Before getting sick, Sanchez, 78, left the house only to paint on the production line, where the corpses of farm animals are cut into pieces of meat, and to move to his church with his five-person congregation, said his daughter, Betty. Rangel, who said no one else had become angry in the family circle or in the Missionary Bible Church, who may not be contacted to comment.
JBS, the world’s largest meat packer, rejected the family staff’s reimbursement claim, as well as those filed through the families of two other Greeley staff members who died by COVID-19, lawyers said at the rate of the three claims. Three other Greeley staff members who died also sought reimbursement, a union official said, but Reuters may simply not have the prestige of their claims.
JBS stated that employee COVID-19 infections were work-related by denying the allegations, according to the company’s responses to employees, which were reviewed through Reuters.
Experience shows the difficulty of linking infections to employment. JBS meat packers submitted 930 applications for reimbursement from COVID-19-related workers, none were accepted, 717 were rejected and 213 were under review. COVID-19 were rejected.
As more and more Americans return to work, the joy of JBS workers shows the difficulty of linking infections to employment and getting reimbursement of health care and lost wages.
“This is the fundamental question: how can you solve it?” said Nick Fogel, a refund attorney for Burg Simpson Company staff in Colorado.
Serious epidemics
The meat packaging industry has suffered severe coronavirus outbreaks, in part because production chain staff look face-to-face for long periods of time companies such as JBS, Tyson Foods Inc. and Smithfield Foods of WH Group Ltd. closed about 20 plants The White House refused to comment on the industry’s rejection of staff claims. Observation.
Tyson also denied staff reimbursement claims arising from a primary epidemic in Iowa, staff attorneys told Reuters. Smithfield staff at a plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, also affected by a primary outbreak, have not filed a complaint, a union official said, as a component because the company paid the wages and medical expenses of inflamed personnel.
Smithfield declined to comment on workers’ compensation. Tyson stated that he reviewed the programs on a case-by-case basis, but refused to disclose how often he rejected them. JBS stated that it had rejected the programs but refused to say how often. law, giving details.
Workers can challenge commercial refusals through an administrative procedure that varies by state but resembles a court hearing; however, the employee has a responsibility to find out that an application was denied by mistake.
The full picture of how the meat packaging industry has controlled COVID-like reimbursement remains unclear due to a lack of knowledge of national claims. Reuters has asked seven states where JBS or its subsidiaries have plants that have had coronavirus outbreaks. provided detailed knowledge; all show a trend of rejections.
In Minnesota, where JBS experienced a primary outbreak, meat packaging workers filed 930 COVID-19-related worker reimbursement claims as of September 11, according to the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, none were accepted, 717 rejected, and 213 are under review The firm identified employers.
The Minnesota Department of Health said two meat packing plants there had primary coronavirus shoots: a JBS red meat processing plant in Worthington and a poultry plant in Cold Spring through Pilgrim’s Pride Corp, which is owned primarily by JBS.
Lawmakers in at least 14 states have made it less difficult for some workers to collect workers’ reimbursement for COVID-19 by placing liability on companies and insurers for discovering that an infection did not occur at work. Range across the state, applies only to emergency services or fitness workers.
Tom Atkinson, a Minnesota staff reimbursement attorney who has represented meat packaging staff, estimates that up to 100 COVID-19 claims were filed through Worthington plant staff.
In Utah, seven JBSs filed COVID-19 claims by August 1 and all were rejected, according to the State Labor Commission. At least 385 at a JBS beef plant in Hyrum, Utah, tested positive for COVID-19.
In Colorado, 69% of coVID-19’s 2,294 worker reimbursement claims were rejected on September 12 and use the same procedures to review programs nationwide.
JBS spokesman Cameron Bruett did not answer a question about whether JBS painters were inflamed with the paintings and refused to comment on the painters’ individual claims, and claimed that the company had outsourced revisions of the claims to an external director.
“Given the widespread nature of viral spread, our third-party claims manager reviews the case very well and independently,” Bruett said.
The administrator, Sedgwick, responded to a request for comment. Truett, also a spokesperson for Pilgrim’s Pride, answered questions about infections and claims at his Minnesota plant.
At the JBS plant in Greeley, where Sanchez worked before he died, at least 291 employees of about 6,000 were infected, according to state data. The company, in its written reaction to the family’s complaint, stated that its infection “doesn’t work. “related, “without specifying his reasoning. Both sides are now discussing the factor in Colorado’s staff payment system.
Under Colorado law, workers’ compensation provides approximately two-thirds of the deceased worker’s salary to the surviving wife and will pay medical expenses not covered by insurance. If JBS had not rejected the Sanchez family’s claim, he would have provided his widow with a solid source of un surnamed medical income and expenses paid for a total of about $10,000, according to his daughter.
“They don’t care,” Rangel said of JBS, “they all have big profits and they’re not going to give money. “
MASSIVE INFECTIONS, SMALL COMPENSATION
The Unified Food and Trade Workers Union (TUAC), which represents 250,000 meat packers and food processors in the US. The U. S. , he said last week that at least 122 meat packers had died from COVID-19 and that more than 18,000 had lost paints because they were potentially exposed inflamed.
Workers’ compensation attorney Roth stated that corporations have an incentive to reject each and every claim because admitting that they have even caused an infection can hold corporations accountable for all coVID-19 staff.
The U. S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) said on September 11 that it had cited JBS for not serving Greeley plant staff because of the virus. OSHA cited Smithfield this month for not providing staff at its plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where the firm said nearly 1300 employees had contracted coronavirus and four had died.
Smithfield and JBS stated that subpoenas had no merit because they were similar to plant situations before OSHA issued COVID-19 rules for the industry. OSHA stated that it adhered to subpoenas.
Workers’ reimbursement is sometimes the only way to cover medical expenses and lost wages from work-related injuries and deaths. The formula protects employers from lawsuits, with a few exceptions, and allows staff to obtain benefits without incurring fault or negligence. The formula was designed for factory accidents, not airborne diseases.
In reaction to the coronavirus, governors and legislators in at least 14 states have made it less difficult for some workers to collect reimbursement from COVID-19 workers by imposing responsibility on companies and insurers to cause an infection. had no place at work. But most changes, which vary by state, only apply to emergency or fitness workers. A similar proposal did not win in Colorado.
Mark Dopp, a general suggestive at the North American Meat Institute, an industry agreement representing meat processors, said it was complicated where staff contract infections given extensive sanitation efforts by meat processing plants and the daily movement of staff to and from factories.
Tyson closed its red meat processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa in April due to an outbreak of COVID-19. Ben Roth, a local payment attorney, said five families of the deceased staff had applied for death benefits and that they were all fired.
He said meat processors were encouraged to reject each and every claim because admitting that they had even caused an infection can disclose to corporations the duty of all staff in contracting COVID-19.
“It undermines the argument they need to make at all levels: that it can’t turn out they gave it to them here and not in a grocery store,” Roth said.
Tyson said so under state workers’ payment laws. The company noted that Iowa law states that an illness with an equivalent likelihood of contracting outdoors in the office “is not compensation as an occupational disease. “
In Colorado, Sylvia Martinez runs an organization called Latinos Unidos de Greeley and said she knew more than 20 JBS employees who had requested staff reimbursement and were denied. Many factory employees speak English and have sought their organization’s recommendation, he said: He added that many perceived their rights and feared being fired. The company’s refusals have discouraged more claims, Martinez said.
“If you reject five or ten, you’ll tell your colleagues,” he says.
“WHO WILL RENT IT?”
JBS also challenged Alfredo Hernandez’s 55-year-old claim, a caregiver who worked at the Greeley plant for 31 years, was inflamed and hospitalized in March, still dependent on additional oxygen and has not returned to work, his wife, Rosario Hernandez, said.
As a general rule, corporations approve the claims if it turns out that a worker is most likely injured or in poor health at work, said Erika Alverson, a lawyer representing Hernandez, but JBS, he said, argues that staff may have contracted COVID. -19 anywhere.
“They went in, where our clients went, what were they doing that time, who was going home, what did his wife do, was there some other form of exposure?”said Alverson of the Alverson and O’Brien company in Denver.
Judgment will be given on Hernandez’s case at an administrative hearing. Meanwhile, Hernandez’s family circle only has his disability benefits, a component of his salary, to cover his medical and insurance expenses, Rosario Hernandez said.
“We get a lot of bills,” he says.
(Reporting through Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, and Tom Polansek in Chicago, edited through Noeleen Walder, Caroline Stauffer and Brian Thevenot)
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