11-20-2020, 12:18 AM
Managers at Tyson meat plant had betting pool on how many workers would get Covid, lawsuit allegesTyson supervisors at a pork processing facility in Waterloo, Iowa took bets on how many workers would get infected with Covid-19, even as they took measures to protect themselves and denied knowledge of the spread of the illness at work, according to new allegations in a lawsuit against the company and some employees.
The wrongful death suit was originally filed this summer by Oscar Fernandez, whose father Isidro Fernandez died in April due to complications from Covid-19. Fernandez had worked at Tyson's Waterloo, Iowa facility, the company's largest pork processing plant, before he died. The suit alleged that Tyson did not take sufficient measures to protect workers, and that the company encouraged workers to come in while they were sick.
In November, the suit was amended to include troubling new allegations about the behaviors of leaders within the Waterloo facility.
According to the updated lawsuit, "most managers at the Waterloo Facility started avoiding the plant floor because they were afraid of contracting the virus" in late March or early April. While the virus spread on the meatpacking floor, managers delegated their duties to "low-level supervisors with no management training or experience," the lawsuit alleged. Lawyers for the defendants named in the suit did not immediately return a request for comment.
Meanwhile, the suit alleges, the supervisors named in the suit canceled safety meetings. After learning about positive cases in the plant, they told other supervisors to deny their existence, the suit says.
At the same time, they were taking bets on how many people would get sick, according to the lawsuit, which accused the Waterloo plant manager of organizing "a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for Covid-19."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/business/...index.html
The wrongful death suit was originally filed this summer by Oscar Fernandez, whose father Isidro Fernandez died in April due to complications from Covid-19. Fernandez had worked at Tyson's Waterloo, Iowa facility, the company's largest pork processing plant, before he died. The suit alleged that Tyson did not take sufficient measures to protect workers, and that the company encouraged workers to come in while they were sick.
In November, the suit was amended to include troubling new allegations about the behaviors of leaders within the Waterloo facility.
According to the updated lawsuit, "most managers at the Waterloo Facility started avoiding the plant floor because they were afraid of contracting the virus" in late March or early April. While the virus spread on the meatpacking floor, managers delegated their duties to "low-level supervisors with no management training or experience," the lawsuit alleged. Lawyers for the defendants named in the suit did not immediately return a request for comment.
Meanwhile, the suit alleges, the supervisors named in the suit canceled safety meetings. After learning about positive cases in the plant, they told other supervisors to deny their existence, the suit says.
At the same time, they were taking bets on how many people would get sick, according to the lawsuit, which accused the Waterloo plant manager of organizing "a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for Covid-19."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/19/business/...index.html