Managers At Tyson Meat Plant Placed Bets On How Many Workers Would Get COVID-19
A new lawsuit alleges that managers at a Tyson meat plant placed bets on how many workers would get COVID-19. In the wrongful death suit that was originally filed this summer by Oscar Fernandez, whose father Isidro Fernandez died in April after complications from coronavirus, it was revealed that supervisors at a pork processing facility in Waterloo, Iowa began a betting pool.
Additionally, in Fernandez’s suit, he alleges that Tyson did not take sufficient measures to protect its workers, and instead encouraged employees to show up for work, despite being sick. As mentioned, the suit was originally filed in the summer, however, in November, it was amended to include shocking allegations about the managers in Waterloo. It’s stated that a plant manager organized “a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for Covid-19.”
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Per the updated suit, in late March/early April, “most managers at the Waterloo Facility started avoiding the plant floor because they were afraid of contracting the virus.” As the virus spread on the meatpacking floor, managers reportedly canceled safety meetings and threw their duties on “low-level supervisors with no management training or experience.” The suit even goes as far to claim that once managers learned of the positive cases in the plant, they told other supervisors to “deny their existence.”
Tyson CEO Dean Banks released a statement on Thursday responding to the allegations, stating, “We are extremely upset about the accusations involving some of the leadership at our Waterloo plant. These allegations do not represent who we are. If these claims are confirmed, we’ll take all measures necessary to root out and remove this disturbing behavior from our company.”
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