On Slaughterhouse Floor, Fear and Anger Remain

“The signs are just there so they can say that they care for the employees, but they don’t,” said Agustina Gordo, 37, who has worked at the Greeley plant for four years.

Last year, during the first wave of the pandemic, plant managers told employees not to wear their own masks while urging them not to discuss Covid for fear of spooking the work force, said Ms. Pastrana. Now, not wearing a mask can bring disciplinary action, she added. Yet masks present their own dangers, fogging up glasses, and preventing line workers from seeing clearly as they are cutting meat.

The JBS spokeswoman said workers “have access to anti-fog wipes and spray to ensure they can safely conduct their jobs while wearing masks.”

More than a year after her mother’s death, Ms. Twin, 30, struggles to recount the story without breaking down.

“My mother was the only family that I had,” Ms. Twin said as she held her son, Felix, now 20 months old. “I said, ‘Please don’t work in the plant anymore.’ She said: ‘I have to pay the bills. I’m strong. I’ll be OK.’”

Ms. Twin’s mother was a member of the Karen ethnic minority, which has long engaged in armed struggle with the military in Myanmar. In the early 1990s, her family fled over the border to a refugee camp in Thailand.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/business/meat-factories-covid.html