Tyson Foods Workers’ Families Say Plant Managers Lied to Interpreters About Infections

The families of three Tyson Foods workers who are suing the company over their loved ones’ COVID-19-related deaths have added new claims to their case – namely that Tyson managers lied to interpreters who were meant to inform the workers about the coronavirus situation.

According to the newly amended lawsuit, Tom Hart, the manager of Tyson’s plant in Waterloo, Iowa, and Human Resources Director James Hook held a closed-door meeting with all of the plant’s interpreters in early April.

The interpreters, about 20 of them, were directed to tell the workers, who relied on them because English is not their first language, that “everything is fine,” that there was no outbreak at the plant, the lawsuit claims.

In fact, lawyers for the families say the interpreters were instructed to tell the workers there were no confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the Waterloo plant and that the Black Hawk County Health Department “cleared” the plant.

Neither of those things were true, the families say. Workers had tested positive for COVID-19 and the county health department was urging Tyson to close the plant.

“During this closed-door meeting, Mr. Hart and Mr. Hook explicitly forbid interpreters from discussing COVID-19,” except to repeat their instructions, the amended lawsuit says.

The Waterloo plant employs about 2,800 people, many of whom are immigrant workers who rely on interpreters to translate company communications and directions into several languages.

The lawsuit was first filed in Iowa state court in June by the estates of the late Sedika Buljic, Reberiano Leno Garcia and Jose Ayala. Buljic died on April 18 from complications of COVID-19 infection. Garcia died April 23 and Ayala died May 25. Their families claim all three were infected while working at Tyson’s Waterloo plant.

Although the plant set up temperature check stations in early April, after the coronavirus pandemic had been declared, truck drivers and subcontractors were not screened, the lawsuit said. Around the same time, upper level managers began avoiding the plant floor, stopped holding safety meetings and delegated management tasks to low-level processing employees to avoid contact with the floor workers, the lawsuit claims.

Meanwhile, Hart, the Waterloo plant’s top executive, “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,” the lawsuit alleges.

On April 12, about two dozen Tyson Foods workers at Waterloo were being treated at the local emergency room, prompting county officials two days later to ask Tyson to close the plant temporarily, the lawsuit says. Tyson refused.

Less than a week later, some Iowa state lawmakers filed a complaint against Tyson Foods with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration after hearing from workers about allegedly unsafe conditions – including the fact that Tyson had transferred workers from another plant, which had been shut down because of a COVID-19 outbreak, to Waterloo.

The complaint also said non-English speaking employees thought they should return to work while sick because the company had stressed how vital the plant was to keeping the nation’s food supply going.

OSHA investigated and later said it found no violations.

The revised lawsuit filed by the Buljic, Garcia, and Ayala families also added claims that managers at the Waterloo plant told U.S. Department of Agriculture food inspectors in April not to wear face masks inside “because it would ‘send the wrong message’ to the workforce.” And it alleges one Waterloo supervisor told an employee who had tested positive for the virus to keep working.

Tyson closed the Waterloo plant for two weeks in late April. The company’s public statement about the closure said, “the combination of worker absenteeism, COVID-19 cases and community concerns has resulted in our decision to stop production.”

The plant reopened May 7.

According to The Des Moines Register, Black Hawk County public health officials reported in early May “that 1,031 of the plant’s employees had tested positive for the virus.”

The Buljic, Garcia, and Ayala families’ lawsuit, which was transferred to federal court, names Tyson, several of its top executives, Hart and Hook and several of the plant’s other managers as defendants.

A second lawsuit making similar claims about Tyson and conditions at the Waterloo plant was filed in August by the family of the late Isidro Fernandez, an employee who died of COVID-19 complications on April 26.

That lawsuit, like the first, originated in Iowa state court in Back Hawk County, but lawyers for Tyson requested to have the cases transferred up to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa.

Tyson has argued that the Waterloo plant remained open for all but two weeks during the pandemic due to President Donald J. Trump’s April 28 invocation of the federal Defense Production Act and orders that all meat and poultry processing companies stay in operation.

Tyson has reportedly suspended some of the Waterloo managers in light of the allegations of betting on the health of the workers.

The company also reportedly hired a law firm to conduct an investigation of the claims. That effort will be led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Tyson officials told the CBS-news affiliate in Des Moines, KCCI, that it put $20 million into the Waterloo plant for “protective measures and bonuses to front-line workers.”

Both of the Tyson Foods workers lawsuits argue the bonuses served as incentives for those who desperately needed the money to come to work even if they had been exposed to COVID-19 or were experiencing symptoms of it, increasing the risk to the rest of the workforce.

Do you work for a company that has failed to take adequate precautions for worker safety during the pandemic? Tell us about it in the comment section below.

Buljic and the other plaintiffs are represented by Thomas P. Frerichs of Frerichs Law Office, P.C.; John J. Rausch of Rausch Law Firm, PLLC; Mel C. Orchard, III, G. Bryan Ulmer, III and Gabriel Phillips of The Spence Law Firm, LLC.

The Tyson Foods Workers Class Action Lawsuit is Hus Hari Buljic, et al. v. Tyson Foods, Inc., et al., Case No. 6:20-cv-02055, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, Eastern Division.

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