'We're modern slaves': How meat plant workers became the new frontline in Covid-19 war

"Don't worry, WE're ALL modern slaves. Now let me back in my CAGE!!!"


Last modified on Sat 2 May 2020 10.51 EDT

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News of the first Covid-19 death at the Tyson Foods poultry plant in Camilla, south-west Georgia, spread slowly.

“It was like they were keeping a secret,” said Tara Williams, a 47-year-old worker at the plant, as she described her account of management’s response to the death of her colleague Elose Willis. “It took them about two weeks to just put a picture up, to acknowledge she had died.”

Williams had worked alongside Willis in the “de-boning” section of the plant until she died on 1 April, aged 56. She had spent 35 years at the facility – five days a week, 10 hours a day, 100,000 slaughtered chickens a shift.

Willis was the first Tyson employee to succumb to Covid-19 at the Camilla plant, but two others would follow in short succession, a marker of the precarity faced by thousands of meat processing workers pushed to toil, closely packed, on the frontlines throughout the pandemic in plants that have quickly become coronavirus hotspots. At least 20 meat packing workers have died from the virus nationwide and 5,000 have become infected, according to union officials, as close to two dozen facilities closed – some temporarily – over past few weeks.

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NuNativs
'We're modern slaves': How meat plant workers became the new frontline in Covid-19 war

"Don't worry, WE're ALL modern slaves. Now let me back in my CAGE!!!"

Willis was the first Tyson employee to succumb to Covid-19 at the Camilla plant, but two others would follow in short succession, a marker of the precarity faced by thousands of meat processing workers pushed to toil, closely packed, on the frontlines throughout the pandemic in plants that have quickly become coronavirus hotspots. At least 20 meat packing workers have died from the virus nationwide and 5,000 have become infected, according to union officials, as close to two dozen facilities closed – some temporarily – over past few weeks.

Wow, ONLY 20 meat packing workers have died from coronavirus in the US! (in three months) Geez, that's nothing! Why all the HYPE? Why all the HYSTERIA?

So that's the Coronavirus Hype-of-the-Day: Coronavirus Deaths in Meat Processing Plants.

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Jennifer

Wow, ONLY 20 meat packing workers have died from coronavirus in the US! (in three months) Geez, that's nothing! Why all the HYPE? Why all the HYSTERIA?

So that's the Coronavirus Hype-of-the-Day: Coronavirus Deaths in Meat Processing Plants.

Doesn't matter to you since the majority are Hispanic and you're racist which BTW, have families who depend on and love them and are doing all the grunt work so you have food to purchase easily in the supermarket while you're getting your massage...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2020 03:11AM by NuNativs.

It’s not that easy buying food while I’m getting my massage in the supermarket