REvil Ransomware Ground Down JBS: Sources

Author:Lisa Vaas
June 2, 2021 

Responsible nations don’t harbor cybercrooks, the Biden administration admonished Russia, home to the gang that reportedly froze the global food distributor’s systems.

The cyberattack that flattened operations at JBS Foods over the weekend was indeed a ransomware strike, the global food distributor has confirmed, with sources pointing to the REvil Group as the responsible gang.

Four people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to speak publicly told Bloomberg that the notorious Russia-linked hacking group is behind the attack against JBS SA. The REvil cyber gang also goes by the name Sodinokibi.

REvil is known for both audacious attacks on the world’s biggest organizations and suitably astronomical ransoms. In April, it put the squeeze on Apple just hours before its splashy new product launch, demanding a whopping $50 million extortion fee: a bold move, even for the notorious ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) gang. The original attack was launched against Quanta, a Global Fortune 500 manufacturer of electronics, which claims Apple among its customers. The Taiwanese-based company was contracted to assemble Apple products, including Apple Watch, Apple Macbook Air and Pro, and ThinkPad, from an Apple-provided set of design schematics.

The JBS attackers targeted several servers supporting North American and Australian IT systems of JBS Foods on Sunday, according to a statement by JBS USA. JBS is a global provider of beef, chicken and pork with 245,000 employees operating on several continents and serving brands such as Country Pride, Swift, Certified Angus Beef, Clear River Farms and Pilgrim’s.

The “vast majority” of JBS Foods’ beef, pork, poultry and prepared foods plants will be operational by today, the company said on Tuesday.

Andre Nogueira, JBS USA CEO, said in a statement that the company’s systems are coming back online and that it’s “not sparing any resources to fight this threat.” JBS has cybersecurity plans in place for these types of incidents and is successfully executing them, he said. In the case of a ransomware attack, that means relying on backups. Fortunately, JBS’ backup servers weren’t affected, and it’s been working with a third-party incident-response firm to restore operations as soon as possible.

It lucked out in that regard: Security experts have noted that attacks are getting more vicious and more destructive, with attackers taking the extra time and effort to remove backups prior to deploying ransomware.

As of Tuesday, JBS USA and Pilgrim’s were able to ship food from nearly all of its U.S. facilities, Nogueira noted, and were still making progress in resuming plant operations in the U.S. and Australia. “Several of the company’s pork, poultry and prepared foods plants were operational today and its Canada beef facility resumed production,” he said.

To date, JBS hasn’t found evidence that any customer, supplier or employee data was compromised.

White House Chides Russia

According to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, JBS told the administration on Sunday that it believes the ransomware attack was launched from a criminal organization, likely based in Russia.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday aboard Air Force One, Jean-Pierre said that the Biden administration told the Russian government that it’s not nice to harbor cybercrooks. “The White House is engaging directly with the Russian government on this matter and delivering the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals,” she said, according to a transcript of her remarks.

The White House has offered assistance to JBS: Its team and the Department of Agriculture have spoken to the company’s leadership several times since Sunday’s attack, Jean-Pierre said. As well, the FBI is investigating the incident in coordination with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to offer technical support to the company as it pulls itself back into production.

“Combating ransomware is a priority for the administration,” the press secretary went on. “President Biden has already launched a rapid strategic review to address the increased threat of ransomware to include four lines of effort: one, distribution of ransomware infrastructure and actors working closely with the private sector; two, building an international coalition to hold countries who harbor ransom actors accountable; expanding cryptocurrency analysis to find and pursue criminal transaction; and reviewing the USG’s ransomware policies.”

The government’s reaction to the JBS hit is an echo of the reaction to last month’s attack on a major U.S. oil pipeline, when ransomware group DarkSide targeted operator Colonial Pipeline Co., disrupting fuel supply in the Eastern part of the U.S.

That attack prompted President Joe Biden to declare a state of emergency and caused substantial pain at gas pumps in the Southeast. DarkSide made off with a $5 million ransomware payout from Colonial to decrypt its frozen systems but published a mea culpa over the uproar, emphasizing that it was in it for the cash, not to disrupt people’s lives. Somebody or somebodies weren’t convinced: The ransomware-as-a-server (RaaS) gang’s servers were subsequently shuttered. A week later, DarkSide got hauled into the underground’s “Hacker’s Court” for failing to pay its affiliates.

Biden’s executive order asked for “bold and significant changes” to tight deadlines on complex systems — tethered to a significant shift in technology. It does raise question, however, as noted by David Wolpoff, CTO and co-founder of Randori. Writing for Threatpost’s Infosec Insider, he questioned the EO’s “Heavy emphasis on migrating traditionally on-premises systems to the cloud” and call for rapid change in the name of cybersecurity. “It does not address the issue of the interconnectedness of a cloud migration,” Wolpoff noted. “If we move too fast, while attempting to shift to the cloud, we will create more issues.”

The Meat Industry’s Full of Sitting Ducks

Security ratings provider BitSight has been tracking the ransomware risk to the food production industry and says that the industry is setting itself up, with 40 percent of companies at increased risk due to poor patching practices. On Tuesday, the company told Threatpost in an email that food companies “are taking longer to patch vulnerabilities than the recommended industry standard, leaving them at higher risk.”

In fact, BitSight said, more than 70 percent of food companies are at increased risk of ransomware due to “less-than-ideal” security practices. ” Compared to other sectors, food production is in the 60th percentile of security performance, making it markedly more at-risk to ransomware than other sectors like Credit Unions (52 percent), Insurance (62 percent) and Finance (60 percent), which lead all sectors in security performance excellence,” it said.

But all industries are vulnerable, according to cyber threat intelligence firm Cyber Security Cloud Inc. “The recent cyberattacks on the Colonial Pipeline and now JBS USA show us that all infrastructures are vulnerable,” CEO Toshihiro Koike told Threatpost via email on Tuesday. “If organizations don’t start taking cybersecurity seriously, these attacks will continue to happen. Preventing a cyberattack is like preventing a home invasion: You must continuously update your security and educate the persons behind the walls.”

Threatpost has asked JBS Foods to comment on the attribution of the attack to REvil/Sodinokibi.    REvil Ransomware Ground Down JBS: Sources | Threatpost

Russia-linked cybercriminal group REvil behind meatpacker JBS attack

PUBLISHED WED, JUN 2 2021
CNBC
MacKenzie Sigalos@KENZIESIGALOS

KEY POINTS

Well-known hacker collective REvil Group is behind the cyberattack on Brazil’s JBS, according to a source speaking to CNBC on the condition of anonymity.

The assault on the world’s largest meatpacker disrupted meat production in North America and Australia.

In this article
JBSS-BR-0.55 (-1.78%)

VIDEO02:41
JBS to have most of meat plants online soon after suspected Russia cyberattack

Well-known hacker collective REvil Group is behind the cyberattack on JBS, according to a source speaking to CNBC on the condition of anonymity. It caused JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company to shut down operations.

The assault on the world’s largest meatpacker disrupted meat production in North America and Australia, at one point stoking concerns over the potential for rising prices and inadequate supply during the busy summer grilling season.

REvil — pronounced like the letter “R” followed by the word “evil” — is mostly comprised of native Russian speakers. It is also believed to be based in a former Soviet state.

The organization runs a site on the dark web, anachronistically known as the “Happy Blog.” If victims don’t comply with demands, the group posts stolen documents on its blog.

“We know that they are protected most likely by Russian intelligence or the Russian government, as are most ransomware groups, which has allowed them to flourish over the last 18 months,” Marc Bleicher of Arete Incident Response, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in negotiations with criminal hackers, previously told CNBC.

Packages of beef cuts are displayed at a Costco store on May 24, 2021 in Novato, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

By Tuesday night, the company said that it had made “significant progress in resolving the cyberattack” and that the “vast majority” of the company’s beef, pork, poultry and prepared food plants will be operational Wednesday.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration is engaging directly with the Russian government on this matter, “delivering the message that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals.”

-- CNBC’s Eamon Javers contributed to this report.

 

After enduring ‘complete hell’ during pandemic, food workers face obstacles getting COVID-19 vaccinations

“Vaccinating our essential farmworkers will ensure the safety of their workplaces, their homes, their families, our food supply, and the vital services that they perform.”

By

 Leah Douglas

 -

February 1, 2021Common Dreams

The thousands of workers who pick, pack, and process our food have become eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in many states. But they still face obstacles to actually getting the vaccine, as companies sort out their vaccination policies and advocates struggle to secure enough doses for a workforce that ranks among the most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

Labor organizations and the food industry spent months pushing for agricultural and food processing workers to be in early distribution phases of the Covid-19 vaccine. In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that agricultural workers be vaccinated in Phase 1b, and many states have followed suit.

Yet with the vaccine rollout moving slowly because of continued shortages and with some states shuffling around their priority populations, there are still unanswered questions about how and whether the vaccines will actually get to workers and about what role food manufacturers will play in getting shots into arms.

Florida is now requiring vaccine recipients to show state driver’s licenses or proof of residence, potentially excluding the state’s 200,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers

Meanwhile, food system workers are still contracting the virus at workplaces across the country. More than 85,500 food and farmworkers have contracted Covid-19 and at least 368 have died as of Jan. 27, according to FERN’s tracker. Nearly 7,000 cases have been added to the database since the beginning of January, even with just a few states regularly reporting data.

Kristy Tijerina, a worker at a JBS meatpacking plant in Plainwell, Michigan, says it’s essential that the vaccine be allocated to the industry’s workers as quickly as possible. At her plant, at least 88 workers have contracted the virus and one has died. Tijerina herself contracted Covid-19 in the spring, and her father died of the virus in August.

“It’s just getting really bad right now,” she says of the case rates in her community. “The more everybody gets vaccinated, it’s a lot better for everybody working here together.”

One obstacle to expediently vaccinating food workers is the still-changing prioritization of essential workers in states’ vaccination phases. Amy Liebman, director of environmental and occupational health at the Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN), which has been supporting local health systems in vaccinating farmworkers, says it’s “been a disappointment” seeing food and farmworkers still unable to access vaccines in many states, given their high risk of contracting Covid-19.

“First and foremost, we need the doses,” Liebman says.

In California, home to as many as 800,000 farmworkers, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently shifted the state’s vaccine distribution structure to be age-based, leading to concerns that many essential workers would need to wait longer for their shots. Florida, another major agricultural producer, is now requiring vaccine recipients to show state driver’s licenses or proof of residence, potentially excluding the state’s 200,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers from being vaccinated at all.

“Farmworkers are among the most vulnerable populations, because they work in close proximity to each other [and] they go home, often to multigenerational households,” said Fresno County supervisor Brian Pacheco at a vaccination site on Wednesday. Fresno County became one of the first counties in the country to begin vaccinating farmworkers this week and plans to vaccinate more than 3,000 agricultural workers in the coming days at vaccination sites around the county.

“Vaccinating our essential farmworkers will ensure the safety of their workplaces, their homes, their families, our food supply, and the vital services that they perform,” Pacheco said.

One of the logistical questions facing employers and health departments is where, exactly, workers should get inoculated. Particularly for migrant farmworkers, who may relocate between shots, vaccine distribution must happen at easily accessible locations, says Leibman. MCN is aiding in that effort with a virtual case management program that can help workers figure out how to get a second vaccine dose if they move after their first shot.

“We need to make sure that the vaccine is available to workers rather than the workers being available to the vaccine,” she says.

For meatpacking workers, the best option is to get vaccinated at work, says Mark Lauritsen, vice president of meatpacking at the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Many large meatpacking plants have their own health clinics, where workers already receive medical care. Workers may be less nervous getting vaccinated in a familiar setting, he says.

“We’re going to work to make sure that it’s an efficient process and a safe process, and that there’s no barriers to accessing [the vaccine],” he says. “The power of having it right there at the plant means we get to these people with very few obstacles.”

Yet there’s also an essential role for public health departments, especially in cases where workers may not trust their employer or report to work on a regular schedule. Advocates who represent subcontracted workers in food processing recommended recently that local health departments be “heavily involved” in vaccine distribution to ensure that temporary workers are reached.

In some states, meatpacking and other agricultural workers can already receive the vaccine or will qualify imminently. Iowa’s meatpacking workers are expected to be able to set up vaccine appointments by Feb. 1, and in Kansas, they began to qualify for vaccine appointments on Jan. 26.

Meatpackers are still figuring out some of the details of how they will vaccinate workers. Nikki Richardson, director of communications for JBS, says vaccination logistics are still being determined at each plant, and that in some cases, public health departments, pharmacies, or local health clinics will carry out worker vaccinations. But the company is “prepared for our phase of vaccine allocation whenever it may occur,” Richardson says.

Tyson Foods plans to “offer vaccinations on-site at our facilities, at no cost, while our team members are on the job,” said the company’s public relations manager, Derek Burleson. Tyson has contracted with Matrix Medical Network to coordinate its worker testing and vaccination, so the timing of vaccinations will depend on when states make vaccines available to Matrix, Burleson says.

Meatpacker JBS says it will pay workers $100 to get vaccinated. A critic called the incentive program an “attempt to distract from the company’s failure to protect its workers.”

Smithfield did not respond to questions about the specifics of its vaccination program.

Employers are also still sorting out whether to incentivize or compensate workers for getting vaccinated. In the grocery sector, where at least 109 union workers have died of Covid-19 and more than 17,000 have contracted the virus, some retailers are introducing incentives to encourage workers to get the vaccine, though they’re not requiring it. For instance, Instacart will pay $25 to employees who take time off to the get vaccinated. Trader Joe’s will give its workers two hours of pay per vaccine dose.

So far, JBS is the only meatpacker that has said it will pay workers to get the vaccine—$100 for employees of the Brazilian-owned meatpacker and its subsidiary Pilgrim’s Pride. But that approach isn’t uniformly popular.

Kim Cordova, the president of UFCW Local 7, said in a statement that JBS’s incentive program is an “attempt to distract from the company’s failure to protect its workers.” Local 7 represents workers at a JBS plant in Greeley, Colorado, where six workers have died of Covid-19 and nearly 450 have been sickened by the virus. The company should quickly restore hazard pay for its workers and implement daily testing, among other precautions, Cordova said.

Meatpackers are also mixed on whether the vaccine should be mandatory for their workers. JBS is “currently focused on achieving the highest voluntary participation rate possible,” says Richardson. Tyson is “strongly encouraging team members to take the vaccine but are not mandating it,” says Burleson.

Lauritsen says the UFCW is opposed to making the vaccine mandatory and that receiving the vaccine should not be a condition of employment. Besides, he says, workers are ready to get the vaccine without it being made compulsory.

“Given the work that’s been done, the complete hell that these folks have went through during this pandemic,” he says, “our members are ready to get the vaccination, and the sooner the better.”

Leah Douglas  is an associate editor and staff writer at FERN. Prior to joining the team, she worked for three years as a reporter and policy analyst with the Open Markets Institute, where she researched economic consolidation and monopolization in the food and agriculture industry. She founded and wrote Food & Power, a first-of-its kind resource on food sector consolidation.

Meatpackers deny workers benefits for COVID-19 deaths, illnesses

© Reuters/Jim Urquhart FILE PHOTO: Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Greeley, Colorado

By Tom Hals and Tom Polansek

(Reuters) - Saul Sanchez died in April, one of six workers with fatal COVID-19 infections at meatpacker JBS USA's slaughterhouse in Greeley, Colorado, the site of one of the earliest and deadliest coronavirus outbreaks at a U.S. meatpacking plant.

Before getting sick, the 78-year-old Sanchez only left home to work on the fabrication line, where cattle carcasses are sliced into cuts of beef, and to go to his church, with its five-person congregation, said his daughter, Betty Rangel. She said no one else got infected in the family or at Bible Missionary Church, which could not be reached for comment.

JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, denied the family's application for workers' compensation benefits, along with those filed by the families of two other Greeley workers who died of COVID-19, said lawyers handling the three claims. Families of the three other Greeley workers who died also sought compensation, a union representative said, but Reuters could not determine the status of their claims.

JBS has said the employees' COVID-19 infections were not work-related in denying the claims, according to responses the company gave to employees, which were reviewed by Reuters.

As more Americans return to workplaces, the experience of JBS employees shows the difficulty of linking infections to employment and getting compensation for medical care and lost wages.

"That is the ultimate question: How can you prove it?" said Nick Fogel, an attorney specializing in workers' compensation at the firm Burg Simpson in Colorado.The meatpacking industry has suffered severe coronavirus outbreaks, in part because production-line workers often work side-by-side for long shifts. Companies including JBS, Tyson Foods Inc and WH Group Ltd's <0288.HK> Smithfield Foods closed about 20 plants this spring after outbreaks, prompting President Donald Trump in April to order the plants to stay open to ensure the nation's meat supply. The White House declined to comment on the industry's rejections of workers' claims. The U.S. Department of Labor did not respond to a request for comment.

Tyson has also denied workers' compensation claims stemming from a big outbreak in Iowa, workers' attorneys told Reuters. Smithfield workers at a plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, also hit by a major outbreak, have generally not filed claims, a union official said, in part because the company has paid infected workers' wages and medical bills.

Smithfield declined to comment on workers’ compensation. Tyson said it reviews claims on a case-by-case basis, but declined to disclose how often it rejects them. JBS acknowledged rejecting claims but declined to say how often. It called the denials consistent with the law, without elaborating.

Workers can challenge companies' denials in an administrative process that varies by state but typically resembles a court hearing. The burden of proof, however, usually falls on the worker to prove a claim was wrongfully denied.

The full picture of how the meatpacking industry has handled COVID-related workers' compensation remains murky because of a lack of national claims data. Reuters requested data from seven states where JBS or its affiliates have plants that had coronavirus outbreaks. Only three states provided data in any detail; all show a pattern of rejections.

In Minnesota, where JBS had a major outbreak, meatpacking employees filed 930 workers' compensation claims involving COVID-19 as of Sept. 11, according to the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. None were accepted, 717 were rejected and 213 were under review. The agency did not identify the employers.The Minnesota Department of Health said only two meatpacking plants there had significant coronavirus outbreaks: a JBS pork processing plant in Worthington, and a poultry plant in Cold Spring run by Pilgrim's Pride Corp , which is majority-owned by JBS.

Tom Atkinson, a Minnesota workers' compensation attorney who has represented meatpacking workers, estimates up to 100 COVID-19 claims were filed by employees at the Worthington plant.

In Utah, seven JBS workers filed claims related to COVID-19 by Aug. 1 and all were denied, according to the state's Labor Commission. At least 385 workers at a JBS beef plant in Hyrum, Utah, tested positive for COVID-19.

In Colorado, 69% of the 2,294 worker compensation claims for COVID-19 had been denied as of Sept. 12. Although the state does not break down the denials by industry, a JBS spokesman told Reuters the company is rejecting claims in Colorado and that it uses the same claim-review procedures nationwide.

JBS spokesman Cameron Bruett did not answer the question of whether JBS employees were infected on the job and declined comment on individual workers’ claims. He said the company has outsourced claim reviews to a third-party administrator.

"Given the widespread nature of viral spread, our third-party claims administrator reviews each case thoroughly and independently," said Bruett.

The administrator, Sedgwick, did not respond to a request for comment. Bruett, also a spokesman for Pilgrim's Pride, did not respond to questions about infections and claims at its Minnesota plant.

At the JBS plant in Greeley, where Sanchez worked before he died, at least 291 of about 6,000 workers were infected, according to state data. The company, in its written response to the family’s claim, said that his infection was “not work-related,” without spelling out its reasoning. The two sides are now litigating the matter in Colorado's workers' compensation system.

Under Colorado law, a workers' compensation death benefit provides about two-thirds of the deceased worker's salary to the surviving spouse and pays medical expenses not covered by insurance. If JBS had not denied the Sanchez family’s claim, that would have provided his widow a steady income and paid uncovered medical bills totaling about $10,000, according to his daughter.

"They don't care," Rangel said of JBS. "They are all about the big profits, and they are not going to give any money out."

MASS INFECTIONS, LITTLE COMPENSATION

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union, which represents 250,000 U.S. meatpacking and food-processing workers, said last week at least 122 meatpacking workers have died of COVID-19 and more than 18,000 had missed work because they were infected or potentially exposed.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said on Sept. 11 that it had cited JBS for failing to protect workers at the Greeley plant from the virus. OSHA cited Smithfield this month for failing to protect workers at its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant, where the agency said nearly 1,300 workers contracted the coronavirus and four died.

Smithfield and JBS said the citations had no merit because they concerned conditions in plants before OSHA issued COVID-19 guidance for the industry. OSHA said it stands by the citations.

Workers' compensation is generally the only way to recoup medical expenses and lost wages for work-related injuries and deaths. The system protects employers from lawsuits, with few exceptions, and allows workers to collect benefits without having to prove fault or negligence. But the system was designed for factory accidents, not airborne illnesses.

In response to the coronavirus, governors and lawmakers in at least 14 states have made it easier for some employees to collect workers compensation for COVID-19 by putting the burden on companies and insurers to prove an infection did not occur at work. But most of the changes, which vary by state, only apply to workers in healthcare or emergency services. A similar proposal failed to gain support in Colorado.

Mark Dopp, general counsel for the North American Meat Institute, a trade association that represents meatpackers, said it is difficult to determine where workers get infections given extensive sanitation efforts taken by meat plants and workers' daily travel to and from the plants.

Tyson in April closed its Waterloo, Iowa, pork processing plant due to a COVID-19 outbreak. Ben Roth, a local workers’ compensation attorney, said five families of employees who died filed workers compensation claims for death benefits, and all were denied.

He said meat-processing companies have an incentive to deny every claim because admitting they caused even one infection can expose the firms to liability for all workers contracting COVID-19.

"That undercuts the argument that they want to make across the board: that you can’t prove you got it here and not at a grocery store," Roth said.

Tyson said it follows state laws for workers’ compensation. The company noted that Iowa law states that disease with an equal likelihood of being contracted outside the workplace are "not compensable as an occupational disease.”

In Colorado, Sylvia Martinez runs a group called Latinos Unidos of Greeley and said she knows of more than 20 JBS workers who applied for workers compensation and were denied. Many plant workers are not native English speakers and sought out her group for guidance, she said, adding that many don't understand their rights and fear being fired. The company's rejections have discouraged more claims, Martinez said.

"If you deny five or 10, those workers will tell their co-workers," she said.

'WHO IS GOING TO HIRE HIM?'

JBS also contested the claim of Alfredo Hernandez, 55, a custodian who worked at the Greeley plant for 31 years. He became infected and was hospitalized in March. He still relies on supplemental oxygen and hasn't returned to work, said his wife, Rosario Hernandez.

Generall y, companies approve claims if it looks probable that an employee was injured or sickened at work, said Erika Alverson, the attorney representing Hernandez. But JBS, she said, is arguing workers could have contracted COVID-19 anywhere.

"They're getting into, where did our clients go, what were they doing during that time, who was coming into their house, what did their spouse do, was there any other form of exposure?" said Alverson, of the Denver firm Alverson and O’Brien.

A judge will decide the Hernandez case in an administrative hearing. In the meantime, the Hernandez family has only his disability benefits – a portion of his salary – to cover his medical and insurance costs, Rosario Hernandez said.

"We're getting bunches of bills," she said.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, and Tom Polansek in Chicago; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Caroline Stauffer and Brian Thevenot)

POST COVID-19 ROBOTS ARE COMING FOR TYSON JOBS

Tyson Foods names new CEO as coronavirus raises costs

Banks, a former executive at Google-parent Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) experimental research division, will help the company integrate more technology into operations

(Reuters) - Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N) named its president, Dean Banks, as its new chief executive on Monday as the meatpacker faces unprecedented disruptions from the COVID-19 outbreak.

FILE PHOTO: Tyson Foods brand frozen chicken wings are pictured in a grocery store freezer in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S. May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo

Tyson said Banks will replace 37-year company veteran Noel White in October as it reported lower-than-expected quarterly sales. The company predicted the pandemic will increase operating costs and hinder sales volumes into next year.

Uncertainty over the reopening of the economy confronts Banks, who joined Tyson’s board in 2017 and became president in December 2019.

Tyson Foods wants China to lift ban on U.S. plant with COVID-19 cases

Chairman John Tyson said Banks, a former executive at Google-parent Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) experimental research division, will help the company integrate more technology into operations and focus on employee health.

The novel coronavirus has infected thousands of U.S. meatpacking workers and led to temporary meat shortages as processors like Tyson, JBS (JBSS3.SA) and Smithfield Foods [SFII.UL] closed slaughterhouses in April and May. Plants have reopened, but absences among workers who are afraid of getting sick continue to limit output.
Tyson said it faces reduced demand from restaurants and food-service outlets that has not been offset by stronger meat sales at grocers. The company predicted its chicken and prepared foods segments will suffer lower sales volumes in the last fiscal quarter.


In the third quarter ended June 27, Tyson’s chicken unit reported an adjusted operating loss of $120 million, compared with income of $237 million a year earlier.

“Our level of future growth is dependent on away-from-home eating occasions, which will be impacted by communities opening up and potentially reclosing,” White told analysts on a call.

JP Morgan said it expected the leadership change, although it may spook some investors. Shares were up about 1%.

Tyson’s quarterly sales fell to $10.02 billion from $10.89 billion. Analysts expected revenue of $10.56 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.


Excluding items, Tyson earned $1.40 per share, beating analysts’ estimates for 94 cents.

Tyson said direct costs related to COVID-19 were about $340 million, including employee testing and personal protective equipment.


Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru and Tom Polansek in Chicago; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Steve Orlofsky

German labor minister demands meat company pay coronavirus compensation

More than 1,300 people have tested positive at a Tönnies slaughterhouse, causing Germany's transmission rate to rocket. Germany's labor minister says the firm should pay compensation.

German Labor Minister Minister Hubertus Heil demanded the meat processing company behind a massive coronavirus outbreak should pay damages, in comments on Sunday evening.

More than 1,300 people have tested positive for the virus after an outbreak at the Rheda-Wiedenbrück meat processing plant, in the district of Gütersloh near Bielefeld, operated by German meat giant Tönnies.

"There must be a civil liability of the company," Heil told a Bild online broadcast, adding that the company had "taken an entire region hostage" by violating the coronavirus rules.

Heil said that his trust in the Tönnies company was "equal to zero." He said that the company not only endangered its own employees, but also "public health."

Read more: Coronavirus: German slaughterhouse outbreak crosses 1,000

Reproduction rate surges

Regional officials said the virus had largely been contained to the factory's mostly Romanian and Bulgarian workers, but the outbreak has prompted fears of wider community transmission and a return to large scale lockdowns.

The plant's 6,500 workers, who live in cramped company-provided accommodation, have been forced into quarantine. However, authorities have been hampered by poor documentation by the company.

Schools and daycare centers in the area have been ordered to shut and the plant has been closed.

Following the outbreak, Germany's coronavirus all-important reproduction rate surged to 2.88 — almost three times what it needs to be to contain the outbreak. The reproduction rate, or 'R' value, estimates how many people an infected person passes the virus to. Experts say a rate of less than 1 is needed to eliminate the disease.

The 7-day 'r' value, which tends to fluctuate less dramatically, increased from 1.55 on Saturday to 2.03 on Sunday.

Read more: NRW's Laschet walks back 'Romanians and Bulgarians' coronavirus commen

Tönnies blames its workers

Company boss Clemens Tönnies, who initially blamed his Eastern European workers for the outbreak, publicly apologized on Saturday saying he was "fully responsible," but refused to step down.

Green faction leader Anton Hofreiter appealed to the billionaire to cover the costs incurred by the virus outbreak from his own coffers.

If Tönnies meant his apology seriously, "he would pay the costs out of his private assets — not out of the company's assets," Hofreiter told the same show.

Calls for change

Heil told the broadcast: "The exploitation of people from Central and Eastern Europe, which has obviously taken place there, is now becoming a general health risk in the pandemic with considerable damage." Therefore, "there has to be a fundamental change in this industry."

Heil's colleague and SPD leader Norbert Walter-Borjans called for higher meat prices and a debate on distributive justice in Germany.

"Meat is a product that is produced with a high input of energy and other raw materials. Its value and price are often in stark disproportion," Walter-Borjans told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland newspaper group.

He said the Tönnies case showed "how little attention is paid to the question of how food — our most important basis of life — is produced." Everything is "subordinated to the pursuit of profit and efficiency."

Read more: Germany's meat industry under fire after COVID-19 outbreaks

aw/msh (AFP, dpa, epd)

DW RECOMMENDS

'Employees are not to blame' for coronavirus outbreaks

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Coronavirus: Over 600 people test positive at German slaughterhouse

Yet another German slaughterhouse has registered a massive outbreak of the coronavirus. Roughly two-thirds of the test results so far have come back positive. (17.06.2020)

How does Germany's meat industry work?

Germany's meat industry is a valuable part of its economy, but it is being heavily criticized following multiple coronavirus outbreaks. DW looks at the money big companies make, and conditions for workers. (19.06.2020)

JBS resumes chicken slaughtering at Brazil plant after COVID-19 outbreak: statement  

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Brazilian meatpacker JBS SA is seen in the city of Jundiai, Brazil June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian meatpacker JBS SA (JBSS3.SA) said on Thursday that operations at its plant in Passo Fundo, in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, were allowed to resume after the facility was closed by authorities due to an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Slaughtering resumed on Wednesday at the plant that has the capacity to process 320,000 birds per day, the company said in a statement sent to Reuters. It had been closed since April 24.

The company said it has “promoted a rigorous screening process to certify that only employees in good health returned to work.”

The company’s protocol does not involve testing of employees for the COVID-19 respiratory illness, a spokeswoman said.

At that facility alone, JBS employs more than 2,600 people, in addition to 600 integrated producers, the statement said. The Passo Fundo unit has operated for more than 35 years in the region, JBS said.

Covid-19, Big Ag and the Failing Food System

by RASHID NURI MAY 18, 2020 COUNTERPUNCH

Photograph Source: Cullen328 – CC BY-SA 3.0

Big Ag has separated humankind from the process of creating food that sustains existence. This separation has been done for material gain. Big Ag has interrupted the most natural relationship, a spiritual relationship, between humanity and the land. This human/land connection supersedes all religions. It is humankind’s association with land that feeds us and fortifies people to grow and expand civilization. It is this divine relationship that has been interrupted by the economic agenda of Big Ag. That agenda, like in most industry, is to monetize human need, with little or no concern for people’s wellbeing.

This COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the contradictions existing in our food system. We have a hyper-concentration in the distribution of food throughout the country. There is grand irony in hearing one of the leaders of Big Ag express dismay at the current state of affairs.

John Tyson is a third-generation scion and board chairman of the family business that bears his name. Tyson Foods, headquartered in Springdale Arkansas, is the world’s second largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork. Tyson exports the largest percentage of beef out of the United States. Their revenues exceed $40 billion annually.

“The food supply chain is breaking,” wrote board chairman John Tyson in a full-page advertisement published simultaneously in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “There will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed,” Tyson wrote.

President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order that invoked the Defense Production Act and commanded meat processing facilities to remain open. An analysis by Business Insider found at least 4,585 Tyson workers in 15 states have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and 18 have died. Trump’s order has prioritized meatpacker profits over the health and safety of workers, many of whom are immigrants, and created coronavirus hotspots.

The food system is broken! Where are the solutions? We need a comprehensive Small Farm and Urban Agriculture Homestead Act to support local food economies!! Some tentative steps have been taken. We have to go further.

Senator Cory Booker, joined by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ro Khanna, has introduced a bill to phase out large-scale factory farming by 2040. The question is what will replace the current modalities of production? Access to land, labor, capital (both infrastructure and funding) and regulatory support has to shift from Big Ag to small farmers who live in the neighborhoods that they serve. There are billions of dollars already committed to the food system in the form of subsidies, education and research and other resources, that can fund a new food system that is more efficient, healthy and humane.

As it stands, the business of farming and ranching is increasingly concentrated, with few growers occupying much larger acreage. The number of farms in the U.S. peaked in 1935, at 6.8 million.  By 2016, there were only 2.1 million farms, occupying the same number of acres.  Large farms “eat up” smaller ones, by having greater access to land, equipment and markets. The small farmers that have weathered the onslaught of commercial farming are finding it difficult to survive.  According to a 2016 USDA report, 59 to 78 percent of small farms, those with gross incomes up to $349,999, were operating in the red in 2015.  On the other hand, farms with incomes of $1-5 million and above were more likely to bring in profits averaging 25%.

Building sustainable communities begins with a focus on infrastructure, equity and food self-sufficiency. Big Ag is highly scalable, but not replicable. They have the ability to become larger, but the possibility of their facilities and infrastructure being replicated are slim. However, the local food production provided by small farms and urban agriculture is highly replicable. Small farms and urban agriculture can address many of the issues faced by humanity and expand a very productive pre-industrial, regenerative local food economy.

More articles by:RASHID NURI

Rashid Nuri is the author of Growing Out Loud.

Angry meat packing employee dares Trump to work shifts with him during pandemic: ‘Join the fun!’
April 30, 2020 By Brad Reed


A worker at a meat-packing plant in Indiana is none too happy with President Donald Trump’s order that he stay at work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Indianapolis Star reports that Gary Harris, a 20-year veteran at the Tyson Foods meat plant in Logansport, Indiana, is daring the president to put his own health on the line and help them process meat to keep food on American families’ tables.

“If he does that I think they should bring the president down here and have him work shoulder-to-shoulder and join the fun,” said Harris.

Harris explained that more than 100 employees at the Logansport plant have already tested positive for COVID-19, which has created severe stress and anxiety among his fellow workers.

“God help the people on the line,” he said. “Everyone is scared and worried, no one knows who has it and who doesn’t because the company won’t say.”


Tyson temporarily shut down the Logansport plant over the weekend, and both the company and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 700 have said that the plant needs to remain shut down until it is safe to return.

“The reality is that these workers are putting their lives on the line every day to keep our country fed during this deadly outbreak,” UFCW International President Marc Perrone this week. “To protect America’s food supply, America’s meatpacking workers must be protected.”

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MEATPACKER

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MEATPACKING

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CARGILL 

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=UFCW

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=COVID19

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=FARMWORKERS

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MIGRANT+WORKERS

World's biggest meat company linked to 'brutal massacre' in Amazon

Investigation traces meat sold to JBS and rival Marfrig to farm owned by man implicated in Mato Grosso killings  

Protests against the illegal timber trade in Brazil have highlighted the number of people killed while defending the forest. Photograph: Eraldo Peres/AP

Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Published on Tue 3 Mar 2020

A new investigation has linked the world’s biggest meat company JBS, and its rival Marfrig, to a farm whose owner is implicated in one of the most brutal Amazonian massacres in recent memory.

The report by Repórter Brasil comes as JBS faces growing pressure over transparency failings in its Amazon cattle supply chain.

On 19 April 2017, nine men were brutally murdered in what became known as the “Colniza massacre”. The men had been squatting on remote forest land in the state of Mato Grosso when their bodies were found, according to court documents. Some showed signs of torture; some had been stabbed, others shot.

According to charges filed by state prosecutors in Mato Grosso, the massacre was carried out by a gang known as “the hooded ones”. The aim, they said, was to terrify locals, take over land they lived on and extract valuable natural resources. The first reporter to reach the lawless, far-flung region only got there a week later.

 

House of farmer and evangelical pastor Sebastião de Souza in Taquarussu do Norte, Brazil, one of the men murdered in the Colniza massacre. Photograph: Fabiano Maisonnave/Courtesy of Climate Home

On 15 May 2017, prosecutors said they had charged Valdelir João de Souza, a farmer who owned two timber companies on neighbouring land, and four others with homicide and forming or being part of an illegal paramilitary group. Prosecutors said de Souza had ordered the massacre, although he had not been present when it occurred.

Since then de Souza has been a fugitive. But in April 2018 two adjacent areas of land – Três Lagoas and Piracama farms - in nearby Rondônia state were registered under his name (one of the oddities of the Brazilian property system is that landowners register their own land and boundaries). The two farms covered 1,052 hectares (2,599 acres) in an area set aside by the government for low-income agricultural workers. Satellite images show extensive deforestation on the Três Lagoas farm in 2015.


Meat company faces heat over ‘cattle laundering’ in Amazon supply chain

Government sanitary records seen by Repórter Brasil show that on 9 May 2018 143 cattle were sold by the Três Lagoas and Piracama farms to a farm owned by Maurício Narde.

Minutes later Narde’s farm sold 143 animals of the same sex and age – 80 female cattle between 13– 24 months old and 63 female cattle over 36 months old – to a JBS meatpacker.

In June 2017, according to court documents in a separate case, Narde worked at a sawmill owned by de Souza in Machadinho d’Oeste in Rondônia state. He still works at the same sawmill, although it has since changed its name and is no longer controlled by de Souza. Reached by telephone by the Guardian, Narde confirmed the transaction but did not explain why he had sold the cattle after buying them minutes beforehand.

“We buy and sell, just to keep things moving,” he said, before deciding not to answer any more questions and concluding the interview.

Cattle laundering involves the selling on of cows raised illegally on deforested land to ‘clean’ farms. Photograph: Bruno Kelly/Greenpeace

The quick sale of the cattle suggests what environmentalists call “cattle laundering” – when cattle from a farm that has environmental issues sells cattle to a “clean” farm. This gets around monitoring systems because meat companies including JBS do not monitor these “indirect suppliers”.

“This series of coincidences suggests a common practice, which is the triangulation of animals,” said Mauro Armelin, director of Friends of the Earth Brazil. “It is a practice that could indicate cattle laundering.”

On 25 June 2018, according to government sanitary records, Três Lagoas also sold 153 head of cattle to the Morro Alto farm in Monte Negro, Rondônia, owned by José Carlos de Albuquerque.

In the following months de Albuquerque sold dozens of head of cattle to JBS and Marfrig slaughterhouses.

De Albuquerque told Réporter Brasil that the sale had never been completed – but the report cited sanitary records showing the cattle had, in fact, entered the Morro Alto farm. Contacted by the Guardian by phone and email, he declined to answer questions.

The Repórter Brasil investigation highlights the difficulties that Brazil’s big meat companies have in monitoring their supply chains.

JBS and other big companies such as Marfrig committed to not buying from farms involved in illegal deforestation in two separate agreements signed with Greenpeace and Brazilian prosecutors in 2009 and subsequent years. Under the Greenpeace deal, the companies also promised to remove producers accused of land grabbing or convicted in rural conflicts from their suppliers lists. The deal with federal prosecutors similarly bans farms that have been convicted of involvement in rural conflicts, or that are being investigated.

Greenpeace quit their deal in 2017, after JBS was fined for buying cattle from farms in illegally-deforested areas in the Amazon state of Pará. An audit by federal prosecutors found that 19% of the cattle JBS purchased in the state in 2016 had “evidence of irregularities”.

  

Large meat companies have promised not to buy cattle from farms that encroach on indigenous lands. Photograph: Paulo Pereira/Greenpeace


In the years following the cattle agreement, JBS made enormous progress in improving its monitoring of Amazon suppliers and the company defended its sustainability in a statement.

“We monitor over 280,000 square miles, an area larger than Germany, and assess more than 50,000 potential cattle-supplying farms every day, as well as conducting daily checks of all purchases to ensure compliance with strict standards. To date we have blocked more than 8,000 cattle-supplying farms due to noncompliance,” it said.

But while the company now has a complex system in place to monitor its direct suppliers, it is still unable to monitor its indirect suppliers – those farmers who sell to farms that then sell on to JBS.

Revealed: fires three times more common in Amazon beef farming zones

De Souza’s case has yet to be concluded. Ulisses Rabaneda, a lawyer representing de Souza, told the Guardian that he had decided not to reply to questions from the media at this stage in the court proceedings.

In an interview with the Gazeta Digital in 2019, de Souza said he was innocent of all charges, had never been involved in death squads, and remained a fugitive because he was scared he would be murdered by the real killers if he handed himself in.

“I never went around armed, so why at my age of 41, with solid companies, a peaceful life, no debts, without any problems, would I do something so barbaric?” de Souza said in the interview. “I built everything with the honesty and effort of my family. Why would I throw it all away?”

JBS told Réporter Brasil that de Souza was not a supplier and that it does not “acquire cattle from farms involved in deforestation of native forests, invasion of indigenous reserves of conservation, rural violence, land conflicts, or that used slave or child labour”.

“JBS reiterates that any attempt to link the company to the person mentioned in the report, who was never on its list of suppliers, is irresponsible,” the company told the Guardian.

Marfrig declined to comment on the investigation and sent the statement it had previously sent to the Guardian in December in which the company recognised that 53% of its Amazon cattle comes from indirect suppliers.

“Marfrig is fully aware of the challenges related to the livestock production chain and recognises its role as an important transformation agent to ensure production vis-à-vis the conservation of Brazilian biomes, especially the Amazon,” the company said.

  

Marfrig has recognised that over half of its Amazon cattle comes from indirect suppliers. Photograph: Ricardo Funari/Greenpeace

It detailed measures including a supplier monitoring platform and its Request for Information (RFI) tool, in which suppliers voluntarily list the farms they may have acquired animals from. The company says a third of the cattle it sources in the Amazon come with an RFI, and it is now working to improve the process with World Wildlife Fund.

In 2017, a Greenpeace report published after the Colniza massacre said a company owned by de Souza, called Madeireira Cedroarana, had accumulated around $150,000 (£116,000) in unpaid fines over a decade from Brazil’s environment agency, Ibama.

Between January 2016 and October 2017 the company exported thousands of cubic metres of timber to the US and Europe. In 2018 it changed its name to Colmar Madeiras; it continues at the same address, but de Souza is no longer its controlling partner. In the interview with Gazeta Digital, he said his company had challenged fines it had received.

JBS IS ALSO IN ALBERTA AND OTHER PROVINCES IN CANADA  

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2019/12/all-news-that-fits-washington-post.html