Foster Farms facing lawsuit, union alleges ‘unsafe’ workplace amid COVID-19 outbreaks
The United Farm Workers labor union says it’s suing Foster Farms following the deaths of several workers from COVID-19 earlier this year.
Elizabeth Strater, director of alternative organizing at United Farm Workers, called the suit “an act of desperation” to get Foster Farms to improve conditions for workers immediately. The suit was filed in Merced County Superior Court.
“Our only prevailing goal in this is to urgently protect workers’ lives and their family’s lives,” Strater told The Bee. “The level of insufficient protection that’s happening there, it’s alarming.”
Foster Farms sent a response Friday afternoon to the suit. “Foster Farms does not comment on active litigation in detail. We believe the current United Farm Workers lawsuit is without merit and have confidence that judicial review will find accordingly,” the company stated.
According to a UFW news release, the suit filed this week seeks an immediate temporary restraining order to force Foster Farms’ Livingston chicken processing plant “to comply with clear COVID safety rules that the company has refused to follow despite nine workers at the plant dying and over 400 becoming infected.”
The union also alleges the company isn’t following national safety guidelines. They say Foster Farms “failed to create 6 feet of distance between workers who are required to work on lines for hours at a time, failed in many cases to provide adequate masks, and failed to adequately inform workers of sick leave options.”
Foster Farm’s Livingston plant was briefly closed in September after a large coronavirus outbreak, considered one of the deadliest COVID-19 workplace incidents in the state.
Earlier this month, the Livingston plant was back on Merced County’s outbreak list. At one of its Fresno plant earlier this month, nearly 200 Foster Farms workers tested positive.
Worker health a priority, Foster Farms says
In their Friday statement, Foster Farms said it’s committed to the health and welfare of its employees.
“Our ongoing effort is reflected in a consistent prevalence level at the Livingston Poultry Complex of less than 1% since September 2020, even as testing positivity in Merced County has increased to 13.5%, with no signs of abating,” the company said.
Company officials said Foster Farms has also followed a three step “multi-hurdle” approach to controlling COVID-19:
1) Screening to prevent symptomatic employees from entering facilities, utilizing wellness and temperature checks.
2) Implementation of mitigation measures like mandatory wearing of face coverings, the addition of partitions to workstations where social distancing opportunities are limited, daily USDA reviewed plant sanitation, and continuous sanitation of shared common spaces, staggering of worker breaks and expansion of break areas.
3) Continuous weekly testing of employees at all major processing facilities, to remove asymptomatic workers – those showing no signs of illness – curtailing potential COVID-19 spread.
“To date, Foster Farms has performed more than 50,000 tests since the beginning of the pandemic, including more than 25,000 tests at its Livingston Poultry Complex since September,” the company said.
“We believe that identifying and removing asymptomatic workers through proactive testing is the surest way to further protect workers free of the virus. “
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 1:36 PM with the headline "Foster Farms facing lawsuit, union alleges ‘unsafe’ workplace amid COVID-19 outbreaks."
