Staff at the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Smithfield plant say they were not provided 'any protective gear' before the facility was closed due to exposure

'We understand from firsthand employee accounts that they were not provided any protective gear,' Taneeza Islam, of the South Dakota Dream Coalition

Islam was speaking against sentiments expressed by executive vice president for corporate affairs, Keira Lombardo

Lombardo claimed that the company took 17 steps to protect workers

Smithfield on Wednesday closed two more plants in Missouri and Wisconsin

Plant in South Dakota closed after becoming the biggest single source of infection in the United States

CEO warns that packing plants are a 'bottleneck' in the US food supply chain

Closures threaten to raise the price of pork or cause temporary shortages

Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19

A Chinese-owned pork processing plant in South Dakota has lost the trust of its employees after at least 634 people tested positive for the coronavirus and staff expressed concern that the company was not being forthcoming about possible exposure.

Normally 3,700 people work at the Sioux Falls Smithfield Foods plant, so roughly 17 per cent of staff are infected with the virus. The plant has stopped processing meat after receiving requests from the governor and city mayor.

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'We understand from firsthand employee accounts that they were not provided any protective gear,' Taneeza Islam, founder of the South Dakota Dream Coalition, explained to NPR. 'They were not given any hand sanitizer. There was no social distancing occurring on the lines from at least before March 26, to when some measures like taking temperatures outside of the plant before employees had to come in, took place on Monday, April 6.'

Staff at the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Smithfield Foods plant say they were not provided 'any protective gear' before the facility was closed due to exposure to coronavirus. 634 people have tested positive for the virus.

Islam, who represents an immigrants advocacy group for workers at the company, was speaking against sentiments expressed by executive vice president for corporate affairs, Keira Lombardo.

Lombardo claimed that the company took 17 steps to protect workers. These included adding hand sanitizing stations, enhanced cleaning and installing plexiglass barriers at its plants.

But she did add that the company was experiencing shortages.

'We are doing everything in our power to help protect our team members from COVID-19 in the workplace,' said Lombardo. 'We have been working to get these measures implemented for many many weeks, all day, every day. But we do not have a magic wand.'

Smithfield announced the closures of packing plants in Cudahy, Wisconsin and Martin City, Missouri on Wednesday, days after its Sioux Falls, South Dakota plant was indefinitely shuttered

But according to Islam, workers consider themselves to be 'inches apart.'

'That lunchrooms held 500 employees at a time. And that was still occurring until mitigation efforts were being taken the week of April 6,' she added.

Worker morale is at a low and the staff is having a hard time trusting execs, Islam explained.

'I think the first death of a Smithfield employee that just occurred has really shaken the community and employees as a whole,' Islam said. 'There's a strong sentiment that if proper mitigation efforts, proper PPE, proper social distancing, proper sanitizing, that it wouldn't have been this bad. We all understand that we can't eradicate the virus, but we could have curtailed [it.'

Smithfield announced the closures of packing plants in Cudahy, Wisconsin and Martin City, Missouri on Wednesday, days after its Sioux Falls, South Dakota plant was indefinitely shuttered.

The Sioux Falls plant, where 518 employees and 120 of their family members have tested positive for coronavirus, is now the largest single source of cases in the U.S., and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has dispatched a critical response team to the scene.

Smithfield said in a statement that a 'small number of employees' at both the Cudahy and the Martin City plants had tested positive for the virus, without offering further details.

Shelves at this Publix in Atlanta are seen stripped bare last month after panic buying. Plant closures now threaten the supply of pork in the US, raising the possibility of shortages

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The Cudahy plant, which processes dry sausage and bacon, will be closed for two weeks, during which time employees will continue to be paid and rigorous deep cleaning and sanitization will be repeated.

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Union members at the Cudahy plant criticized the company last month for continuing to operate after the union said two employees tested positive for coronavirus.

The Martin City plant, which produces spiral and smoked hams, receives raw materials from the shuttered Sioux Falls plant, and will not be able to reopen until officials clear the upstream plant to reopen, the company said.

'The closure of our Martin City plant is part of the domino effect underway in our industry,' Smithfield president and CEO Kenneth M. Sullivan said in a statement.

'It highlights the interdependence and interconnectivity of our food supply chain. Our country is blessed with abundant livestock supplies, but our processing facilities are the bottleneck of our food chain,' he continued.

Smithfield's Martin City, Missouri plant (above), which produces spiral and smoked hams, receives raw materials from the shuttered Sioux Falls plant, and will close indefinitely

The Cudahy, Wisconsi plant, which processes dry sausage and bacon, will be closed for two weeks for repeated deep cleaning and sanitization

'This is why our government has named food and agriculture critical infrastructure sectors and called on us to maintain operations and normal work schedules,' Sullivan said. 'For the security of our nation, I cannot understate how critical it is for our industry to continue to operate unabated.'

Sullivan said that Smithfield has implemented rigorous protocols to try to protect workers, including the use of thermal scanning, personal protective equipment and physical barriers, and that the company tells any employee who feels sick to remain home on paid sick leave.

The company's Sioux Falls plant, which employs some 3,700 workers, is a massive food processing hub supplying Americans with nearly 130 million servings of food per week, or about 18 million servings per day.

The plant processes roughly five percent of the U.S. pork supply.

Smithfield, which is based in Virginia, was purchased by Chinese meat processing giant WH Group in 2013 for $4.72 billion.

WH Group Chairman Wan Long

Smithfield president and CEO Kenneth M. Sullivan

The Food and Drug Administration has said that there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of coronavirus.

Smithfield has not been the only meat processor to shut down plants due to workplace outbreaks of coronavirus.

Last week, Tyson Foods was forced to suspend operations at a pork processing plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, after more than 24 employees there tested positive for coronavirus.

'In an effort to minimize the impact on our overall production, we're diverting the livestock supply originally scheduled for delivery to Columbus Junction to some of our other pork plants in the region,' Tyson CEO Noel White said in a statement on April 6.

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Meanwhile, JBS USA, another major meat processor, has stopped operations at its beef plant in Souderton, Pennsylvania due to sick employees there. The plant plans to reopen April 16, after two weeks.

Cargill also paused operations at its protein plant in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where 900 people typically work.