Worker Exploitation and COVID-19 Challenges in the Texas Meatpacking Industry

On May 19, workers at the meat processing plant, Quality Sausage Co. in Dallas, Texas gathered to protest the company’s mismanagement of a COVID-19 outbreak. The company did not follow CDC safety standards, resulting in three deaths and 63 infections. This company is one of many in Dallas and across the state of Texas that exemplifies the unsafe conditions food industry workers face nationwide. Quality Sausage closed for two weeks on April 24 following the death of Mathias Martinez. The next day Hugo Dominguez, a forklift operator, also died of COVID-19. The plant reopened on May 8, and Bertha Cervantez died a few days afterward. Hugo Dominguez’s wife, Blanca Parra, is now speaking out and filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Quality Sausage. “The virus was the gun that killed him but Quality Sausage was the hand that pulled the trigger,” Parra said. “We are asking for justice because the company, and the people who made the decision to continue… putting people at risk need to be held accountable.” Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/pandemic-reveals-worker-exploitation-in-texas-meatpacking-industry/