Latino Community Leaders Speak Out on Safety Concerns Across Nebraska's Meatpacking Plants

Around a quarter of Nebraska’s COVID-19 patients work at a meatpacking plant: that’s over 2,600 sick employees. According to members of Las Voces, an advocacy group of Latino community members, many of those workers are immigrants and people of color.

According to New American Economy, a bi-partisan immigration research group, 28.7% of the food processing workforce is foreign born. Immigrant workers comprise 49.1% of meat processing workers and 53.6% of hand packers and packagers.

The group gathered on a zoom call Thursday morning to discuss their ongoing concerns about worker safety in Nebraska's meatpacking plants. Yolanda Nuncio of Grand Island feels the state's Latino and Hispanic communities--both immigrant and native-born--have been disproportionately impacted by outbreaks. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, nearly half of meatpacking workers across the country are Latino. She said many workers have told her they still feel afraid to to go work, despite some plants' recent efforts to adopt OSHA pandemic safety guidelines.

"Specific plants are now taking measures to provide social social distancing, sanitizers, staggered breaks, and PPE. Unfortunately, these efforts may be seen as too little too late," she said.

Nuncio added some plants are still not being transparent with workers about how many of their peers are sick. While three plants across Nebraska have closed due to the crisis, it's only clear for one of them how many cases the plant had--the Tyson Foods facility in Madison.

After the plant idled to deep clean and test all of its workers, over 200 positive cases were discovered. At least 70 of them had no symptoms of the virus.

Las Voces wants the state of Nebraska to require employers to release case counts for their plants so workers can know the scope of infection--asymptomatic or not--in their workplaces. The state has decided it will only release the total number of workers across Nebraska who are sick, instead of plant-by-plant data. Local health departments have not been barred from releasing any information themselves, but have struggled to keep up with data and case management while navigating their day-to-day response to community outbreaks.

"We are not asking for violations of HIPAA, but we are asking for transparency and releasing information that may help us protect ourselves, our families and our communities."

Marty Ramirez, another activist with the group, feels the state has treated workers like they are "dispensable" by forcing them to work at plants with high infection rates and the risk of serious illness.
"Where is the support of the pro life community, who greatly value life? They are nowhere to be seen, nor heard. Why are we pitting the values of respect and dignity of life versus the business economy?"

Ramirez added the impacts of the pandemic on Latinos and other groups of color do not end with the fear of catching the virus. He said messaging around who is getting sick--and how--has emotionally impacted many workers and their family, who feel their identities have been scapegoated to explain high infection rates in plants.

"We're also witnessing a pattern of some business community and political leaders blaming the employees cultural and living conditions instead of their working conditions," he said. Some state officials and experts have indicated that denser housing situations among some immigrant meatpacking worker communities can complicate controlling the spread of the virus in meatpacking plants.

"As one looks at the history of Nebraska, the current crisis is another example of how historically Latinos and Hispanics have been viewed."

Among other requests, the group wants the state to test more plant workers, give workers a platform to express their concerns without retaliation, and provide support for workers’ mental health during the crisis.

Governor Ricketts says the state has been trying to protect plant employees by encouraging companies to follow safety guidance issued by experts at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

"We've talked about employment practices, such as not dinging people for missing work, and that sort of thing, make sure there's pay for staying home being sick, or short term disability," he explained.

He added the state has encouraged plants to install plexiglass between workers on the line and require employees to wear masks, as part of "all the steps to try and take what is admittedly a very difficult environment to socially distance, and be able to put those steps in place to help with worker health and safety."

Ricketts has also deployed the Nebraska National Guard to several meatpacking communities over the course of the pandemic to test workers, including Grand Island, Madison, and Lexington.
But members of Las Voces want those policies to become legally enforceable, similarly to Nebraska's Directed Health Measures that closed schools, restaurants, and gyms.

And they're not alone: other advocacy organizations like Nebraska Appleseed, Heartland Workers Center have pushed for similar policies. Some regular community-led demonstrations have also cropped up across Nebraska, organized by workers and their family members.

Las Voces members said they intend to expand their advocacy to in-person events, starting with a drive-by vigil for essentials workers soon.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include more data around worker demographic across U.S. meatpacking plants, and to clarify a source's comments on worker safety concerns in plants.