Over the past month, hundreds of workers in the JBS meatpacking plant in Hyrum were infected with the coronavirus. Activists and JBS employees are concerned not enough is being done to protect workers from further spread.
Although measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 have been implemented at the JBS meatpacking plant in Hyrum, an employee from the plant, who agreed to speak anonymously to UPR with her son translating, says measures weren’t implemented fast enough. This left her and other workers feeling uneasy in the early days of the pandemic.
“They started to have an eerie feeling, like an impending doom,” the employees’ son said.
Lizette Villegas, a local activist in the Latino community, says she is impressed with the measures JBS has since taken, but that it still is not enough to protect the workers from infection.
“I saw the precautions that they took,” Villegas said. “I saw they put up the plexiglass, I saw everybody was wearing masks, they were taking everybody’s temperature at the entrance. I mean, I saw the amazing work that they did, and as many precautions, as you can take, it only goes so far.”
The anonymous employee did test positive for the virus. Although her husband does not work for JBS, he tested positive as well. This was especially concerning since he is diabetic. The employee and her family want even more measures implemented to protect workers, including closing the entire plant so employees can recover and the plant can be completely sanitized. She also says there is no social distancing on the lines, with some workers less than a foot apart from each other.
JBS asserts, in a statement to the Salt Lake Tribuneon June 9th, that it is following CDC guidelines. Meatpacking plants are also essential during the pandemic and are therefore unable to close they say.
The Hyrum plant employee says this reasoning from JBS only made her feel more powerless.
“She felt like she was disposable, that after those statements that their health and their well being didn’t matter,” her son said. “That profit came first.”
JBS officials reiterated the comments made to the Tribune in an email to UPR on Thursday, stating that PPE is available for all employees, employees are being screened for symptoms, and that sick employees are asked to stay home.
