For 3 years, Alberto Martinez worked at Calumet Diversified Meats in Pleasant Prairie, spent 12 hours a day and set aside $160 a week to help her daughter educate hemselves.
When the pandemic spread across the country in late March, Wisconsin locked itself in. But Martinez, like thousands of other meatpacking employees, continued to show up for the job. He considered it essential.
Three weeks later, on April 15, he died of COVID-19.
On the same day, Kenosha County Health Division officials won a message from a relative of another Calumet Diversified Meats employee who alerted them to the death, said three other employees at the plant had the disease, and expressed considerations about the lack of protective measures.
“A member of my circle of relatives works there, and she and I are very concerned,” the father wrote.
Calumet’s staff continued to test positive and two weeks later passed away.
In one of the top comprehensive reviews of food plant situations in the pandemic, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel survey shows that Wisconsin’s major facilities failed to take good enough protective measures a few weeks after the crisis began, putting thousands of others at risk. As epidemics increased, the government failed to take strong action against some of the factories with maximum problems, despite warnings from staff and their advocates.
The disease has hit industry staff hard: at least 1,527 Wisconsin staff members at 83 meat packaging and food processing plants tested positive for coronavirus, 8 of whom died, according to state data. Many sufferers are Hispanic immigrants, adding undocumented staff. Nationwide, more than 17,000 meat and poultry packing employees tested positive and at least 91 died.
RELATED: Farm staff who run grocery stores are at the biggest threat of coronavirus
The Journal Sentinel surveyed 36 workers at five Wisconsin food plants who had COVID-19 outbreaks, 4 of whom had more than 20 cases shown. The Journal Sentinel also reviewed thousands of pages of government documents received through public document requests, adding email exchanges between fitness officials and business leaders.
At the Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in Cudahy, just south of Milwaukee, 10 workers told the Journal Sentinel they witnessed the company taking at least two weeks after its first reported COVID-19 case on March 23 to adopt some critical safeguards. Eleven workers said employees were told to use mesh beard hairnets over their mouths as a preventive measure against the disease. Four workers said that before the company provided face masks, some employees brought their own but were told not to use them.
On April 7, two weeks after the first positive case reported at Smithfield, a worker’s son wrote to state fitness authorities, saying the company is “doing very little or nothing” to prevent infections.
“Please do anything and protect the community,” the guy wrote in an email sent to the city of Cudahy and the company.
In early May, 86 Smithfield employees at the Cudahy plant had the virus.
In response to questions from the Journal Sentinel, Keira Lombardo, Smithfield’s executive vice president of corporate affairs and compliance, said the company temporarily followed safeguards that met or exceeded federal guidelines.
“We’re doing everything we can, as fast as we can,” Lombardo said in a statement. He claimed that the company provided a face mask as temporarily as possible and allowed the staff to put on theirs. He did not address the accounts of staff that they had been told to wear hair tights as opposite coverage of the virus.
Raquel Sanchez said she tested positive in mid-April while running through one of The American Foods Group’s green bay plants. But she said that, in her view, the company had not told other employees, adding those who worked within 6 feet of it, that they might have been exposed. She said she felt compelled to do it herself.
“They’ve been told, ” he said.
Around the same time Sanchez learned he had the disease, the border immigration advocacy organization Voices of Angels filed a full report with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA’s research on the Angelesint compilation is open.
American Foods did not respond to phone calls or comments by email.
At Calumet Diversified Foods, where Martinez worked, several officials answered emails with questions, and a representative when he was contacted by phone declined to comment.
Jennifer Miller, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, said that at the beginning of the pandemic, little was known about the threat of the spread of the disease in meat-packing plants. Since then, he said, the branch has provided recommendations to the industry and has worked with the local government to test workers. She said the state did not have the legal authority to close troubled factories, but some legal experts disagree.
And while some states have imposed comprehensive protections opposed to COVID-19 for workers, Wisconsin has not.
OSHA, whose project is to ensure some protection in the workplace, did not inspect the plants at the request of the staff between March and mid-April, as COVID-19 was extended to food processing facilities.
RELATED: Workers are in poor health and die, however, OSHA would possibly not take strong action against corporations that do not comply with COVID-19 guidelines
After OSHA won two court cases about the Smithfield Cudahy plant on March 27, the company called the facility and learned that it did not offer a mask or could not leave production workers behind. Instead of opening an inspection, OSHA sent the company a brief letter with recommendations on how to combat “flu-like viruses” and links to government websites containing COVID-19 data.
By the end of July, the company had yet cited any U.S. food plant. For COVID-19 security breaches.
Alberto Martínez worked at Calumet Diversified Meats not only to pay for his daughter’s college, but also for his circle of relatives in Mexico. I was making plans to move from home in a few months.
Instead, he died at age 51 in a Kenosha County hospital of COVID-19. His daughter Tania Martínez said goodbye on the phone, 1,700 miles away, in Mexico City.
She said the pandemic, her father went to the paintings until early April, when he fell ill and had to be hospitalized.
Two days after her admission, she called her to tell her doctors searched for intubation. He opposed the procedure, but his framework failed. She told her daughter to be okay in case they no longer communicated.
The next day, he found out his father had no chance. A nurse put a phone in her room and the woman fired.
“I told her I told her a lot,” she says.
Meat packing plants have been fertile soil for the virus, basically because the staff paints a lot for hours. Separating staff would possibly mean having to curb production, and factories have been seen as essential blockades throughout the state.
As the facilities remained open, safety guidance evolved. In early March, OSHA suggested businesses install physical barriers, such as sneeze guards. By late March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said employers should implement social distancing if recommended by their state and local health authorities. On April 3, the agency recommended the public wear masks, reversing previous guidance.
The CDC failed to take into account the express rules for meat packing plants until April 26, a month after some of the industry’s first outbreaks began. The company that corporations separate workers, install barriers, supply masks and stumble upon workers’ symptoms.
By this time, the Calumet epidemic, one of the most serious food factories in the state, had already spread.
Martinez died on April 15. According to a colleague at Calumet’s, at the time of his death, the company had implemented significant COVID-19 protection measures, such as the separation of all 6-foot personnel and the installation of plexiglass barriers between staff.
That day, a relative of another Calumet employee filed a similar complaint on the Kenosha County Health Division website, saying the owner did not take preventive action.
A week later, on April 23, a Calumet representative sent an email to a worker in the county’s fitness division, stating that the company knew 18 people who were “positive, prospective, or presumed” from COVID-19.
“The list of other people related to those other people would be the whole company,” the email says.
The day after the death of a moment, Calumet’s worker, the Wisconsin National Guard, in association with Kenosha County, evaluated 135 Calumet employees. A Kenosha County official wrote in an email that the county did not shape staff with commands “because any of the examinees will be quarantined until the effects return, meaning no one would go to work.”
They returned to work, adding some whose verification effects were positive.
On May 8, the county will publicly verify the deaths of two Calumet employees and 22 employees who tested positive for the National Guard, as well as in other instances at some other company. Jen Freiheit, head of the county’s fitness division, told a county spokesman in an email that he “puts things in a positive light.”
“We can communicate about everything those two plants have done in cooperation,” he wrote in an email.
A county press later in the day said Calumet operated with a minimum number of workers for two weeks and then closed its doors for a week to disinfect. All workers wore masks and masks and were examined. The corporate had changed departure times and painted the floor with 6-foot markings.
The press release cites “the administration of the company”: “We are doing everything we can to ensure the protection of each worker and will continue to do so during this pandemic.”
But in mid-May, about a week later, a Calumet painter told the Journal Sentinel that some painters continued to paint within six feet of barrier-free between them.
It is publicly known what security measures have been implemented lately. Freiheit provided this information.
Calumet executives did not respond to the emails. Contacted by phone, a corporate representative said: “We don’t communicate with reporters, but thank you for calling. Have a smart day.”
Workers at four other Wisconsin plants said services lacked promises when the pandemic occurred and weeks later.
Most of the 36 interviewees through the Journal Sentinel asked for anonymity because of concerns about retaliation from their employers. They included single mothers, family supporter with young children, 60 and a woman with a diabetic husband.
At Echo Lake Foods, an egg and frozen processor in Burlington, corporate officials posted a letter at the plant on April 21 saying that the fitness government advised others to stay home when they were sick.
But the company did not grant paid leave in poor health to those who tested positive, five workers said, adding one that had to be hospitalized after hiring COVID-19.
“I felt I couldn’t do it,” the employee said. “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even stand it.”
Another painter stated that the painters returned to the paintings even though they were sick. Without a paycheck, he said, “How are you doing to your family?”
Only employers with fewer than 500 employees are legally required to provide COVID-19 paid leave. It is known how many Echo Lake Foods employees they employ; The corporate provided a number.
Five staff members reported that the company had not screened staff for fever or symptoms, a measure through the CDC to help prevent poor health personnel from getting to work. Voices of the Angels Frontier presented a Angelesint compilation to OSHA at the end of April. The agency’s investigation into the comples angelesin is open.
Echo Lake Foods officials did not respond to phone calls and emails. The company, Central Racine County Health Department and the state would not provide the number of infections.
In Cudahy, at the Smithfield plant it had tested positive for COVID-19 at least since March 23, according to a report by the Intel COVID-19 epidemiology team in Milwaukee County.
The company has been tracking staff for fever since about March 30, but only began offering a mask the week of April 13, at least 10 days after the CDC advised its use, staff said.
Three employees reported that the company separated staff through 6 feet in early April in some areas. But in others, the staff said, many had to paint within 6 feet of others without barriers until Smithfield started the final plant around April 19.
“We were all concerned about the inflammation, death and infection of our families,” said one Smithfield worker.
Smithfield, in Virginia, the world’s largest red meat processor, has more than 40 American plants, according to its website. Lombardo, the head of the company, said his factories had installed physical barriers in production spaces and bathrooms; masks and face protectors provided; and conducted loose tests on the site, among other measures.
Lombardo said that until April 3, the CDC had ordered that the mask, which was rare, be reserved for medical staff and not sent to unedfected people. The company, he said, worked tirelessly to protect non-public protective devices and was able to provide masks to its staff within a week of CDC’s revision of the rules to imply that the general public deserves to use them.
In Green Bay, home to several American Foods Group plants, a total of 203 workers tested positive in early May when Brown County stopped publishing the data.
Five reported that the staff of one of the plants worked in appearance without barriers separating them until the end of May, more than a month after the CDC issued industry-specific standards that recomposed social estrangement and barriers in meat mills.
“We’re all like a box of sardines,” one employee told Sentinel Journal last May.
Many used masks brought from home, workers said. They said the ones that the company most often provided in May through July were made of a thin layer of cloth. The CDC and OSHA have said since late April that cloth masks should have multiple layers of fabric.
American Foods worker Filiberto Reyes said he sent the house in late April, not knowing if he had been fired after raising protection concerns, according to an OSHA complos angelesint whistleblower who filed with the assistance of Voices of the Frontiers.
The complaint says he and other staff told the control that they were running faster due to a lack of staff and that their face mask was rainy from sweat, which spilled over raw meat.
An official told staff that no one had swelled up and that there was nothing to fear, according to the complaint. Later in the shift, a manager distributed a face mask to those who had expressed concern.
The next day, according to the comples Angelesint, he and some other employee raised concerns of angels. Reyes ordered home. Reyes los Angelester said Voces de los Angeles Frontera helped him keep his job.
In its reaction to OSHA’s Angelesint compilation, American Foods Group said the company had suspended Reyes because it had left a production line without authorization and insubordinate while arguing with a foreman, according to records provided to the Journal through Voices of the Frontier Angels. Reyes denied neglecting his task or not being submissive.
At the Birds Eye vegetable processing plant in Darien, 221 of the more than 800 tested positive, according to Michael Cummins, spokesperson for Chicago-based Conagra Brands, which owns the plant.
Employees and the defense organization UMOS expressed considerations last April and mid-May on the protection of the company’s housing for migrant workers.
Brothers Abraham and Kevin Nieto of Texas said they had warned a housing official that some other employee at their barracks had health problems. Coughing and sweating, ” said one of the brothers. Another guy who lived in the barracks told the Journal Sentinel that the guy in poor health was vomiting.
All three staff members stated that the patient was not removed for approximately two weeks. The brothers said they tested positive for COVID-19 in late April.
Cummins, a spokesman for Conagra Brands, said Darien’s plant and human resources officials disputed the employees’ account that an employee in poor fitness had not been evicted from the barracks. Cummins stated that as soon as an employee showed symptoms of illness, he was examined and quarantined, and a health care professional had to do so before returning to work.
A complaint filed through UMOS with the Department of Labor Development stated that positive results allowed them to mingle with others.
Cummins said the company had placed the positive result in a separate home and asked them to stay away from other employees.
The UMOS to the State Workforce Development Department has been referred to OSHA, whose research into the company’s practices is ongoing.
Christopher Guyon, director of the Birds Eye plant, said that by mid-March, the company had tried to keep the beds away as much as you could imagine and required staff to sleep in all others. The barracks now houses about 20 employees, compared to one hundred before the pandemic, Cummins said. If staff prefer to get their own accommodation, the company grants subsidies to cover the costs.
Cummins stated that the plant had tested positive for COVID-19 since early June.
When the CDC and OSHA issued rules for the packaging of meat and poultry plants on April 26, much of the recommendation was covered through “if possible” or “if possible,” giving corporations flexibility as to what action to take.
And as OSHA began opening inspections due to court cases about protecting COVID-19 in food factories, the virus had spread to many facilities. An OSHA knowledge investigation from mid-March to April 19, the firm won at least 73 COVID-19 court cases on plants in states where OSHA applies office protection. But the company did not open an inspection on any of them until April 20.
In addition, OSHA does not have to publish COVID-19 emergency criteria that would facilitate corporate responsibility.
OSHA spokeswoman Emily Weeks said the firm already had regulations for workers. She said OSHA investigates all complaints, has worked 24 hours for workers, and OSHA and THE CDC have developed recommendations for meat-packing plants as temporarily as possible. The CDC didn’t answer the questions.
Across the country, some national and local fitness governments, adding the Milwaukee Health Commissioner, have ordered factories to temporarily close outbreaks. But many local governments in Wisconsin have not closed the services or guarantees imposed.
According to records, at the Smithfield plant in Cudahy, federal regulators and local officials have not taken steps from the company to prevent him from harm.
On March 27, 4 days after the first case reported to the plant, OSHA won two court cases about the facility. When an OSHA official called the company, a Smithfield official reported that the plant had protective measures in place, however, it supplied the mask and made no adjustments to separate staff from production lines.
OSHA closed the investigation without examining the facility. At the time, the CDC did not present a mask for those who did not have COVID-19 and had no symptoms. But the firm said employers deserve to put social estrangement into effect if they receive counseling through state and local authorities. At the time, Wisconsin’s “safer at home” order required an essential business to ensure the greatest social distance imaginable.
Company officials told OSHA they were running with the Cudahy City Department of Health to protect the workers. But records show that the city has struggled to achieve the company’s cooperation.
On April 9, the city’s head of fitness, Katie Lepak, emailed Ian Pray, a CDC epidemiologist running for the state’s fitness department, saying Smithfield executives had told her a day earlier that nine inflamed employees were not “much” in the workforce. 1,100. Lepak wrote that he was told that the company followed CDC rules and had closed the lines for a day to go blank.
“They said yes and reported speaking to Vice President Pence on Tuesday. They talked about their importance in the food source chain,” Lepak wrote.
At the time, workers told the Journal Sentinel that the company had not yet provided a face mask and that many workers were running within 6 feet of others.
Two days later, 19 instances of COVID-19 were connected to the Cudahy plant. Pray wrote to Lepak, expressing fear of the outbreak, noting that only about 200 employees tested positive at the Smithfield plant in South Dakota.
“I hope Smithfield takes this seriously,” he wrote, adding that he hoped the stage in Cudahy would “not continue climbing.”
The next day, April 12, Lepak won two emails from the workers’ parents and one from a worker’s lawyer. “Many workers care about their lives, yet they don’t have selection because they still have to feed their families,” an email said.
Two days later, Lepak asked the company to join in to manage the symptoms. It took Smithfield at least three days to accept.
On April 14, Lepak emailed Smithfield’s manager, Phil Maher, saying that the city’s fitness officials searched for staff to locate the pitfalls for review and that the city wishes to marry the company to check on staff with symptoms.
At 1:26 a.m. the next day, Lepak sent an email to the manager, saying he had not yet gained a reaction to the painters’ test: “It’s still a call for us to Phil’s mixed paintings.”
That day, Smithfield announced a voluntary closure of the plant that would begin later in the week, more than 3 weeks after the first cases.
Two days later, Lepak emailed Maher, involved in the lack of reaction to his request: “We are in a public fitness emergency and there is urgency around this issue.”
It is not known when Smithfield agreed to join for the tests. On April 20, nearly a week after Lepak first discussed the evidence, Smithfield’s director said in an email that the company was looking for all the workers evaluated.
Maher responded to requests for comment.
When asked why Smithfield took at least 3 days to respond to the city’s request for staff to verify COVID-19 symptoms, Lombardo, the company’s manager and representatives of MWWPR, a New York-based public relations firm working with Smithfield, did not directly answer the question
Lombardo said, “Do you think three days were too long to coordinate the mass of employees? In your opinion, were 3 days too fast to be sure that all the protocols were in place? Isn’t that right?”
She wrote that the detection of symptomatic workers is mandatory at Smithfield, but said when this policy began.
In a press in early May, Lepak expressed positive movements through the corporation and local union: “His cooperation with the public aptitude survey and the initiative to implement protective measures and temporarily close the plant helped involve the spread of this virus. “
Lepak and Cudahy Mayor Thomas Pavlic answered questions about his handling of the epidemic.
Today, it is not known how many factory employees have the disease. In early May, number 86. The company will not provide an update, nor will the city of Cudahy.
RELATED: Mayor may not say how many staff at Patrick Cudahy plant have coronavirus when OSHA opens research into protective practices
And for three months, the Journal Sentinel asked state officials to provide the figures.
They haven’t been provided yet.