State officials and lawmakers urged the shutdown of a Tyson Foods in Iowa after managers at the plant reportedly placed bets on how many would end up getting sick.
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The lawsuit alleges Tyson Foods, Inc. is guilty of a "willful and wanton disregard for workplace safety."
The lawsuit was recently amended and includes a number of new allegations against the company and plant officials. Among them:
The lawsuit alleges plant manager, Tom Hart, organized a cash buy in, winner take all, betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many plant employees would test positive for coronavirus.
John Casey, an upper level manager at the plant, is alleged in the lawsuit to have explicitly directed supervisors to ignore symptoms of coronavirus. The lawsuit alleges he referred to coronavirus as the "glorified flu" and told workers not to worry about it because "it's not a big deal" and "everyone is going to get it."
The lawsuit alleges that, on one occasion, Casey intercepted a sick supervisor who was on his way to be tested and ordered him to get back to work, saying "we all have symptoms you have a job to do."
Tyson Foods issued a statement from Tyson Foods President and CEO Dean Banks in response to allegations made in an amended lawsuit involving the company’s pork plant in Waterloo, Iowa.
“We are extremely upset about the accusations involving some of the leadership at our Waterloo plant. Tyson Foods is a family company with 139,000 team members and these allegations do not represent who we are, or our CORE VALUES and Team Behaviors. We expect every team member at Tyson Foods to operate with the utmost integrity and care in everything we do. We have suspended, without pay, the individuals allegedly involved and have retained the law firm Covington and Burling LLP to conduct an independent investigation led by former Attorney General Eric Holder. If these claims are confirmed, we’ll take all measures necessary to root out and remove this disturbing behavior from our company.
"Our top priority is and remains the health and safety of our team members. We’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars to transform our U.S. facilities, including the Waterloo plant, with protective measures, from walk through TEMPERATURE SCANNERS and workstation dividers to SOCIAL DISTANCE MONITORS and ALWAYS ON TESTING.†■