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- Interview by
- Alex N. Press
There are few, if any, industries whose workers have contracted COVID-19 at the rate of those in the meat processing industry. According to data from the Food and Environment Reporting Network, at least 1,396 meat packing and food processing plants have had confirmed cases of COVID-19. At least 57,454 meat packaging workers and 17,482 food processing workers have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 284 meat packaging workers and forty-eight food processing workers have tested positive for COVID-19. food died.
The Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA), a coalition of workers’ organizations across the supply chain, released a report on working conditions throughout the pandemic. Entitled “We are not disposable,” the report describes how COVID-19 has affected the hundreds of thousands of workers in these industries, as well as how these workers have organized to protect themselves.
The report’s image of food processing work is dire. While the US Department of Agriculture has now withdrawn a proposed rule that would have allowed some poultry factories to increase their production speed, problems remain. Poor ventilation, for example, is always a problem. As the New York Times reports, scientists are urging the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to set air standards for workplaces. As a scientist said, an epidemiologist Times, “The refrigerated environment of food processing plants and the lack of fresh air are ideal conditions for the virus to thrive. But the industry has not put in place security measures to minimize the risk. This is all on top of the recent nitrogen leak at a poultry factory in Georgia that killed six workers.
Members of FCWA member Venceremos say social distancing is not possible inside the facilities and they do not feel safe. As Venceremos manager Magaly Licolli says, “Organizing poultry workers has always been a challenge, but with this pandemic it was all about fight or die. There is no other option. “
A person named in the FCWA report works at a Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Arkansas. In 2020, Tyson, one of the world’s largest poultry producers, reported its highest turnover in five years. It is also the company whose factory managers have bet on the number of workers who would contract COVID-19. At its annual meeting of shareholders earlier this month, the company rejected a due diligence proposal to investigate possible unsafe working conditions.
JacobinAlex N. Press, from Arkansas, spoke with Jason Ramirez, an Arkansas-based Tyson employee, a pseudonym we gave them so they could speak freely and to protect themselves from possible retaliation, about the past year at the poultry processing plant.
How was it working at the Tyson factory during the pandemic?
All of my colleagues, including myself, are afraid to go to work because the majority of the people I work with are older, so they have a higher risk of contracting COVID-19. They are at a higher risk of getting sick and not being able to recover. It was very difficult to work because the workload keeps increasing. No matter how many people are in the plant, we still have to meet the quota. There is not enough protection and there are currently many infections.
There have been many cases of COVID-19 in the poultry processing industry and many workers have died. What did Tyson do to protect workers, and what should he do if he doesn’t?
The only thing Tyson did to protect the workers was provide hand sanitizer and masks, but it was already very late by the time they provided it. The other things they say they implemented aren’t really protections. In addition, we do not receive a risk premium or more bonus. The salary is the same as before. We don’t get paid if we get infected and then have to quarantine ourselves; or rather, it is very difficult to get paid if it happens and a lot of people don’t get paid. There is very little compensation. They gave some workers face shields – probably like seven workers in a department – but not everyone has them.
One very important thing Tyson should do is quarantine workers who have been exposed to the virus. They currently allow workers to continue working until their COVID-19 results come back positive, which means they infect other workers in the meantime. And workers must be paid during this quarantine period. They should also do contact tracing.
How much do you earn at the factory and have you ever received a risk premium?
I earn $ 14 an hour. Every year there’s an increase, but it wasn’t a bigger increase this year or anything. I did not receive any increase other than this, which was thirty cents more [per hour]. Last year they offered a $ 500 bonus in May 2020, but not everyone is qualified to get this bonus.
How does it feel to work in an industry with such high rates of COVID-19 among the workforce when so many are talking about the importance of “essential workers” and protecting them? workers? What do you think of the way Tyson treats you and your coworkers?
I don’t understand why we are called “essential workers”. Really, for the company, we are more like “essential machines”. Tyson thinks we are consumable and disposable. If we don’t work like a machine, we can be wiped out by the business as if nothing had happened. I think “essential workers” are supposed to mislead people; that’s not what we feel. For example, we received Christmas dinner. This year, we haven’t even received this to thank us for our work. The only concern of the company is production.
In addition, there is a lot of racism at the factory. For example, I have been in this factory for three years, and during that time I saw seven whites come to work in production and after six months they became supervisors. This is because the managers, who are also white, are helping them get out of these production jobs. There are Hispanics who have worked at the factory for twenty or twenty-five years and all they can get is to be a “leader” even if they know more than the supervisors who just started working there. . We don’t have as many opportunities as the Whites.
What prompted you to talk about your working conditions and how did you get involved with Venceremos?
I got involved with Venceremos through my wife. She works in a different factory and it was she who told me about the organization and that she was fighting for the poultry workers. I was determined to fight for the poultry workers. Before that, I had always liked to fight against abuse. I never like to see people humiliated. So I gathered evidence of what is going on inside the factory. When I first met Venceremos, I liked the way Magaly [Licolli, the director of Venceremos] organized and the way she explained what we could do.
I speak a lot with the media, but I have also organized with my colleagues and compiled information about the company itself. If I need it, I collect evidence inside the factory. I do a lot to bring my colleagues into the organizing process.
I also collected signatures for a workers’ petition. We noted our demands: risk premium, paid quarantine, paid sick leave and better working conditions. When we created this petition, I spoke to my colleagues about the importance of fighting for these demands. We had to be careful when talking about it because not everyone could know it. But we got over a hundred signatures from the people on my shift.
Each week, a select group of us have phone calls to talk about updates and discuss next steps.
Is there anything else people should know about the nature of the pandemic for you and your colleagues?
Tyson gave pay raises to some workers, but not others. The factory where my wife works is very important because that’s where all the massacres start. There are therefore several plants that depend on the proper functioning of its plant. In this plant, the boning service gets an increase of $ 15 an hour. But only these workers. They are doing this to keep these workers right now because a lot of the other workers are sick and so they have to make sure those workers stay there. The supervisor’s explanation of why the increase was only given to these workers was to say that it is because they are working with knives, so their job is more dangerous. I do not believe it.
And, to clarify, have you or your wife contracted COVID-19 in the past year?
No, but I was recently exposed to it and asked to be quarantined. I asked if my wife would be in quarantine and the company said, “No, only you.”
And there is no pay while you are in quarantine?
No. So far they haven’t paid me anything.
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