Who’s to Blame for a Factory Shutdown: A Company, or California?

“I was proud,” she said, recalling the early months at her new job.

Ms. Robles is the sole provider for her family. Her husband has several health complications, including surviving a heart attack in recent months, so she now shoulders the $2,000 mortgage payment for their home in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Sometimes her 20-year-old son, who recently started working at the plant, helps with expenses.

“But this is my responsibility — it is on me to provide,” she said.

Ms. Robles has long recited the Lord’s Prayer every night before bed, and now she often finds herself repeating it throughout the day for strength.

“They’re kicking us out with no answers,” she said.

Other workers, like Mario Melendez, 67, who has worked at the plant for a decade, shares that unmoored feeling.

It’s an honor to know his labor helps feed people across Southern California, he said — especially around the holidays, when the factory’s ribs, ham and hot dogs will be part of people’s celebrations.

But the factory is also a place where he contracted coronavirus, which he passed along to his brother, who died of the virus, as did his mother. He was devastated.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/business/economy/smithfield-california-factory.html