But this providence came at a cost: more than 4,000 JBS workers in Brazil are known to have tested positive for coronavirus and at least six died from COVID-19, according to local government records of fitness and data accumulated through prosecutors and 3 unions. Epidemics have affected at least 23 factories in seven states, tax reuters, fitness officials and trade union leaders told reuters, which helped boost the pandemic in South America’s largest country.
The company has defended its reaction to the pandemic in Brazil, publicly stating that the fitness of its staff is the “top priority”. He declined to comment on infections and deaths, saying he only shared knowledge of COVID-19 with the authorities.
With more than 4. 1 million coronavirus cases shown, Brazil is behind the United States and India in the duration of its epidemic; nearly 127,000 Brazilians have died.
Some JBS factories have a position of network spread, Brazilian fitness officials and prosecutors said. JBS’s first contact with the virus occurred in its U. S. operations in March, when it reduced production at a Pennsylvania farm animal processing plant after managers developed flu-like symptoms. The transient closure of two JBS services due to primary outbreaks, one at a Colorado meat plant and the other at a Minnesota red meat plant, was also news.
Less well known are its difficulties in Brazil, where the company has a magnet for litigation. Since April, prosecutors in some of the country’s largest agricultural states have filed 18 lawsuits in the country’s specialized labor courts to force JBS to put in place stricter protections for personnel at at least 17 of Brazil’s meat packing plants that have experienced coronavirus outbreaks.
Other meat brands have also fought the virus in their factories. Brazil’s companies, joining Marfrig and BRF, have reached agreements with prosecutors to conduct systematic and continuous testing of their staff to minimize spread and continue to operate.
JBS, on the other hand, has largely resisted calls from prosecutors to carry out such tests, which is not expressly required by Brazilian law. “There is no legal responsibility on the part of the government, regulations or fitness agencies for meat processors to conduct testing,” JBS said in a statement.
Reuters reviewed judges’ rulings and data submitted through prosecutors as a component of their JBS investigations. The news organization also interviewed more than 30 other people with knowledge of infections at JBS factories in Brazil, adding prosecutors, former and existing fitness officials, union leaders and workers.
Among the accusations of prosecutors and government labour inspectors documenting situations at two JBS plants: the virus spread to JBS because the company conducted its own workplace tests, it did not provide frontline staff with a sufficiently good mask and others. protective equipment, and temporarily oussed staff who tested positive or with symptoms of COVID-19.
Prosecutors are in favor of rigorous testing and quarantine protocols, good enough non-public protective devices and more space among staff in Brazilian meat factories. They are also seeking damages ranging from 3 million reais ($566,091) to 20 million reais ($3. 77 million) for local assistance. communities close to the maximum of affected plants unload medical devices and finance social projects.
“JBS is a world leader in its sector and leads by example,” said Heiler Natali, a prosecutor in the company’s prosecution rate in the southern state of Paraná. “JBS does not need to verify staff and take responsibility. “
Legal disputes led to the transient closure of six JBS plants in Brazil this year, according to prosecutors. JBS said that only five of its hundred Brazilian services had been affected by closures and that the sixth floor cited through prosecutors had never been closed. .
The sixth plant is a pig farm in Trs Passos, in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. A local labor failure ordered the plant to grant paid leave for 14 days to all staff who tested positive for COVID-19, and to Check the rest for coronavirus, according to a court order of June 22 notified through Reuters. Approximately 40% of the facility’s workforce, or 1,017 employees, tested positive for coronavirus and one died, according to prosecutors.
JBS declined to comment on the ongoing litigation. He defended the measures he took and told Reuters that, among other measures, he hired experts to advise him on fitness protocols such as proper physical distance in factories. south of the city of Dourados, in the southwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul, as part of an agreement with prosecutors.
Chief Executive Gilberto Tomazoni said in an August 14 earnings call that he was “proud” of JBS’s reaction to the crisis, which he said included $400 million in investments worldwide to protect staff and communities around his facility.
In total, JBS operates 135 services in Brazil, adding beef, chicken, red meat and leather plants, as well as offices and distribution centers. These operations account for about one-fifth of their overall revenue. JBS employs another 240,000 people worldwide, adding 135,000 in Brazil.
UNFULFILLED PROMISES
Coronavirus is JBS’s newest puzzle, shaken by food and graft protection scandals in recent years, which affected its percentage price, pushed back a coveted US directory. But it’s not the first time And they resulted in big fines. JBS: Recorded record earnings last year.
When the virus hit in early 2020, the incentive to keep its Brazilian factories running was strong: the closure of its U. S. services has led to production discounts in this key market, while a weakened Brazilian currency has made meat produced in Brazil less expensive for foreign buyers. Brazilian exports of beef from JBS to China, for example, rose to 53% in dollars in the quarter of the time.
In a call to the convention in March, CEO Tomazoni promised investors that he would keep the product running, but said workers’ fitness would come first. He announced measures for JBS plants around the world, adding paid licenses for high-risk group staff, Tomazoni said those movements may not be implemented in all countries due to local laws, however, JBS later showed Reuters that all the steps discussed would be implemented in Brazil. In addition, Tomazoni said JBS’s call on its Brazilian fever staff would vaccinate them against H1N1 to strengthen their immunity and increase worker spacing in non-unusual factory spaces.
In Brazil, JBS has not fulfilled its own commitments, according to court documents and interviews with prosecutors, trade unions and staff. An example is an audit conducted in mid-May through government labor inspectors at a JBS bird plant in Ipumirim, a city in southern Santa Catarina state. The audit report, reviewed through Reuters, revealed that JBS repainted at least one plant painter with a coronavirus infection and kept 42 staff members with underlying diseases such as high blood pressure , seven of which were subsequently tested positive for COVID-19. Inspectors discovered 86 cases of COVID-19 in Ipumirim after reviewing staff medical records, representing 6% of the facility’s paint force, according to their report. JBS declined to comment on the report.
A JBS employee at a beef factory in Mato Grosso state first showed the case of COVID-19 in the city in May, according to the knowledge of public aptitude cited through prosecutors in court documents. Of the 602 employees at the facility, 84 tested positive for coronavirus as of June 17, an infection rate nearly 12 times higher than that of the city itself, prosecutors alleged. JBS has denied any irregularities in Colunder. He said it followed federal regulations as well as recommendations from renowned medical establishments to deal with possible infections
At a beef production plant in the town of Araputanga, also in Mato Grosso, prosecutors said the “out of epidemiological control” scenario, with 51 contagions among 1,070 staff, according to court documents on 4 August, JBS questioned Araputanga’s tally. infections, but gave no details.
WORKING “SHOULDER TO SHOULDER”
Brazil’s meat sector, like this one in much of the world, has been greatly affected by COVID-19. Federal fitness officials in Brazil do not track instances across the industry, so the total number of infections in meat packaging is unknown. The Contac-CUT union estimated in August that up to 25% of the country’s 500,000 abattoir employees had been infected in their surveys of the local population. The Brazilian Association of Animal Proteins (ABPA), an industrial organization representing red meat and poultry processors, described the figures as “disinformation” on estimates.
Prosecutors allege that JBS has brought down its rivals in implementing measures to thwart the coronavirus at its facilities. Marfrig and BRF, both founded in Sao Paulo, are among 30 corporations that operate a total of 98 slaughterhouses and employ more than 185,000 other people who have signed agreements. with prosecutors in recent months, which has largely allowed them to continue operating. A key compromise accepted across all of those corporations: They would pay for nonstop regime testing on staff to temporarily stumble upon cases.
Marfrig said he began testing all of his 18,000 workers on June 1. BRF, which employs another 90,000 people in Brazil and is the country’s largest bird exporter, told Reuters that it conducted 11,000 tests at its only plant in Toledo, located in Paraná state.
JBS has chosen to fight in court, but prosecutors say they had to unload court orders to force JBS to temporarily close factories and make adjustments as tighter physical esttachment.
“Closing a factory is a measure of last resort,” said Priscila Schvarcz, prosecutor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, who leads a dispute against JBS over situations at a poultry facility in the city of Passo Fundo. a month from April 24 after some staff members became ill with COVID-19. At least 305 employees finally tested positive for coronavirus after two outbreaks in the country, Schvarcz said.
JBS told Reuters that it liked to reach an agreement with prosecutors because it complied with all regulations established through the federal government to operate in the pandemic. He said he would continue to protect his “robust” security protocols in national courts. fortune with his approach.
On July 3, a state appellate court ruling ordered the reopening of the Passo Fundo poultry plant, ruling that keeping it closed “can result in loss of work, reduced tax collection, and a threat to food supply. “told Reuters that they feared ill health but might not leave because they needed the pay me check.
Two workers at JBS bird factories in Santa Catarina state, one in Ipumirim and the other in Nova Veneza, said in July that the company had provided them and their colleagues with a single-use mask for five consecutive days. Mask rationed at the Passo Fundo poultry plant and the Dourados red meat slaughterhouse in Mato Grosso do Sul state, according to a prosecutor and a lawyer from the Dourados workers’ union.
“My colleague hit the virus, ” said ipumirim’s worker, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We worked aspect by look and the company refused to control us.
JBS refused to talk about accusations that he rationed the mask or that Ipumirim’s workers were running nearby.
COMMUNITY PROPAGATION
Some JBS plants have been connected to the network extension. In Sao Miguel do Guaporé, a small town in the Amazonian state of Rondania, 266 employees of a JBS meat factory were inflamed as of June 6, representing more than 60% of the city’s cases. They received a court order on May 26 to temporarily close the facility to involve the outbreak. “The plant is the main source of pollution and transmission in this small town,” said Wadler Ferreira, a hard-working local judge. in his failure.
The Sao Miguel do Guaporé plant, which hired 900 other people at the time of the epidemic, is the largest employer in the city. In the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, JBS staff at the Dourados red meat factory began to get sick around May Instead of seeking a court order to close the plant, prosecutor Jeferson Pereira reached an agreement with JBS and local fitness officials for mass testing in July, funded mainly through the state. Nearly a quarter of the 4,300 employees tested positive, leading to one of the worst epidemics in the state, prosecutors said.
Dourados, a city of 223,000 inhabitants, suffered a severe blow: 6,058 citizens tested positive for COVID-19, while another 82 people died, according to the knowledge of the Ministry of Health as of 7 September. In addition to JBS, other meat plants in the region. They have experienced epidemics. ” The total pandemic in the Dourados began in the meat packers. It’s an epidemiological fact,” said Julio Croda, epidemiologist and former chief of the Department of Immunization and Communicable Diseases at the Federal Ministry of Health.
ABPA, the industry group, questions Croda’s assessment. He said the industry had acted to control the virus while maintaining the meat supply. A union representing JBS staff at the Dourados plant filed a complaint on July 14 to force the company to pay for fitness. prices of staff who contracted a coronavirus. This essay is ongoing.
JBS defended his actions. He said the tests conducted on Dourados “have had effects because they prevented and well controlled COVID-19 in this plant. “($1 – 5,2995 res).
(Reporting via Ana Mano in Sao Paulo Additional reporting via Tom Polansek in Chicago edited by Gabriel Stargardter and Marla Dickerson)
Was this item valuable?
Thank you! Tell us what we can do with this article.
Thank you!% Other people found this article interesting. Tell us what you liked.
Receive the insurance industry newsletter
Notify me of comments by email
We have updated our privacy policy to be clearer and meet the new gdpR needs. If you continue to use our site, you will conform to our revised privacy policy.