mark peroni tells us there have been literally thousands of his meat processing workers who have been infected by this virus and 85 who have died as a result of it. what he's looking for, what we're looking for is for those companies to establish standards of safety for their workers so that they can go back to work in this important business, and some are doing just that. i commend them. some are working with the union to find safe ways to test their workers and to bring them back to a job site that is safe for them to work in. but they don't have a national standard to live up. we haven't established the national standard as we should whether through osha or through c.d.c., we ought to establish standards for businesses across this country to live up to, and i believe many, mr. smart with quick check, mark peroni, with the united food and commercial workers, would applaud that. they would say at least we know what local distancing standards will be used in the workplace and what equipment is required in the workplace to protect our employees. at least we know going into this exactly

smart and his willingness to look for standards that he can live by, to hear from mark peroni about the dangers to his workers across the workplace and don't believe for a minute that this caravan of lawsuits threat that we hear over and over again tells the whole story. when you take a look at the lawsuits that have been filed, it's not just the so-called caravan of trial lawyers that are coming in and jumping on this. there are businesses suing businesses. there are lots of lawsuits that have little or nothing to do with personal injury. there are also lawsuits involving workers compensation. senator mcconnell's suggestion is that we overturn the state laws that give workers the right to recover in the workplace if there are injuries or their health is impaired because of the covid-19 virus, what a terrible outcome that would be. to walk away from protections for workers for every state in the union for senator mcconnell's so-called red line threat when it comes to the covid-19 number four bill that speaker pelosi is proposing. so madam president, there's an answer here, a reasonable