Meatpacker JBS Removed At-Risk Workers from Beef Plant Amid Covid-19 Surge

Meatpacking company JBS USA Holdings Inc. said it has removed hundreds of at-risk workers from a Colorado beef plant in response to rising Covid-19 infections, as the U.S. meat industry seeks to defend itself against the pandemic’s current surge. JBS’s move comes as the largest U.S. beef processor faces a fresh Covid-19 outbreak in Greeley, Colo., where the company maintains a beef plant that employs about 3,500 people, making it one of the country’s largest. U.S. meatpackers are shoring up defenses to keep Covid-19 out of plants that collectively employ hundreds of thousands of workers, supplying meat to fast-food chains and supermarkets. Rapidly spreading infections associated with U.S. meatpacking plants last spring killed dozens of workers, forced widespread shutdowns and led to shortages in some meat products, while backing up livestock on farms. JBS on Nov. 7 removed 202 Greeley plant workers considered vulnerable to the coronavirus due to age and other factors, a JBS spokesman said. Those workers are getting full pay and benefits and can return to work after community-infection rates decrease, he said. The step has had marginal effect on the plant’s beef production, according to the company. JBS’s response represents one of the biggest Covid-19 containment efforts by a major meatpacker during the current infection surge, and shows the challenges the $213 billion U.S. meat industry still faces while awaiting vaccines’ arrival. JBS and other meat companies, including Tyson Foods Inc., Cargill Inc. and Smithfield Foods Inc., responded to the pandemic by installing automated temperature checks at plant entrances and partitions between processing line-work stations, while requiring masks and sitting workers farther apart in company cafeterias. Some are testing employees randomly to guard against asymptomatic workers unknowingly spreading the virus, and expanding paid sick leave so infected employees aren’t tempted to keep reporting to work...WSJ