Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

After 10 Workers Get COVID-19, 1,000 Meatpackers Walk Off the Job in Colorado

On Monday, JBS announced that ten workers at its Greeley, Colorado plant tested positive for COVID-19. In response to this, 1,000 meatpacking workers, members of UFCW Local 7, walked off the job at JBS’s mega 4,000 person processing plant.

Mike Elk

April 2, 2020
Facebook Twitter Share
Meatpacking workers leaving work (Eric Bellamy/ Greeley Tribune)

This article is reprinted from PAYDAY REPORT 

On Monday, JBS announced that ten workers at its Greeley, Colorado plant tested positive for COVID-19.

In response to this, on Tuesday, nearly 1,000 meatpacking workers, members of UFCW Local 7, walked off the job at JBS’s mega 4,000 person processing plant in Greely, Colorado, where workers speak more than 27 languages.

Despite language barriers, the workers at the plant say that they have been denied sick pay to self-quarantine when working at the plant.

“We’ve been demanding from the beginning that the workers should be entitled to sick pay. Right now, they don’t qualify for paid sick time. What the company did agree to, though we’re not done, is if somebody tests positive, (the company) would pay them while they’re quarantined,” UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cardova told the Greely Tribune.

“If somebody advised the company they had symptoms, (the company) was asking them to go to the doctor. We’re demanding they pay them for that time off,” said Cardova.

The union is also demanding that workers be given personal protective safety gear due to the closed quarters in which most employees are cramped.

“It’s a pretty big facility, but if you’ve never been in the plant, it’s amazing how that process works. People work pretty much elbow to elbow. There’s no 6-feet distancing there,” says UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cardova

The union is also demanding that Democratic Governor Jared Polis declare that meat processing workers in Colorado are “essential employees.”

Last week, Corado joined Minnesota and Vermont in declaring that grocery store workers were “essential employees.” By being labeled “essential employees,” all grocery store employees are entitled to free child care and at least four days of paid sick leave.

Now, workers in Colorado are hoping that Polis also declare other workers as essential employees.

This article is donated via Payday Report. To support labor reporting in news deserts, donate st www.paydayreport.com/donate

Facebook Twitter Share

Labor Movement

Protesters in NYC for Palestinian liberation.

Uniting Workers for Palestine Is a Fight for the Future of Labor

The struggle for Palestine shows the potential for the rank and file to push unions to break with imperialism and to build a new, combative, and internationalist unionism.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

November 27, 2023
A rally with people holding signs and a banner reading "Full funding"

Student Workers Stand Up for CUNY and Palestine

Attacks on CUNY and CUNY activists are an attack on all working people and students. Workers and students united can fight back.  

Olivia Wood

November 25, 2023

The Labor Movement Is Key for Palestinian Liberation

As part of the global movement in solidarity with Palestine and against the genocidal policies of the Israeli government, labor unions are taking action and demanding a ceasefire. This is not only a welcomed addition to the movement, but a necessary one that concretely shows the power of the working class.

Tristan Taylor

November 18, 2023

Organized Student Labor Must Fight for Palestine

Newly unionized academic workers have a unique opportunity, and a duty, to support the movement for a Free Palestine.

Rose Lemlich

November 17, 2023

MOST RECENT

Robert Habeck Wrote a Play Praising a Right-Wing Mass Murderer

Germany's Green vice chancellor strikes many as an idealist who has been struggling with the tough realities of government. Yet before he was a national politician, he wrote a play that opens a window into a dark soul.

Nathaniel Flakin

December 1, 2023

The World Kissinger Built Must Die Too

Henry Kissinger died at 100 years old. But his legacy remains in the brutal world system he built and the future generations of imperialist ghouls he inspired. They all must go.

Samuel Karlin

November 30, 2023

Fact Check: Did German Leftists Try to Bomb West Berlin’s Jewish Community Center in 1969?

Answer: No. The bombing was undertaken by West Germany’s domestic secret service, originally founded by Nazis.

Nathaniel Flakin

November 29, 2023
Haverford College student Kinnan Abdalhamid and Brown University students Tahseen Ahmed and Hisham Awartani, Palestinian college students who were shot in Burlington, Vermont.

Haverford Faculty for Justice in Palestine Releases Statement Supporting Pro-Palestinian Students

Haverford College Faculty for Justice in Palestine have published a statement following the shooting of three Palestinian students in Burlington, Vermont.