For her father, who began at the plant 15 years ago after migrating from Mexico, “it wasn’t an option if you go to work,” she said. Birhe recalls a series of conversations with her cousins about whether they should try to get their parents to stop going to work. For both daughters, Amy Cruz and Sara Telahun Birhe, the Smithfield plant was an ever-present backdrop since their earliest memories.As more people called in sick, Smithfield management stayed mostly silent about the severity of the crisis at the Sioux Falls facility, only informing employees about a confirmed case if they’d recently been “in contact” with the person, according to the spokesperson, while encouraging others in company text messages to “Please report to work as previously scheduled.”A letter provided to Smithfield employees for use in case they are asked why they are out.“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” Smithfield President and CEO Kenneth Sullivan said in a statement that day. Those with a fever were sent home with instructions for where to get tested.When she asked him if everyone else was done too, he shook his head and said, “Others still need to go in tomorrow.” ●Cruz’s mother, four of her uncles, and an aunt have all worked at the plant for more than two decades since migrating from Guatemala; one of those uncles tested positive two weeks after Cruz’s mother did.Birhe and her cousins were used to seeing their parents come home from work exhausted, plopping down on the couch to rest before dinner, going to bed early for 6 a.m. shifts.
The first case arrived when the pandemic was in full swing, with much of the country shutting down and companies everywhere changing the way they worked. “He’s proud of what he does. While 45 states have issued stay-at-home orders, the governor has declined to do so.It is unclear how many cases Smithfield was aware of during this time. Gatluak found the meals delicious, he said: “Every day we get something new.” Three employees estimated that at least 200 people from various floors would be in the cafeteria at any given time. A BuzzFeed News investigation has uncovered new information showing the company did little to inform or protect employees during the critical two weeks after the first case at the plant surfaced. Though most of the plant had shut down, his department was near the end of the processing line, just before the meat was packed and loaded. “These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers.”Presented with a detailed list of questions, the spokesperson said that it was “purposefully misleading” to portray Smithfield “as reacting to a positive case rather than the very proactive approach” that the company took to the pandemic when it began, but she did not contest any specific facts.Katie Baker is an investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in London.The Smithfield Foods pork plant in South Dakota is closed indefinitely in the wake of its coronavirus outbreak.The company warned of the economic impact of an extended shutdown.Eighteen days after the first case, once 238 workers had tested positive, Smithfield paused operations on all floors for 48 hours to deep-clean the plant, as well as install dividers at workstations and plexiglass shields on cafeteria tables. For weeks, he’d been taking precautions to minimize the chances of exposing his mother and brother at home. One worker’s daughter, who requested anonymity, said that she, her brother, and her mother had all been laid off or furloughed from their own jobs. The Smithfield Foods pork plant in South Dakota is closed indefinitely in the wake of its coronavirus outbreak. The next morning he called the hospital, then took a test at a drive-through center.Two days later, Gatluak said he received his positive test result. He worked 13 hours that shift, until every piece of pork passing through his station was packaged.New details show how Smithfield Foods failed to take action in the crucial days before the plant turned into one of the nation’s largest coronavirus clusters.He began to feel a headache, fever, and chills after returning home from his shift. Like many of the hundreds of thousands of hourly workers who supply the country with food and other necessities, they faced the choice of going without a paycheck or risking their health for jobs that typically pay less than $20 an hour.Posted on April 20, 2020, at 4:44 p.m. ETText messages sent to Smithfield workers.Gatluak said he clocked in at work on April 10. “You have to breathe so hard.” When he got home that night, he started feeling ill.
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