Missouri meat processing plant employees sue over work conditions regarding COVID-19
Advocates and workers from a Missouri meat processing plant are suing Smithfield Foods, asking the company to follow CDC guidelines and take steps to protect its employees from the new coronavirus.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, alleges that the company has failed to make it possible for employees at its Milan, Missouri, meat processing plant to socially distance and is enforcing policies that encourage employees to come to work sick.
“It wasn’t until last week that they even bothered to start providing workers masks,” said David Muraskin, an attorney with Public Justice representing the unnamed plaintiff. “Smithfield’s shown a total disregard for workers’ safety and placed the entire community at risk.”
In a statement to The Star, Smithfield Foods Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Compliance Keith Lombardo said the claims in the suit are “without factual or legal merit” and include claims that had been investigated and deemed unfounded.
“The health and safety of our employees is our top priority at all times,” the statement said.
The lawsuit comes as clusters of COVID-19 cases have arisen in communities centered around meatpacking plants. Kansas and the federal government recently increased testing in some of those areas.
In Moniteau County, Missouri, the Burger’s Smokehouse closed its production facility after 21 employees tested positive for COVID-19, according to a news release from the company. The facility is expected to reopen on April 30.
In Buchanan County, Missouri, a Triumph Foods pork plant in St. Joseph is the only cluster of virus outbreaks, said Mary Robertson, spokeswoman for the city of St. Joseph, which operates the local health department.
So far, 14 confirmed cases have been found among workers at the plant.
On Friday morning, the National Guard assisted in administering 125 tests to contacts of the known positives. Over the weekend, the guard will help administer some 2,000 tests to get a better sense of the overall infections at the St. Joe plant, Robertson said. It employs about 2,900 people, though she noted some had obtained testing on their own.
“By the end of the weekend, nearly all if, not all, of the workforce will have been tested,” she said.
Any decision to close the plant would come from the company or the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Robertson said the state had no plans of closing the plant yet, but that may change once the results of the tests arrive early next week.
“It’s my understanding that they’re waiting to try to get an idea from the results of the testing to find out how widespread it may or may not be within the company before any type of a decision is made,” she said.
So far, Robertson said the situation could be viewed two ways: One one hand, one employer being home to 14 of the county’s total 46 confirmed positives is concerning. But if numbers don’t rise significantly, 14 cases represents only a sliver of the 2,900 workers at the plant.
“I think it’s too early to tell,” she said.
Working conditions
At the Smithfield plant in Milan, a town roughly 125 miles northeast of Kansas City, the Rural Communities Worker Alliance and an anonymous employee alleged in the lawsuit that workers are forced to stand shoulder to shoulder, are not provided with adequate personal protective equipment and are seldom allowed to take breaks to wash their hands.
The workers opted to file a lawsuit, Muraskin said, after sending a letter at the beginning of the month outlining their safety concerns.
“Workers, their family members, and many others who live in Milan and in the broader community may die — all because Smithfield refused to change its practices in the face of this pandemic,” the lawsuit said.
According to the suit, workers at the Milan plant did not receive masks until April 16 at the earliest, when each worker was given one surgical mask meant to last the full week.
When news of the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread, the suit said, Smithfield began offering a $500 bonus to any worker who did not miss work between April 1 and May 1, effectively incentivizing workers to come in even if they are sick, the suit said.
Conditions at the plant did not follow Centers for Disease Control guidelines for stopping the spread of the virus, the suit said.
Workers are punished for stopping work to cover their mouth while coughing and they are not provided with extra breaks to wash their hands, the suit said. Workers are, at times, provided with hand sanitizer over their gloves, the suit said. When they do take breaks, the suit said, workers are crammed together in small hallways preventing them from staying the recommended six feet away from one another.
In order to process as much meat as possible, workers stand side by side in a processing line, according to the suit.
“Workers on the kill and cut floors have long described their fear of being cut by their neighbors’ knives because they work so closely together,” the suit said.
Plexiglas barriers were provided between some workers, the suit said, but those barriers did not account for height differences of employees.
Despite workers’ close proximity, the suit said, Smithfield does not warn the staff when someone has shown symptoms of COVID-19.
Lawsuit
Following outbreaks of the new coronavirus, Smithfield Foods has closed plants in Wisconsin, South Dakota and Martin City, Missouri. To make up for the lost production, the suit said, it has sped up the line in Milan.
Sullivan County, where the Milan plant is located, had no confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday afternoon, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
However, the lawsuit said, the anonymous plaintiff knows of at least eight workers at the plant who have had to stay home after displaying symptoms of the rapidly spreading virus.
Muraskin said he has asked the court for preliminary injunction relief so that the case can be heard soon enough to have an impact. The lawsuit asks for a change to working conditions and access to the plant in order to review safety procedures.
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Missouri meat processing plant employees sue over work conditions regarding COVID-19."
