The next day, at 7: 35 am, the Argus Leader released the story on its website: “Smithfield Foods employee tests positive for coronavirus”.
By 15 April, when Smithfield finally closed under pressure from the South Dakota governor’s workplace, the plant had become the number one hotspot in the US, with a cluster of 644 verified cases amongst Smithfield employees and people who contracted it from them.
The Smithfield pork plant, situated in a Republican-led state that is one of 5 in the US that has not provided any kind of shelter-in-place order, has become a microcosm showing the socioeconomic variations laid bare by the international pandemic.
The workforce at Smithfield is made up largely of immigrants and refugees from places like Burma, Ethiopia, Nepal, Congo and El Salvador.
The BBC spoke to half a lots current and previous Smithfield employees who say that while they were afraid to continue going to work, deciding between employment and their health has been a difficult choice.
” I have a lot of bills.
When announcing the shutdown, Smithfield CEO Sullivan cautioned of “severe, possibly dreadful, effects” for the supply of meat.
But according to Smithfield employees, their union agents, and advocates for the immigrant neighborhood in Sioux Falls, the break out that caused the plant closure was avoidable. They allege early requests for individual protective devices were ignored, that ill workers were incentivised to continue working, which info concerning the spread of the infection was avoided them, even when they were at risk of exposing family and the wider public.
” If the federal government wants the company to remain open, then whose obligation is it to make certain these business are doing what they need to do to keep them safe?” stated Nancy Reynoza, founder of Que Pasa Sioux Falls, a Spanish-language news source who stated she’s been hearing from troubled Smithfield employees for weeks.
The BBC sent a detailed list of questions and worker claims to Smithfield, and they did not talk about the claims put to them on individual cases.
” Firstly, the health and wellness of our workers and neighborhoods is our top priority each and every day,” the declaration said. “Starting in February, we instituted a series of strict and detailed processes and protocols in early March that follow the stringent guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention