Costco Meatpacking Worker: "We're All Worried About Getting Sick."

[Mike 03]

Buzzfeed
Posted on May 8, 2020, at 5:32 p.m. ET
Melissa Segura

As concerns about a meat shortage mount, a meatpacking worker discusses the fear of getting coronavirus while still needing to work

Costco announced Monday that it would be limiting the amount of meat and poultry each customer would be allowed to purchase because supplies had been affected by coronavirus outbreaks at meatpacking plants. On that same day, the first worker at one of Costco’s poultry producers, Lincoln Premium Poultry, died of COVID-19. The worker was one of 28 diagnosed at the Fremont, Nebraska, plant, which employs 1,100 workers, most of them immigrants.

With some plants closing because of the spread of the coronavirus, President Donald Trump has classified meat processing as critical infrastructure in a move to keep plants open and safeguard the nation’s food supply. The CDC reported nearly 5,000 meatpacking workers in 115 facilities across the country tested positive in April. At least 20 have died.

BuzzFeed News spoke with an employee of the Fremont plant. She asked that we not use her name for fear of retaliation by the company; BuzzFeed verified she worked for the company by checking her employee identification.

The employee arrived in the United States from Central America more than 10 years ago. She is an unauthorized immigrant who has mostly worked in meatpacking plants since arriving in the US. BuzzFeed News talked with her about what it’s like going to work in one of the virus’s hot spots, what she and her colleagues are talking about, and why she keeps showing up despite the dangers.

Read the transcript of this interview here: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/melissasegura/coronavirus-costco-meatpacking-workers-meat-shortage

[dem4decades]

1. I hope that Costco does the right thing, they seem to. Time for the country to repay those workers.

[PufPuf23]

2. The meat packing problem could be solved in the immediate and with long term benefit.

Meat packing could be addressed by the War Production Act and / or the National Guard.

Meat packing facilities could be modified or constructed for safe work that greatly reduces the risks of infection between the workers. I am thinking of a kosher on steroids type operation.

Existing meat packing workers could be retrained to work safely and productively in the new and modified facilities.

The long term benefits would include a much safer work environment and more professional line workers. The meat packing workers should be paid more because most of us find that type of skilled work distasteful but more so because the CV19 (or similar in future) impact is correlated with poor working conditions and poverty that both result in less than ideal sanitary conditions.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. This is just the tip of the Covid 19

berg. Infection rates are going through the roof in and around these meat plants. So far,every meat plant from the Kansas Border to the North Dakota Border and along hwy 81 is infected . Now all those same Meat Packing Houses along Minn hwy 23 from Souix Falls to St Cloud Minnesota are just now heating up as well as along hwy 7 in Central Minnesota.

Plain and simple,there are not enough Medical Facilities to even begin to handle what is coming.

[Squinch]

4. I imagine COSTCO at least provides PPE but I would still be terrified.