Arkansas is one of the largest poultry producers in the country, but none of its 33 major meat-processing plants has closed as of May 11. Springdale-based Tyson, the world\u2019s second-largest producer of chicken, beef and pork, insists it is taking sufficient precautions in the wake of the Waterloo plant closure. In March, Tyson announced that it would relax punitive attendance policies and begin paying for workers\u2019 COVID-19 testing. The company takes workers\u2019 temperatures before every shift and has installed workstation dividers on production lines. It has promised to pay $120 million in \u201cthank you\u201d bonuses to frontline workers and truckers. Tyson has also mounted a massive PR campaign<\/a>, buying a full-page ad that ran April 26 in The New York Times, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and other newspapers to warn of meat shortages.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The CDC<\/a> and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)<\/a> have issued COVID-19 guidelines for meat and poultry processors. But many Arkansas poultry workers fear it is only a matter of time before the virus sweeps through their workplaces. In April, the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network spoke to several workers who raised questions about whether their employers were focused on maintaining production at the cost of worker safety. They described crowded conditions and a lack of communication from management about COVID-19 cases. When ANNN interviewed the same workers several weeks later, they said their plants had instituted a few changes, but they still had little confidence they were being kept safe.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In May, Carmen said managers at her plant had informed her that two individuals who work in her area had tested positive for coronavirus but refused to tell workers the names of the people. \u201cI could get infected, you could get infected, because we don\u2019t know, God forbid,\u201d Carmen said. \u201cThey should say, \u2018Hey, this person has coronavirus,\u2019 but, no, they don\u2019t say it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n On April 22, organizers with Venceremos<\/a>, a worker-led organization that advocates for the rights of poultry workers in Arkansas, brought a petition signed by more than 170 Tyson workers to one of the company\u2019s plants in Springdale. They demanded better benefits for workers, including full paid sick leave, and greater transparency about known cases of the virus. Since then, Tyson has announced that workers sickened with COVID-19 will receive short-term disability wages equivalent to 90 percent of their normal pay, rather than the lower rate offered previously.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Magaly Licolli, the co-founder of Venceremos, said Tyson needs to do more, including restructuring its workstations to allow for more social distancing. \u201cWe know production will decrease in volume, but that's how they could truly show they care for their team members more than for profits,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Meanwhile, state health officials say they now hold meat processors to different standards from other factories because of the president\u2019s recent executive order. Dr. Richard McMullen, the state environmental health director at ADH, said that workers in other industries \u2014 even other types of food-processing plants \u2014 are typically sent home to self-quarantine if they have been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cIn the case of meat and poultry workers, they are considered to be critical infrastructure workers, and they are allowed to continue to work in a facility provided that special precautions are taken and they have continued to be symptom-free,\u201d McMullen said. \u201cWe want to protect them and maintain food production.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n ***<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Until early May, \u201cTim\u201d worked in maintenance at a Simmons Foods plant in Van Buren, where he made $21 an hour. In an April interview, he described an environment in which social distancing was little more than a talking point. \u201cWe\u2019re all nervous as soon as we clock in,\u201d he said. \u201cWe're in a little hallway that is 3\u00bd to 4 feet wide and we\u2019re standing 6 to 8 inches from each other.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n After clocking in, Tim said, he would head to the floor, where he\u2019d see line workers standing elbow to elbow. Common areas were similarly crowded. \u201cThey send us all to break at the same time. The lunchroom is packed,\u201d he said. Tim said the plant added water to the hand soap in its restrooms, potentially diluting one of the most effective tools against the spread of the coronavirus.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n When ANNN reached out to Tim again in May, he said he had just quit his job at Simmons. \u201cYou know, I got kids, and I didn\u2019t feel that it was safe to continue working in that type of environment,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Although the plant was now screening its employees\u2019 temperatures each day, Tim felt Simmons was taking few other serious precautions. The plant had mandated that all workers wear masks, Tim said, but each worker was limited to one mask per week. \u201cI mean, working at a chicken processing plant, you\u2019re getting chicken juice on you \u2014 flour, breader, all kinds of nasty stuff. \u2026 They were having us wear the same hairnets, beard nets and gloves for a week, and earplugs, which was really unsanitary, I thought,\u201d he said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Workers were still tightly packed on production lines, he said, because spacing them out would cause line production to slow. Tim said he wasn\u2019t aware of anyone testing positive for coronavirus at his former plant, but he didn\u2019t believe workers would be informed if cases appeared. \u201cThey don\u2019t care about anybody as long as they make their money,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cWe\u2019re not essential. We\u2019re expendable, and that is the truth,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Simmons COO David Jackson said in a statement that Simmons was \u201cworking diligently every single day to evaluate ongoing efforts, make improvements following evolving CDC and OSHA guidance, and ensure our facilities have adequate PPE [protective personal equipment], hand sanitizing solution and other necessary supplies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Jackson said the company has expanded common areas and installed protective barriers between workstations. He emphasized Simmons\u2019 provision of \u201caffordable and convenient health care\u201d to employees.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Any worker who has been in close contact with a COVID-19-positive worker would be notified and required to quarantine, Jackson said. However, he did not respond directly to the question of how the company determines which employees would be notified if a coworker is infected with the virus at a Simmons Foods plant. \u201cOur protocol is to do all we can to protect the health and safety of our team members while they are at work. It\u2019s also important that we protect the privacy of team members, therefore we do not announce confirmed cases,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n McMullen, the state health official, said the agency\u2019s contact-tracing team reaches out to anyone known to have been in contact with an infected person, based on an interview with the person. But, aside from the patient interview, \u201cwe do kind of rely on that facility to be able to identify who that worker has worked next to,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Employers are not required to inform every worker in a facility if someone tests positive for the coronavirus. Even if a person who tested positive shared a restroom or a break room with everyone else in the building, an employer might choose to only notify those workers who were stationed near the person.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cPeople have a right to know if they\u2019ve been potentially exposed, and you would expect them to be notified. But if it\u2019s a worker on an adjacent line that doesn't have a lot of contact, that person doesn\u2019t necessarily need to know about some other person\u2019s personal health,\u201d McMullen said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n ***<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cJos\u00e9,\u201d who is originally from Mexico, has worked for Tyson for years, first in Springdale and later in Rogers. He makes $14 an hour working on a line that processes chicken into chicken fingers.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In April, Jos\u00e9 said that Tyson checked the temperature of workers as they entered the plant each day, but that once he reached the line where he worked, social distancing was impossible. \u201cThe workstations are marked, and you can\u2019t move the machines so that people are farther apart,\u201d he said. He said he had heard of COVID-19 cases at his plant but feared management was \u201ckeeping such information from the workers,\u201d prompting him to take his safety into his own hands and ask for unpaid leave. \u201cI asked if I could stay at home because they aren\u2019t taking appropriate security measures to protect us,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n By May, Jos\u00e9 was back at work. He reported that the plant had installed plastic dividers in the lunchroom area and on some production lines and provided masks to employees. He said there were many places where social distancing was not happening, however, such as in restrooms and in hallways when clocking in.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The company had told employees that one worker had tested positive for COVID-19, Jos\u00e9 said, \u201cbut it is impossible that there is only one case because that person was working for several days until symptoms appeared.\u201d After management confirmed the existence of the case to workers, he added, \u201cThey never closed the line. They never washed it. They never tested the other people who were there.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Derek Burleson, a public relations manager at Tyson, said the company\u2019s top priority is its employees\u2019 health and well-being. In an email to ANNN he wrote, \u201cWe will not ask anyone to work in our plants unless we are confident it is safe. We will not hesitate to idle plants to enhance health and safety measures, conduct deep cleaning and sanitizing and protect our team members.\u201d Burleson said Tyson had implemented social-distancing measures throughout its facilities and had staggered its shift start times to prevent large congregations of workers at the entrance to plants.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n ***<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cMar\u00eda,\u201d who fled El Salvador as a teen, has worked for just shy of two decades at Tyson in Springdale. She has held several jobs at the plant, including breading chicken and cutting bruised or rotten pieces off the birds, and makes $13.35 an hour.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cThe truth is I am very scared \u2026 I don\u2019t feel safe and that is why I haven\u2019t gone to work,\u201d she said in an April interview. She told management at the time that she had nobody to care for her children that week, and needed to stay at home. In reality, she did have childcare available but wanted the days off to protect herself and her family in the hope that the plant would improve its efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus by the time she returned.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n When Maria was interviewed for this story again in May, she had been back at Tyson for two weeks and still felt anxious. \u201cI am always afraid here because they don\u2019t tell the truth. There are sick, infected people here, and they don\u2019t tell us,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Mar\u00eda said management at her plant had told workers of a few cases of the coronavirus, but she felt sure there were more cases than had been acknowledged. Because she felt the lunchroom was crowded and not being disinfected properly, she decided to eat lunch in her car every day.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Like the other workers interviewed for this story, she feared retaliation for speaking to a reporter. \u201cThey made me sign a contract that said that if you have problems, that you have to talk to management, never with the media. People are afraid they will be fired,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Burleson denied this. \u201cIt\u2019s not true that we have a policy requiring team members sign contracts indicating they will be terminated for speaking to media,\u201d he said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Licolli, the worker advocate, said Tyson was not testing workers widely enough and not sharing information about known cases. \u201cThe biggest concern right now is that the company is suppressing the information of how many workers are already sick,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cWe want Tyson to be transparent and to follow the recommendations under the CDC guidance that says workers must be notified and areas should be shut down [for] deep cleaning, and to allow workers to come back to work once it\u2019s safe,\u201d Licolli said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Burleson said the company would not publicly release numbers of cases at its facilities \u201cdue to the ever-changing nature of the situation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cIf there is a confirmed case at one of our locations, as part of our protocol and in collaboration with health officials, we notify anyone who has been in close contact with the person. We also inform team members who have not been exposed and provide information to our supervisors so they can help answer questions,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n ***<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n McMullen, the health department official, said Trump\u2019s April 28 executive order changed the state agency\u2019s approach to COVID-19 cases in poultry plants. Because meat processors are now considered \u201ccritical infrastructure,\u201d even workers who have had sustained, direct exposure to a COVID-19-positive person may be told to continue to work.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Burleson said Tyson had not changed its policies regarding plant closures as a result of the critical-infrastructure designation. \u201cFrom the start, Tyson has followed the CDC and OSHA guidance and risk assessments as they have evolved to determine which team members to isolate from the workplace and when to return them to work,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Jackson, the Simmons executive, said the company requires quarantine \u201cfor any team members who have been in close contact with another team member who has tested positive.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Burleson said Tyson had boosted pay for quarantined workers. \u201cAll employees who have tested positive will remain on sick leave until they have satisfied official health requirements outlined by the CDC for return to work, and we have increased short-term disability coverage to 90% of normal pay until June 30 to encourage team members to stay home when they are sick,\u201d he wrote. Previously, short-term disability only provided 20 hours\u2019 worth of pay out of a 40-hour work week.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The increase followed public pressure, including the campaign organized by Venceremos. But, Licolli said, \u201cthey won't necessarily inform this to workers, so I know many of them don't know about this.\u201d Both Mar\u00eda and Jos\u00e9 told the Arkansas Nonprofit News Network they thought Tyson was still providing disability pay equivalent to just 50 percent of a typical work week.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n ***<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Workers at meat-processing plants across the state are often immigrants and often undocumented. Immigrants who work in poultry processing in Arkansas are primarily from Mexico and Central America, but also include the Marshallese<\/a> and the Burmese<\/a>. A 2018 investigation of the meat-processing industry by Bloomberg Businessweek<\/a> found that about a third of meat-industry workers were foreign-born noncitizens.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cLer Pwe Paw,\u201d a refugee from Myanmar, has worked in sanitation at Tyson in Clarksville for three years alongside several members of his family. He is one of some 300 Burmese refugees who settled in Clarksville, many of whom work at Tyson. Ler Pwe Paw and his family are Karen, an ethnic minority that has faced military attacks and forced labor and have had homes and crops destroyed in Myanmar. He came to the U.S. in 2012 with his parents, fleeing ethnic persecution.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Ler Pwe Paw said that Tyson was providing masks and checking temperatures, but that social distancing still proved a challenge. \u201cI don\u2019t want to get coronavirus, and I\u2019m scared \u2014 I don\u2019t want that,\u201d he said, adding that he was more worried about his father, who is almost 70 and also works at Tyson. Ler Pwe Paw makes $12.75 an hour and overall he said, \u201cIt is a good job.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n McMullen said immigrant workers may be especially vulnerable to COVID-19 because of discrimination, poverty, a lack of health insurance and other factors. \u201cSome of these people might be undocumented, and in that case some of them might be fearful to come forward. \u2026 They may be very sensitive to losing a paycheck,\u201d he said. McMullen said he was concerned that some immigrants might feel the need to keep coming to work even if they didn\u2019t feel well.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Jos\u00e9 has thought about quitting, but he has children and his job options are limited with so many businesses closed. Everyone he works with is scared, he said. The same day management confirmed a worker in the plant had tested positive for COVID-19, he said, \u201cthey told us that we could stay home but we wouldn\u2019t be paid. They said we would only be paid if we got sick from the virus. It is like making fun of us and saying, \u2018Get sick, and I will pay you.\u2019 People have no other choice.\u201d Arkansas poultry plants see 64 COVID-19 cases and at least one death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":22430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[155,251],"tags":[213,214,289,290,215,211,288,212],"class_list":["post-22428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-economic-hardship","tag-arkansas-department-of-health","tag-magaly-licolli","tag-meatpacking","tag-poultry-industry","tag-richard-mcmullen","tag-simmons-foods","tag-tyson-foods","tag-venceremos"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/arknews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/chicken-1-web-667x1000.jpg\")
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This story was supported by the journalism nonprofit the <\/em>Economic Hardship Reporting Project.<\/em><\/a> It\u2019s also courtesy of the <\/em>Arkansas Nonprofit News Network<\/em><\/a>, an independent, nonpartisan news project dedicated to producing journalism that matters to Arkansans.<\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"