JBS Battles New Coronavirus Outbreak

Page 4 Lost Creek Guide December 2, 2020

Gardner Announces Colorado Springs is a Meatpacking Giant JBS Battles New Coronavirus Finalist for U.S. Space Command Headquarters Outbreaks At Greeley Plant And Corporate Offices

Co-founder of Senate Space Force Caucus sucBy Chuck Murphy, Colorado Public Radio The coronavirus respite at a Greeley meatpacking plant did not last long. cessfully pushed for Colorado’s selection for U.S. Just more than a month after one of the state’s most serious workplace outbreaks was

Space Command provisional headquarters Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) applauded the announcedeclared resolved, the JBS plant is once again confronting a COVID-19 outbreak among its plant workers, according to a statewide outbreak report released Wednesday by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.ment today that Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs has been selected as a fi- The new outbreak, which began Nov. 17, first appeared on last week’s report with 20 nalist to be the permanent home to U.S. Space Command headquarters. Peterson Air confirmed infections. That grew over the past week to at least 32 workers at JBS, all of Force Base is the current provisional location for U.S. Space Command headquarters, and whom have lab-confirmed cases of the illness caused by the coronavirus.Gardner has pushed the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to permanently reestablish The slow growth inU.S. Space Command in Colorado to harness the state’s existing military assets to coordi- dicates that the virus nate space operations for the U.S. military and address emerging threats in space. may not be sweeping

“In Colorado we are proud to play a pivotal role in our national defense and military unchecked through space operations, and I am thrilled that Peterson Air Force Base will receive a site visit for the plant as it did in consideration to be home to U.S. Space Command headquarters,” said Senator Gard- the spring. That outner. “Colorado’s leadership in space is unmatched – with our existing military space break, which began infrastructure, Colorado is the perfect place for the permanent home to U.S. Space Com- April 3 in the masmand. Colorado is well prepared to make its final pitch during the upcoming site visits.” sive plant, eventually

Senator Gardner urged President Trump, Vice President Pence, former Secretary of sickened 292 workers Defense Esper, Secretary of the Air Force Barrett, and former Commander of U.S. Space who had confirmed Command General Jay Raymond to select Colorado as the permanent headquarters for cases of the disease U.S. Space Command. Gardner serves on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and another three and Transportation, a key committee with oversight of U.S. space and aerospace policies. who were suspected

Colorado was the first home of the U.S. Space Command when it was previously es- of having it, but not tablished at Peterson Air Force Base in 1985. Today, Colorado continues to possess the confirmed. trained military personnel and technical expertise necessary to assume the responsibilities of a Unified Combatant Command for space and the space-related responsibilities The JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2020. Hart Van Denburg/CPR News It took six and a half months to recurrently assigned to United States Strategic Command. Timeline of Gardner’s push to bring Space Command to Colorado: September 2020: Senators Gardner, Sinema, Cramer, and Heinrich launched the U.S. Senate Space Force Caucus. June 2020: Gardner applauded Colorado’s legislature for passing a bill to allow military spouse licensure reciprocity. May 2020: Gardner applauded Colorado’s selection as provisional headquarters of U.S. Space Command. solve. Six JBS workers in the plant died from COVID-19 and a seventh, in the corporate office, also died. Kim Cordova, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, said she has been watching the third wave of COVID-19 infections in Colorado with concern, worried that the virus would once again reach her union members in Greeley. “We›re really worried about things turning deadly again,» said Cordova, who is also an international vice president for the UFCW union. “These workers don›t have opportunity for social distancing ... They don›t have control over it.» ‘We Don’t Want Other People to Suffer’: JBS Families Wait, Fight And Hope For Ac-

December 2019: Gardner successfully authorized the U.S. Space Force as a military countabilityservice branch in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. Cameron Bruett, head of corporate affairs and sustainability at JBS, said in an email,

September 2019: Gardner applauded the announcement that U.S. Space Com- “We conduct random, routine surveillance testing at our facilities on a weekly basis to mand was temporarily established at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. identify any potential virus introduction into our facilities.”

August 2019: Gardner, the entire Colorado Congressional Delegation, and Gover- Cordova, whose union represents about 3,000 workers in the plant, credited JBS with nor Jared Polis joined together to send a letter to the DOD reiterating their call for the taking some steps to protect workers recently. Among them, she said the company started headquarters to be reestablished in Colorado. to put older workers with pre-existing conditions on paid leave to keep them out of the

July 2019: Gardner authored a letter to the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper urging plant once the virus was detected again. the U.S. Space Command headquarters to be established in Colorado. “I do think JBS, once they got some new cases in the plant, the company did make

June 2019: Gardner introduced General Jay Raymond, Commander of Air Force moves quicker to at least move the at-risk employees,” Cordova said. Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, as the nominee to lead Bruett said the company first removed vulnerable employees in March, paying them the United States Space Command at his nomination hearing in the Senate Armed Ser- salary and benefits, and that overall about 10 percent of the workforce in Greeley has vices Committee. been under that arrangement at some point. Some have returned after coronavirus cases

May 2019: Gardner continued to push for the U.S. Space Command headquarters to subsided in the community, and the employees passed a physical. consider Colorado as a new relocation after official notification that the Secretary of the The plant is one of several nationwide in the meatpacking industry to have had outAir Force was considering four Air Force Bases in Colorado as potential locations. breaks, making the industry a symbol of COVID-19’s impact on frontline workers, many

March 2019: Gardner, the entire Colorado Congressional Delegation, and Gover- of whom are older immigrants to the U.S. nor Jared Polis joined together to urge the DOD to reestablish the U.S. Space Command The plants provide the nation’s meat, making widespread shutdown a national security in Colorado. issue. And workers on the line stand close together to efficiently process the cattle car-

February 2019: When the President Trump signed a directive establishing the Space casses, making infection control a challenge. Force, Gardner called for continued expansion of military space operations to Colorado, At one point Vice President Mike Pence became involved, promising testing resources including the new U.S. Space Command headquarters. to the plant. But while all employees were eventually subjected to temperature screenings to check for fevers before entering the plant, there was not universal testing, and Cordova said that is still the case now. JBS responded to the Greeley outbreak in the spring with a brief shutdown of operations to clean the plant, install shields, stagger schedules in the lunchroom and put more emphasis on infection control for the staff. It wasn’t enough, according to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That agency fined JBS nearly $16,000 for failing to protect workers, an amount the union considered paltry. The initial outbreak on the main floor of the Greeley plant was finally declared over on Oct. 20. The corporate offices of JBS had their own second outbreak begin the day before that. So far, 38 people in the corporate offices have contracted COVID-19 as part of this new wave of infections, according to the latest CDPHE report. CPR News Director Rachel Estabrook contributed to this report.