Lawsuit claims meat plant bosses placed bets on how many workers would contract Covid-19

Tyson Foods plant in Waterloo, Iowa was the site of a coronavirus disease cluster early in the US outbreak

A case against meat production giant Tyson Foods claims that workers at an Iowa pork factory were ordered back to work in unsafe conditions – even as plant supervisors privately took bets on how many would be infected with Covid-19.

The suit, brought by the family of deceased worker Isidro Fernandez, alleges that the company is guilty of “willful and wanton disregard for workplace safety” after at least five workers at the plant died.

According to the local health authority, more than 1,000 workers at the facility have contracted the virus. That amounts to more than a third of the plant’s workforce.

While the lawsuit was filed earlier this year, it has been amended with new allegations.

Among them are accusations that a manager specifically directed supervisors to come to work if they had symptoms of Covid-19, which he allegedly called a “glorified flu”, and that cash rewards were paid out to workers who showed up consistently, providing a perverse incentive to forgo sick leave.

The suit also alleges that managers avoided the factory floor for fear of infection, leaving enforcement of anti-coronavirus protocols to inexperienced supervisors.

Alongside these allegations comes the claim that a plant manager organised a winner-take-all cash betting pool where senior employees bet on how many employees would test positive for Covid-19.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Tyson Foods said it was “extremely upset” about the allegations involving senior staff.

“Tyson Foods is a family company with 139,000 team members,” it said, "and these allegations do not represent who we are,  or our Core Values and Team Behaviours. We expect every team member at Tyson Foods to operate with the utmost integrity and care in everything we do.

“We have suspended, without pay, the individuals allegedly involved and have retained the law firm Covington & Burling LLP to conduct an independent investigation led by former Attorney General Eric Holder. If these claims are confirmed, we’ll take all measures necessary to root out and remove this disturbing behaviour from our company.”

The Waterloo plant, which is the principal employer in its county and one of the US’s largest pork production sites, was hit by the coronavirus in the spring, with employees testing positive as early as March.

One worker at the Tyson Foods plant, 44-year-old Jose Ayala, died of Covid-19 in May after being admitted to an intensive care unit. Before his death, a fellow worker launched a social media campaign to try and contact his family in Texas; he succeeded in putting them in touch just before Mr Alaya entered a severe decline.

Outbreaks at meat plants have become something of a theme in the US’s coronavirus story, particularly in the midwest, which is now facing a new surge in infections and hospitalisations.

Much like the plant in Waterloo, a Smithfield meat factory in Sioux Falls, South Dakota became a Covid-19 hotspot in the spring, eventually seeing more than 1,200 infections among its workforce; at least four of them had died by the end of the summer, and at one point, the infections traced to the plant made up more than 40 per cent of the state’s infections.

As coronavirus numbers shatter daily and weekly records across the US, South Dakota is now one of the worst-hit states; only North Dakota is suffering more badly. Iowa too is battling a vertiginous surge, with an average of more than 4,000 cases per day over the last week.