out.  My dad used to get a shipment of pigs every 2-3 months.  So he might have one pen of 1 month old pigs, one pen of four month old pigs, and one group headed to be butchered.  But, if one group got sick in there, the entire building couldn't be cleaned, so they'd infect the new group coming in and it would just continue.  So, most farmers have moved to an "all in all out" system.  They get shipments of babies twice a year.  Each group is butchered between 5-6 months, giving a week to rest and a week to clean (give or take) and disinfect the entire facility.  It reduces illness and then reduces medication, thus reducing costs.

But, therein lies the problem.  If your facility is full of 260 pound "fat hogs" you have ZERO space for the new batch of hogs.  These hogs can't just "be put in the barn" out back.  They're carefully cultivated for one thing (butchering) and not fit for stress (weather fluctuations, drafty areas, etc) and would die.  Thus, your new babies have little cost wrapped up in them - it's cheaper to kill them.  Your adult hogs have all the costs wrapped up in them.  It would be stupid to kill your fully finished animals.

Okay - so you've kissed off your next six month group.  Do you then get pigs next month? Or do you not get yours again for six months? Remember, every litter is completely spoken for and carefully timed.  There are no "extra" animals in this system.


More than that?

While butchering is not a fine art, it does require some serious OSHA requirements and training.  There are federal regulations on how you can legally move animals, legally butcher animals. My first "adult" job at 18 was actually at what is now Tyson's in Iowa.  It paid well and I could work third shift while going to school.  It is not a clean job, it is not an easy job, and it is a little more complex with regulations than "handing out food." So, I don't foresee NG coming in and just taking this over.  Not to minimize, but that's like saying, "Hey, we need more CNA's."  While not complex, CNAs do require  some on the job training, a learning curve so you don't hurt yourself, and understanding the need for regulations and rules.  You really want your meat contaminated or not checked? Remember, it's not just employees, but also the FDA in these facilities daily to check meat and make sure the food source isn't contaminated.  


So, logistically, the answer is: If you want to operate at capacity you must replace people.  If you have fewer humans, you can stay open, but your capacity is reduced.

The harder part is: How do you keep capacity? Who can do the work? What if we just accept low capacity? What do the farmers do with their fat hogs? What do they do with the babies? 
The food chain WILL be affected.  Those living in farming areas called this meat shortage a month ago and it WILL have impact.

Meat freezes.  I froze three freezers worth.  Just sayin'.  

Thank you for that most excellant summary, BlsdMom. 

My MIL grew up on a pig farm and dh’s cousins still operate the facility. From what dh describes, they are haulers and growers. But this ^^ description really makes me think about how they are/will be affected if their processing plant cannot accept their batch of hogs while they simultaneously cannot accept new piglets. 

Also, I would say these cousins are very typical as far as: this is all they have ever done, there isn’t other work they can do and they pretty much have this one skill set and knowledge base and none other. I can easily appreciate the crisis it produces. 

[Meriwether]

Thought I posted last night. I'll be back after read aloud. I'm from the opposite side of the state from Blsdmama (👋) and my husband works in a different part of the industry.

[Meriwether]

Okay, first I'll mention my bona fides, such as they are, so people will know where I am coming from. I live in a town with a large packing plant and live fairly close to some others. We live where we do because of my husband's job. He has an agribusiness degree and is a grain merchant. He is working from home, so, in addition to discussing it directly with him, I hear some of his discussions with customers and coop members.

The current worst case scenario that the industry is talking about is farmers slaughtering 3,000,000 hogs without sending them to market. That sounds like a lot, huh? And it is a lot, but it is about a week's slaughter. That, without other confounding issues in production and distribution, wouldn't create a huge shortage in supermarket shelves. Especially since the freezers have been full. They have been rendering pork belly for dog food since this started, since they didn't have room to store more. Something like 60% of bacon consumed in the US is eaten at restaurants.

While there has been a lot of talk in the industry of farmers slaughtering the hogs, it hasn't been happening much yet. Farmers have, over all, been attempting to draw it out. The processing plants have been paying some (not what market value would have been) for fat hogs and rendering them. This isn't as good as farmers selling their hogs for meat processing, but it is better than the farmers just killing them. The hope at this point is that the plants will be running at 2/3 capacity, with 2 shifts processing and 1 shift cleaning. They are putting in other safety measures, too.

I don't have time to say much more. I have an online Spanish lesson to teach soon. But here are two thoughts to leave with you. Meat has become the new tp. While there will be glitches in supply chains and blips in production, the immediate problem has been overbuying. The true shortages, if they materialize, will likely come later. Remember, the freezers were too full to store more product recently. And, to everyone saying that people should just eat less meat, you should consider that some of the main byproducts of the processing plants are medicines. There will probably be empty spots at the grocery store occasionally off and on (wish I had time to expound on that more) and that will be more of an inconvenience than an emergency. The reduction of medicine could have a bigger impact.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Meriwether

[Guest]

Thank you, @Meriwether, for that overview. 

When you have time, I’m very curious about the medicines remark at the bottom. Is that due to gelatin being used for capsules? Or....I am completely ignorant about the subject. 

[Meriwether]

25 minutes ago, Quill said:

Thank you, @Meriwether, for that overview. 

When you have time, I’m very curious about the medicines remark at the bottom. Is that due to gelatin being used for capsules? Or....I am completely ignorant about the subject. 

Insulin is one but there are others.

[Amy in NH]

15 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

When you've cooked a 15 lb turkey and multiple vegetarian Indian side dishes because you want to be a good host and watch the vegetarians demolish the turkey and you are left with no leftovers you have a totally different perspective of what a "vegetarian" looks like. Well an Indian one at least 😂

 

I have quite a few Indian vegetarian friends who are disgusted by American meat eating practices.

But not all Indians are vegetarians, either.  Maybe your guests were not actually vegetarian, and in your ignorance you just assumed they were?

[fairfarmhand]

1 hour ago, Quill said:

Thank you, @Meriwether, for that overview. 

When you have time, I’m very curious about the medicines remark at the bottom. Is that due to gelatin being used for capsules? Or....I am completely ignorant about the subject. 

I do know that some surgical things are pork based because I have a friend with that mammalian meat allergy and she had a very bad experience with a coagulant that’s was pork based.

[Valley Girl]

17 minutes ago, Amy in NH said:

 

I have quite a few Indian vegetarian friends who are disgusted by American meat eating practices.

But not all Indians are vegetarians, either.  Maybe your guests were not actually vegetarian, and in your ignorance you just assumed they were?

Wow. That's pretty rude. I don't have an opinion on the eating habits of Dreamergal's guests. However, I assume that if she's invited them to dinner, she knows whether or not they typically eat meat.

[Sneezyone]

19 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

Medical personal- giant military hospital ships sent (not to mention that the military does employ medical personnel, for lots of reasons.) (though, to be fair, they were Navy ships and not National Guard....there is no actual Navy National Guard)

Hospitals built out of convention centers-field hospitals are a very big part of what the military does.

"food drop packages" - this is actually something that the National Guard and military as a whole has been doing consistently......they just haven't had to do it much here in the US before.  

You are right, you could go on and on.  But really, these things are the ACTUAL JOB of the National Guard.  They do ALL those things, in ADDITION to going to combat when called.  

 

Katrina-'call the National Guard to get people off of the roofs to safety'

Terrorist attack on the trade center-'call the National Guard'

OKC bombing-call the National Guard

2008 floods-call the National Guard

 

Helping to rescue the nation from crisis is literally the job description of The National Guard.

 

(said as the wife of a former member of both the National Guard and the active duty US Army.)

 

Explosion recovery, corpse recovery, medical care, construction...these are VERY specific skillsets. Butcher is not one they recruit or train for in the National Guard or military.

[Sneezyone]

18 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

I read somewhere that part of the order would allow PPE for the meat plants, giving them priority for PPE, and I also thought money for PPE.

Current meat plants and chicken plants are, sadly, just a small step up from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.  But, you can't have all that food go to waste and people starving.  We need to do something fast while looking at long term fixes.

I watched an interesting food documentary that had people from the left and right in favor of small food.  The Polyface farm guy talked about small slaughtering operations and said that outdoor slaughtering and butchering was actually more hygienic and sanitary. I thought that seemed kind of crazy, but knowing how the Coronavirus spreads, I wonder if he wasn't prophetic!

 

 

We don't even have sufficient PPE for medical workers so how would that work?

[MEmama]

42 minutes ago, Valley Girl said:

Wow. That's pretty rude. I don't have an opinion on the eating habits of Dreamergal's guests. However, I assume that if she's invited them to dinner, she knows whether or not they typically eat meat.

Then again, vegetarians don’t actually eat McDonalds hamburgers. 🤷‍♀️

[MEmama]

45 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

No, I know for a fact they are vegetarian because they belong to my circle of friends. They do not cook meat at home, but they will eat meat if served in a very safe location. Their children certainly eat chicken, I make nuggets for them all the time. My husband and I do not eat beef and pork now, nor do I cook it. I have eaten a burger before, but my children eat pork and beef and my friends give it to them all the time. 

It is not hypocritical though it sounds like it, it is done for a very specific reason. As immigrants our children already are different and have issues fitting in, food is not something we will burden them with. We have restrictions, but our children will eat whatever they want and that includes pork and beef. They are free to choose not to eat meat or whatever. If they want to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle at any age, it is ok with us. But we will not force the lifestyle my husband and I choose to live on them. 

Then they are not vegetarians. Lol. 
 

[Corraleno]

46 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

No, I know for a fact they are vegetarian because they belong to my circle of friends. They do not cook meat at home, but they will eat meat if served in a very safe location. 

"Vegetarians who eat meat" are not vegetarians, lol. 

[ElizabethB]

8 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

 

We don't even have sufficient PPE for medical workers so how would that work?

They can have different types of PPE that are helpful but not certified for hospitals.

[Sneezyone]

2 minutes ago, ElizabethB said:

They can have different types of PPE that are helpful but not certified for hospitals.

 

If you're  in the same kind of close and prolonged contact with positive people as hospital workers you need the same kind of PPE lest you see food service workers popping at the same rate of nurses. NOT OK.

And, full disclosure, my mother worked for Tyson HR when I was in HS and we have toured processing plants. They are not for the faint of heart which, God bless 'em' would not include A LOT of DH's active duty military colleagues.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Sneezyone

[MEmama]

1 minute ago, Dreamergal said:

 

How do I explain this ? Hmm.. 

The form of vegetarianism these people practice is specifically tied to a religion. Specifically this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism

It is more a religion and not harming things than a stand on not eating meat. They have a very specific diet which includes excluding even onion. So these are the homes they come from. They have probably had a curiosity to eat meat, afraid to eat meat because of disappointing or scolding at home. They come to America and eat a burger, specifically the ones in McDonald's because burgers is McDonald's to many people who come from abroad. It's more of an American experience or checking off a list of things people wanted to do T

Many people go through this, not all. Then they settle down, find what they want to do and go about it. If they want to live a certain vegetarian lifestyle they do. Some let their kids eat chicken, but they do not cook it at home. They are vegetarian because of the religion they follow not diet,  It is like a muslim who is forbidden to eat pork in the Quran, but  some try it. So they try it, if they like it they keep eating it, if not they don't. They are still muslims. 

Eating a food explicitly forbidden in a religion to is different to me than someone who practices as part of philosophy. The former is more like rebelling against the religion than becoming a meat eater,.I am not explaining it well, but there is a difference, well to people I see follow it anyway.

Sure, I mean lots of people eat only a little meat, or their kids do even if they don’t. That’s not uncommon at all. But technically speaking, one simply isn’t vegetarian if they eat meat. McDonalds hamburgers could hardly BE doing more harm, after all. It’s all just words though, whatever. 
 

I was vegetarian for over 25 years. Right from the start we told our DS he is welcome to eat meat, that I’d help him source it locally and humanely, and I’d fix it for him. My stuff doesn’t have to be his stuff, after all. He was well into his teens before he took me up on it. Now that I eat a bit of chicken now and again, I am no longer a vegetarian either. My DH doesn’t, so he is. It’s pretty simple and has nothing to do with the ideology or reasons for not eating meat, or doing so. It’s not complicated.

[Sneezyone]

This is sick and depraved. Forcing people to choose between some kind of income and their lives is not OK. I don’t care how much you like, prefer, or ‘need’ meat. Sacrificing others is not ok. And if people are not cool with this, they need to say so. Publicly. Risking your/your family’s life or lose your benefits. We KNOW, we know these people often have underlying health problems that already make them more susceptible to the virus. Is this REALLY who we are? In terms of logistics, I would have my DH file as a conscientious objector, go the Ali route, before participating in this.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Sneezyone

[Pam in CT]

Here is the text of the Executive Order.  There is nothing in the words of the text to suggest that PPE will be provided to meat processing workers or made available to processing plants if they choose to incur the expense of purchasing them. 

Which is not to say it won't happen -- I certainly hope it does happen, for both ethical reasons and to prevent these outbreaks from happening over and over again throughout the nation. But there's nothing in the words of the order to make it happen, at either federal or private company cost.

 

(And while the costs of getting PPE are significant and would certainly result in higher food prices, at this point the sheer availability of it is the first gating factor.  Around here -- we're a hot spot -- PPE is still quite constrained.  Hospitals generally have sufficient for medical staff actually working with COVID patients and are slowly re-starting oncology and other acute services as the availability slowly increases; but if you're, say, a dentist, not enough to re-open.)

Edited April 30, 2020 by Pam in CT
typo

[Joker]

About 900 employees have tested positive at the Tyson plant here in Indiana.

I think they closed down this past weekend and as of yet I haven't heard any plans on how or when they reopen. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Joker

[Ausmumof3]

9 hours ago, Meriwether said:

Okay, first I'll mention my bona fides, such as they are, so people will know where I am coming from. I live in a town with a large packing plant and live fairly close to some others. We live where we do because of my husband's job. He has an agribusiness degree and is a grain merchant. He is working from home, so, in addition to discussing it directly with him, I hear some of his discussions with customers and coop members.

The current worst case scenario that the industry is talking about is farmers slaughtering 3,000,000 hogs without sending them to market. That sounds like a lot, huh? And it is a lot, but it is about a week's slaughter. That, without other confounding issues in production and distribution, wouldn't create a huge shortage in supermarket shelves. Especially since the freezers have been full. They have been rendering pork belly for dog food since this started, since they didn't have room to store more. Something like 60% of bacon consumed in the US is eaten at restaurants.

While there has been a lot of talk in the industry of farmers slaughtering the hogs, it hasn't been happening much yet. Farmers have, over all, been attempting to draw it out. The processing plants have been paying some (not what market value would have been) for fat hogs and rendering them. This isn't as good as farmers selling their hogs for meat processing, but it is better than the farmers just killing them. The hope at this point is that the plants will be running at 2/3 capacity, with 2 shifts processing and 1 shift cleaning. They are putting in other safety measures, too.

I don't have time to say much more. I have an online Spanish lesson to teach soon. But here are two thoughts to leave with you. Meat has become the new tp. While there will be glitches in supply chains and blips in production, the immediate problem has been overbuying. The true shortages, if they materialize, will likely come later. Remember, the freezers were too full to store more product recently. And, to everyone saying that people should just eat less meat, you should consider that some of the main byproducts of the processing plants are medicines. There will probably be empty spots at the grocery store occasionally off and on (wish I had time to expound on that more) and that will be more of an inconvenience than an emergency. The reduction of medicine could have a bigger impact.

Is the trade deal with China going to increase demand so you think?

[Melissa in Australia]

7 hours ago, Corraleno said:

"Vegetarians who eat meat" are not vegetarians, lol. 

I disagree. I know vegetarians who are polite. When out they won't make a fuss and a spectical of themselves if their hote serves meat. 

I know other vegetarian vegans who are complete fanatics and make a point of belittling anyone they know who eats meat, 

As well as vegetarians who only eat fish or very occasionally have a steak. Like once a year. 

Edited May 1, 2020 by Melissa in Australia
Silly auto correct

[Meriwether]

7 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Is the trade deal with China going to increase demand so you think?

I don't know. I could ask Dh. His company sends a lot of product to China.

Me: Are you still doing business with China?

Dh: Yeah. We just sold some (his product, I don't want to get too specific since I already pretty much drew a map of where I live) to China this week.

Me: Will it increase with the new trade deal?

Dh: Yes.

Me: What about pork?

Dh: Yes, it will increase demand on pork. There is a lot of agricultural stuff in it.

Me: Will there be enough? If we send more to China, will that create a shortage here?

Dh, with a short laugh and shake of his head: We have plenty of pork.


It was obviously not a deep conversation. LOL But just today he heard that farmers in our area are changing the formula back to a growth formula (rather than trying to slow rate of growth), so there is more optimism that they'll be butchered. If we have a longer, more detailed conversation, I'll be happy to pass along any actual information.


Plenty of pork (and other meat) does not mean that there won't be shortages at the store at times. It is like tp in a number of ways. There was actually plenty of tp, but between hoarding, different supply chains (tp in large rolls for public/office buildings, for example), and no good way to markedly increase production and shipping quickly, there were shortages at the store. Dh was telling me about a chicken plant that is somewhere around here. I think. I wasn't paying attention to the location. It processes chickens for Costco rotisserie chickens. There are plenty of chickens, but the plant isn't set up to section and package the chickens for retail sale. That is one of the confounding issues I mentioned earlier. The plant is very efficient for what it does. It would be difficult and expensive to change the process. We don't have a Costco here, so I don't know if they are selling rotisserie chickens now? Sams didn't the two times I've been in the past 7 weeks. When Costco is selling rotisserie chickens again, those chickens will be back on the market.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Joker said:

About 900 employees have tested positive at the Tyson plant here in Indiana.

I think they closed down this past weekend and as of yet I haven't heard any plans on how or when they reopen. 

I wonder what ratio of employees that represents. It’s so awful in any case. 

[Joker]

5 minutes ago, Quill said:

I wonder what ratio of employees that represents. It’s so awful in any case. 

I looked up one article and it said there are 2200 employees. Yes, it's awful.