Suspected cases by David Forbes April 25, 2020

After months of workers warning about unsafe conditions and union-busting, No Evil Foods workers face a possible COVID-19 outbreak

Above: A workplace announcement from No Evil Foods management about suspected cases of COVID-19

Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, workers at No Evil Foods have repeatedly warned that the company was putting them and the public at risk by continuing to operate. With over 60 workers in two shifts in a cramped production space, they said that proper distance was next to impossible. While the company, which produces vegan plant meat, often brands itself using leftist symbols and slogans, workers have for months revealed a very different reality.

In a statement published in the Blade last month, they wrote that “eliminating the risk of exposure requires quarantining, and that’s something No Evil Foods isn’t willing to allow its employees to do. Instead, it would rather gamble on their lives and the lives of their families for the sake of profit.”

Their fears were justified. On April 16 management announced that three workers had been sent home, one for symptoms matching a suspected case of COVID-19, two others because they’d been exposed to that worker. On April 20, they announced a second suspected case; another worker had been sent home with similar symptoms.

“They’ve been downplaying it from the start,” a worker told the Blade, under condition of anonymity. “They implemented some social distancing guidelines, but they’re not really followed or enforced.”

“We don’t feel like our safety is being taken seriously,” they said.

At the beginning of the outbreak, NEF management, fresh from a relentless round of union-busting, offered workers the option to either stay on or leave with three weeks’ pay. But the latter, which immunocompromised workers had no choice but to take, came with a catch. In return for that severance, departing workers had to sign a draconian legal document that claimed they would waive any legal right to take action under state and federal safety, disability and civil rights laws.

Such documents are commonly used by union-busting law firms (and often don’t hold up in court), but reveal a company intent on cracking down and silencing employees rather than taking worker concerns seriously. The legal document, obtained by the Blade, also claims it prohibits workers from ever speaking disparagingly about the company’s management or discussing “any of the alleged facts leading to Employee’s resignation from employment at No Evil Foods.”

That attitude carries over to safety precautions. Another worker notes that No Evil Foods technically has social distancing rules in place, but regularly abandons them to ramp up production “when it fits the bottom line.”

Instead of actual masks, the company initially issued bandanas with the company logo on them, held together by hair ties. Even after workers finally received cloth masks in early April, they only got one.

At the beginning of April, workers report that they had circulated a petition seeking hazard pay, with almost all the workers signing on. The day the workers were about to turn the petition in the company had caught wind and announced a $2.25 an hour increase in “appreciation pay,” but only for 60 days. The increase does not include warehouse workers, who have also not been issued protective equipment.

Outbreaks at food production plants, where workers are often poorly paid and treated in close quarters, are a major danger. Smithfield and Tyson food plants have seen workers sicken and die due to the spread of COVID-19 at their facilities.

But according to multiple workers management still requires a difficult-to-obtain doctor’s note to call in from sick, and continues to penalize or even fire workers who call out or stay home due to illness.

“I’ve heard people talk about downplaying their symptoms because they can’t afford to be sent home,” one of the workers says.

The workers have pressed for the business to be closed during the pandemic, and the workers paid to quarantine, as they don’t see the expensive plant meat the company produces as essential. If the business remains open they want actual social distancing, better pay, protective equipment and real worker protections.

Management has said they can’t afford those very basic things. But given the company’s just conceded raises they claimed were impossible and hired an expensive anti-union law firm, workers understandably don’t trust them.

“Knowing how much these union-busting consultants cost, I just don’t believe they don’t have the money,” a worker observed. “Those lawyers are not cheap.”

Meanwhile, all the workers the Blade spoke to observed that they weren’t putting nearly as much resources or planning into taking a COVID-19 outbreak seriously.

“It’s a matter of when, not if,” one of the workers said. “They don’t care.”

On Thursday, April 23, No Evil Management posted the announcement seen at the top of this piece. The next day, they told workers that the one remaining sick individual had tested negative for COVID-19. One of the workers observed that while managers had already often ignored social distancing measures, now they were forcing workers to abandon them entirely to meet production goals.

“They are not taking this seriously, because they can’t,” they tell the Blade. “Goals will not be met if they did and they know it. But admitting this would admit our lives are not valuable to them. What matters to them is money.”

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