Green Bay among four JBS affiliates to reach settlement with OSHA after COVID-19 outbreaks that killed 2 workers
Natalie Eilbert
GREEN BAY - The JBS meatpacking plant in Green Bay has reached a settlement with federal regulators to improve its infectious disease planning two years after hundreds of workers contracted COVID-19 and two died.
The Green Bay meat processing company is among four JBS Foods USA affiliates cited for failing to adequately protect workers in the early months of COVID-19 at seven total facilities in six states. All four affiliates are part of the deal with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
JBS Green Bay Inc. and Swift Beef Co. also agreed to pay an assessed penalty of $14,502 to OSHA.
“This settlement is intended to ensure that, going forward, protective measures are in place to protect workers at these facilities from COVID-19 and other infectious diseases as well,” said OSHA’s regional administrator, Jennifer Rous, in a press release. “This settlement will positively impact the safety and health of JBS employees far beyond the two facilities where these inspections occurred.”
The settlement comes over two years after OSHA began investigating an outbreak at JBS Green Bay's plant that had resulted in 147 infected employees by April 22, 2020. The facility shut down four days later but reopened May 6, 2020. By mid-August of that year, 357 employees had tested positive for COVID-19 and two had died, according to OSHA.
The worker rights group Voces de la Frontera filed complaints to OSHA on April 13, 2020, about two meatpacking facilities in Green Bay, JBS and American Foods. Voces demanded the plants supply masks, enforce social distancing and make workers aware of COVID-19 exposures.
The organization also asked for mandatory paid sick leave for companies with more than 500 employees.
Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, told the Green Bay Press-Gazette on Friday she was encouraged by the settlement agreement and it's instilled more faith in government oversight agencies.
"What was happening when we filed the complaint in April of 2020 — at the height of the outbreak — was there was money to be made," Neumann-Ortiz said. "Workers had been working under unsafe, unprotected conditions, were getting sick, and there wasn't any kind of intervention until workers reached out (to Voces)."
Voces responded by filing the complaints and creating the Essential Workers Rights Network, which supports and trains employees in demanding health, safety and equity.
More:JBS plant in Green Bay linked to 147 coronavirus cases as meatpacking outbreaks continue to spread
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The agreement with OSHA means JBS subsidiaries and affiliates will collaborate with third-party experts to assess the four plants' operating procedures and draw up an infectious disease preparedness plan. It also will lead to an updated Safe Work Playbook with a focus on reducing COVID-19 exposure among workers, according to OSHA.
The experts will determine safety measures in spaces where workers gather to reduce potential exposure to COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, according to the federal agency's news release issued Friday.
Those evaluation measures will consider engineering, administrative and control areas that include ventilation, screening protocols for employees and visitors, and cleaning methods. The team will also stockpile personal protective equipment and respiratory protection needs for future outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics.
An OSHA statement said the settlement affects workers at JBS affiliates Swift Beef Co., with meat plants in Colorado, Nebraska and Texas; Swift Pork Co. in Beardstown, Illinois; JBS Souderton in Pennsylvania and JBS Green Bay, which is based at Lime Kiln Road.
The Swift Beef plant in Greeley, Colorado, was found to have breakdowns in health and safety measures similar to those in Green Bay, according to OSHA. By the end of July 2020, five Greeley workers had died from a COVID-19 outbreak that led to 290 confirmed positive cases and 51 hospitalized workers.
John Rainwater, U.S. Department of Labor regional solicitor in Dallas, Texas, said employers are legally obligated to ensure the workplace is safe and healthy and that the department holds those employers accountable when they fail that responsibility.
“Terrible tragedies occurred at JBS facilities in Greeley and Green Bay, and we will ensure that this agreement is in full force to prevent a mass outbreak from happening again,” Rainwater said.
Nikki Richardson, a spokesperson for JBS Foods USA , told the Press-Gazette Friday by email that the company is cooperating with OSHA and United Food and Commercial Workers International Union to develop adequate health and safety measures. That includes creating the infectious disease preparedness plan that was called for in the OSHA settlement agreement.
"In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we established an internal COVID-19 playbook – which was reviewed by third parties, including epidemiologists, and shared with local businesses and government agencies," Richardson said. "We welcome this opportunity to strengthen our processes and plan to implement this important resource across our U.S. business."
Neumann-Ortiz said she was especially pleased to hear JBS Green Bay will be implementing better air filtration, one of the demands for which Voces advocated. She was also encouraged by the company taking steps to improve its policies around paid sick leave.
That said, she'd like to see JBS Green Bay implement worker-led safety committees, which would give more control to workers about enforcing safety guides and demanding any unmet needs that challenge future operations.
Worker-led safety committees would also deter potential company retaliation, which Voces said employees sometimes have risked when they expressed unmet needs to the higher-ups.
"What we saw was the tension and the tension had to do with the company, which was prioritizing the production line and the money," Neumann-Ortiz said. "For workers, it was their lives on the line, and the lives of their family, their parents, their babies, their children. And we know the problem got really bad and then people did die."
Natalie Eilbert is a government watchdog reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. You can reach her at neilbert@gannett.com or view her Twitter profile at @natalie_eilbert.