German meat processing corporation Tönnies supplies thousands of Aldi stores with bargain-priced pork, beef and chicken. For years, Aldi looked the other way as billionaire boss Clemens Tönnies forced slaughterhouse workers to sleep in squalid dormitories and work elbow-to-elbow on cramped factory floors.
Now, those miserable conditions have resulted in over 1500 coronavirus cases at a meat plant -- and two entire towns placed under quarantine. And still Aldi won't stop selling Tönnies' products.
Its rival, Lidl, has already cut ties. I know if enough of us pile on the pressure now, we can get Aldi to follow suit until Tönnies promises to improve working conditions -- and fires its greedy CEO.
Clemens Tönnies became Germany's #1 butcher by forcing his mostly eastern European "contractors" to endure rock-bottom wages as he filled his own pockets. As Covid-19 raged through Germany, even when news broke of outbreaks at other meatpacking plants, Tönnies refused to protect their health and safety.
It's time for Tönnies to stop raking in profits while people and animals suffer -- and for Aldi to reckon with the real price of its meat.
SumOfUs members like you can always be counted on to support workers' rights -- since the pandemic began, you've been fighting to stop corporations like Amazon from risking the health and safety of their most vulnerable employees. Now we've got to team up to tell both slaughterhouses and supermarkets that no amount of cheap meat is worth people getting sick. With enough pressure, we could transform the entire industry.
Sign the petition: Demand Aldi stop selling Tönnies' meat!
More information
Der Spiegel. 26 June 2020.
Deutsche Welle. 22 June 2020.