RED BETWEEN THE LINES --- WASHINGTON POST---JBS MEAT PACKING EXPOSE

CONCENTRATION IN THE MEATPACKING INDUSTRY BEGAN AT THE END OF THE SEVENTIES AND CONTINUED THROUGH THE EIGHTIES AND NINETIES AS CONCENTRATION MOVED TO MONOPOLY THE MEAT PACKING INDUSTRY ALSO BEGAN A FULL SCALE ASSAULT ON HEALTH AND SAFETY REGULATIONS, CREATING TWO TIER WAGES WHICH THEY ATTACKED THE UFCW WITH, USE OF FOREIGN TEMPORARY WORKERS AND IN MANY CASES THE UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS WERE USED AFTER THE RONALD REAGAN'S ASSAULT ON UNIONS LEFT THE MEATPACKING INDUSTRY ABLE TO NOW BRING IN UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS AS TEMP WORKERS.

BUT THE UFCW FOUGHT BACK IN CANADA AND THE USA. THEY ORGANIZED THOSE WORKERS IN CARGILL PLANTS, EVEN IF IT TOOKS DECADES OF STRUGGLE AS IT DID IN ALBERTA WITH THE UFCW ORGANIZING THEIR
PLANT IN SOUTHERN ALBERTA, WITH WORKERS FROM ECUADOR, SOMALIA,
ETHIOPIA, AND OTHER COUNTRIES IN AN ALL WHITE MORMON TOWN.

I WROTE OF THE EARLY CONSOLIDATION AND THE CONCENTRATION OF THE MEATPACKING INDUSTRY IN CANADA DURING THE UFCW MEAT PACKERS STRIKE OF 1978 AND WE PUBLISHED A SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE MELIORIST THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE STUDENT PAPER AND HAD IT DISTRIBUTED TO EVERY HOUSEHOLD IN THE CITY VIA THE POST OFFICE.

THIS STORY OF CONSOLIDATION AND MONOPOLY CAPITALISM IN THE MEATPACKING INDUSTRY IS THE SAME STORY IT HAS BEEN FOR FORTY YEARS

JBS IN CANADA

A NUMBER OF YEARS BACK JBS BOUGHT A FAILED AND CONTAMINATED MEATPACKING HOUSE IN LETHBRIDGE. AFTER IT WAS CLOSED FOR AN E-COLI OUTBREAK IT HAD CREATED BY FAILED SELF REGULATION OF CLEANING AND DISINFECTION PROCEDURES VITAL TO FOOD SAFETY. IT WAS A MAJOR SCANDAL ACROSS CANADA. AND JBS SWOOPED IN AS A ANGEL INVESTOR TO SAVE THE DAY BUT OF COURSE IT WAS IN FACT THE VULTURE CAPITALISM AT WORK ONCE AGAIN FOR A MULTINATIONAL FOOD MONOPOLY.

#JBS COMPETES IN CANADA WITH MAPLE LEAF FOODS IN A MEAT PACKING FOOD INDUSTRY DUOPOLY

This foreign meat company got U.S. tax money. 

Now it wants to conquer America.

President Trump delivers remarks in support of farmers and ranchers at the White House in May. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)


By Kimberly Kindy Washington Post

November 7, 2019

This story has been updated.Two men in cowboy hats stood behind President Trump in May as he announced a $16 billion agricultural bailout. Trump said the financial relief from his trade war with China would help American farmers, reinforcing an earlier tweet when the president said the funds would help “great Patriot Farmers.”

But not all beneficiaries of the taxpayer-funded program are American farmers or patriots. JBS, a Brazilian company that is the largest meat producer in the world, has received $78 million in government pork contracts funded with the bailout funds — more than any other U.S. pork producer.

JBS’s winning hand in securing a quarter of all of the pork bailout contracts is one example of the power a small number of multinational meat companies now hold in the United States. JBS has become a major player in the United States even as it faces price-fixing and other investigations from the federal government.

The company’s explosive growth through acquisitions over the past decade has been a dominant factor in the consolidation of the meat industry by multinational companies.

A dozen years ago, JBS did not own a single U.S. meat plant. Today, JBS and three other food companies control about 85 percent of beef production. JBS and Tyson Foods control about 40 percent of the poultry market. And JBS and three other companies control nearly 70 percent of the pork market.

JBS and the large multinational meat companies, including Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods and Cargill, use their size and global presence to create efficiencies that enable them to produce a variety of quality foods at a lower price. But many agricultural economists and food marketing analysts say when so few companies control the market, they can drive smaller operators out of business, reducing competition and sometimes raising prices for consumers.

[Trump farm bailout money will go to Brazilian-owned meatpacking firm, USDA says]

Such consolidation has been condemned by eight Democratic presidential candidates, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) being the most outspoken. She’s pledged to break up the larger food and meat companies because the companies can use their “economic power to spend unlimited sums of money electing and manipulating politicians” and because they are “leaving family farmers with fewer choices, thinner margins and less independence.”

The candidates have other concerns, including threats to the availability and affordability of the nation’s food supply. Large food companies have in the past reduced supply to drive up the price of their products. The Justice Department is investigating whether JBS and other poultry companies illegally coordinated to do just that.

JBS said in a written statement that its American subsidiary, JBS USA, is a vital part of the agricultural economy. The company employs more than 60,000 people in the United States and buys from more than 11,000 U.S. farmers and ranchers. JBS and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue say the bailout funds JBS received are helping American farmers because the company buys its hogs from them.

“This is no different than people buying Volkswagens or other foreign autos where their executives may have been guilty of some issue along the way,” Perdue said in a statement. “They still buy the cars.”

JBS CEO Gilberto Tomazoni told analysts in August that JBS is “at the best moment in its history.” He said an upcoming stock offering in the United States will allow the company to continue to expand; JBS says expansion efforts “will better position the company to sustainably meet evolving customer and consumer expectations.”

However, U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) recently challenged whether JBS’s entry into the U.S. market should have been allowed.

USDA pilot program fails to stop contaminated meat

Corruption scandals have engulfed JBS in Brazil, the senators wrote to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and company officials have “admitted criminal conduct to secure loans that were used for investment in the United States.” They’ve asked for a review of the purchases.

JBS said it received all “necessary regulatory approvals from the . . . antitrust authorities, including the Department of Justice” before purchasing each of the companies. 

Small farmers and cattlemen are glad some politicians are listening. They say the federal government’s bailout — and JBS’s share of it — are reminiscent of the bank bailouts during the Great Recession. Even though many of the banks were under investigation by the federal government, they still received federal money.

“I think it’s one of those situations where it’s too big to fail,” said Greg Gunthorp, who runs his family hog farm in Indiana. “We are talking about a company that has shown it doesn’t play by the rules.”

Buying spree

JBS purchased its first U.S. meat plants in 2007, using Brazilian bank loans the owners secured illegally, court records show. In a plea deal, brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista told prosecutors how they bribed bank and government officials to receive low-interest loans.

The bank loans and other funding allowed JBS to consolidate five U.S. companies — which produced pork, poultry and beef — into a single company, JBS USA.

In 2007, JBS bought pork and beef producer Swift and Co. In 2008, it purchased the beef operations of Smithfield Foods. In 2009, it acquired poultry producer Pilgrim’s Pride. In 2015, JBS bought Cargill’s pork division. And in 2017, the company purchased poultry producer GNP Co.

“JBS used their ill-gotten gains to dominate the meat market,” said Joe Maxwell, a fourth-generation hog farmer and executive director of the Organization for Competitive Markets, a nonprofit group that fights income disparities in U.S. agricultural markets. The loans, Maxwell said, “allowed them to become the big dogs almost overnight.”

JBS said it did not rebut the plea deal but said it also raised capital by selling company stock.

The bailout payments underscore JBS’s advantage over smaller domestic competitors. Some of its pork plants kill more than 1,000 pigs an hour, enabling JBS to operate off a slimmer profit margin and underbid other companies for the bailout contracts.

JBS is also able to shift production to avoid high tariffs. While U.S. pork exported to China faces a 72 percent tariff, pork from JBS plants in Brazil faces only a 10 to 12 percent tariff.

JBS increased production where tariffs were lower, benefiting twice from the Chinese trade war — first by collecting the bailout money and then by increasing pork production at its plants outside the United States, which JBS announced this year.

How beef demand is accelerating the Amazon’s deforestation and climate peril

JBS has grown and thrived despite multiple federal inquiries. The Agriculture Department said JBS underpaid family farmers and ranchers last year at three slaughterhouses in Colorado, Nebraska and Texas by claiming the cattle weighed less than they did. Domestic cattle owners say they lost millions of dollars.

USDA fined JBS $79,000.

Cattle producers said the fine was an insult to small ranchers. “That’s pennies to them,” said Steve Krajicek, an independent cattle producer who sells to JBS. “They make in excess of $1 million a day at the Nebraska plants. It’s not even enough for them to blink an eye or to reconsider how they are doing business.”

JBS said a software change caused an error in paying sellers and those who were underpaid were later reimbursed.

JBS’s growth has not been slowed by heftier fines for worker safety violations — about $20 million over the past decade, according to records from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

A Washington Post analysis of OSHA data from 2015 to 2018 shows that JBS has the highest rate of serious worker injuries — including those involving amputation and hospitalization — among meat companies in the United States, and the second highest rate of serious injuries among all companies in the United States.

The Post used federal data on the number of serious worker injuries and the number of employees to determine the injury rates. JBS disagreed with The Post’s methodology and said JBS was better than the industry average in other safety metrics using federal data, such as time lost because of injury.

Consumer concerns

Consolidation can lead to benefits for consumers. Trey Malone, an agricultural economist at Michigan State University, said consolidation has led to lower prices and an explosion of new food products. A grocery store in 1995 had about 8,000 options on average. Now, it’s more than 45,000.

“As companies get larger, you get economies of scale. The cost of production per unit decreases,” Malone said. “Companies increasingly compete at quality levels, offering hormone-free meat, Angus beef. They create new products. From a consumer perspective, you have higher quality meat and cheaper meat products.”

But the small number of major players increases the possibility that companies could collude to increase prices, Malone and other economists say. A lawsuit filed in 2016 by a food service firm in New York alleges that JBS-owned Pilgrim’s Pride and other poultry companies intentionally destroyed flocks of breeder hens to reduce the poultry supply.

The coordinated effort resulted in a 50 percent increase in the wholesale price of broiler chickens, the lawsuit claims. The civil suit is on hold as the Justice Department investigates.

JBS denied the accusations in the lawsuit. Lawyers for Pilgrim’s Pride and other poultry companies filed a motion to dismiss the case in January.

JBS said concentration in the meat industry has been “fairly static” since the mid-1990s. Analysts point to data showing the market has become more concentrated; they say companies with plants and processing facilities around the world increasingly dominate.

“This is a consumer disaster because of the amount of power, money and political clout that these companies hold,” said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor who studies the food industry. “If you own everything, you get to set the rules, you get to set the price, because there is no real competition.”

[Inspector General wants to know if USDA concealed worker safety data]

With a few large operators, meat contamination can pose a greater threat because their products end up on plates across the nation. Retail giants Costco, Walmart and Sysco all sell JBS products.

For example, in 2018, JBS ordered the largest recall of ground beef in U.S. history, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 12 million pounds of beef contaminated with a virulent strain of salmonella in 30 states sickened 403 people, of whom 117 were hospitalized. Less than 2 percent of the meat was recovered.

“They can cause a major food safety disaster,” said Tony Corbo, senior lobbyist for Food & Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group. “These plants are bigger, turn out product faster and the federal government has deregulated them, giving plant owners more control over safety inspections.”

JBS said it quickly responded by issuing the recall. The company said it was working with “internal and external food safety experts” to “ensure the safety of our products.”

Rancher complaints

Small cattle ranchers launched a social media campaign in October at a rally called “Stop the Stealin’ ” to protest the power JBS and other large beef processors have over setting prices for cattle. Ranchers said they are being underpaid by about $200 a head. JBS said it offers competitive prices for cattle.

About 400 cattlemen and women attended the rally in Nebraska — some riding on horseback. Younger ranchers downloaded the Twitter app onto the smartphones of the older ranchers, teaching them how to tweet their protests directly to Trump.

“Stop packer collusion!!” tweeted Casey Perman, a small rancher in South Dakota. “Time to help the little guy like you promised . . . #FairCattleMarkets @realDonaldTrump.”

The ranchers and some Democratic members of Congress say the concentrated power of these companies gives them too much leverage over federal regulators. “These multinational corporations are taking over the food supply and federal government has been complicit in this; USDA has been complicit in this,” said Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.).

Since entering the U.S. market in 2007, JBS has spent more than $7.7 million on lobbying, records show, making it the fourth-largest spender in the meat processing industry. It’s also won more than $900 million in government meat contracts, second only to the U.S.-based Tyson Foods, according to a Post analysis of government records.

The company’s reach into the federal government includes the successful recruitment of a top regulator. JBS created a new position — global head of food safety and quality assurance — in 2017, giving the post to a former top food-safety regulator at USDA named Al Almanza.

At USDA, Almanza was viewed by small farmers and food safety groups as an advocate for the big producers; he led efforts to deregulate poultry, pork and beef inspections sought by JBS and other large companies. Three days after leaving USDA, Almanza started at JBS.

In a statement, JBS said Almanza “strongly disagrees with any notion that he had any interest in maximizing industry profits over safeguarding public health during his career of public service.”

Maxwell’s group is also focusing on Perdue and the bailout money he has awarded to JBS. The small ranchers’ campaign is circulating a political cartoon of Perdue and JBS’s Wesley Batista in bed together with Perdue throwing wads of bailout cash into the air.

Andrew Ba Tran and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Meet the Batistas: the global beef barons battling for control of Australia’s meat

JBS, which is trying to take over pork producer Rivalea, now finds itself in a stoush*** with Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest over Tasmanian salmon farmer Huon
Brazilian billionaire Joesley Batista, who runs JBS with his brother Wesley. In Australia, the meat empire is embroiled in takeover battles and litigation with the tax office. Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters


Ben Butler
Sat 28 Aug 2021 21.00 BST

In the end, it wasn’t the bribery of Brazilian government officials that put the Batista brothers, who own Australia’s biggest meat processor, in jail.

The authorities never actually brought the brothers, Wesley and Joesley, to trial over allegations they engaged in the large-scale corruption of the country’s politicians. Instead they agreed a plea deal with them.

Instead what led to the Batistas, the country’s most powerful businessmen, spending several months in 2018 behind bars while awaiting trial were allegations of insider trading – using the privileged information of that very plea deal for their own financial benefit.

These days the brothers are back in full control of their global meat empire, JBS. And they have big plans for Australia.


Environmentalists call on treasurer to reject Brazilian meat giant’s bid for Tasmanian salmon farmer

Their company is in the middle of taking over Australia’s biggest pork producer, Rivalea, and in the past fortnight has become embroiled in a public stoush with the mining billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest over control of Tasmanian salmon farmer Huon.

These deals are huge, worth a total of close to $700m, and have also ignited a fierce debate over who should control much of the meat Australians eat every year.

JBS Australia is a subsidiary of JBS in Brazil, where the brothers are the founders and biggest shareholders. It already controls about a quarter of Australia’s meat market, including the country’s biggest ham and smallgoods manufacturer, Primo, while Huon is the nation’s second-biggest salmon farmer.

Competition watchdog the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is investigating the Rivalea takeover, with an eye on whether allowing JBS to add more pork to its existing operation, which currently concentrates on lamb and beef, would stifle competition.

Forrest has used full-page newspaper ads to call on JBS to treat animals better in the slaughterhouse while at the same time attacking the Batista brothers over JBS’s corruption record in Brazil through the press.
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Environmentalists are also unhappy with the takeover, calling on treasury’s Foreign Investment Review Board to block it.

“During its rapid rise to become the world’s biggest meat packer, JBS and its network of subsidiaries have been linked to allegations of high-level corruption – including the biggest fine in corporate history, $3.2bn, after bribing hundreds of politicians – modern-day slave labour practices; illegal deforestation, particularly in the Amazon; animal welfare violations; major hygiene breaches and price fixing, including fines,” the Tasmanian Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson told parliament earlier this month.

“I warn JBS that they won’t be expanding in Tasmanian waterways without a fight, a significant community fight.”

Takeover fights are not the only battles JBS is fighting in Australia. It is also embroiled in litigation with the Australian Taxation Office over the use of legal privilege to avoid disclosing documents.

File photo of a Rivalea pork processing and packaging area in Corowa. The ACCC is investigating if allowing JBS to add more pork to its operation would stifle competition. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Meanwhile, there remain questions about the bona fides of the conglomerate’s entry into Australia in the first place.

JBS came to Australia in 2007, indirectly, by buying US group Swift, which already had operations here.

The US$1.4bn purchase was partly funded by a US$362m loan from Brazil’s National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES).

This loan was part of a “sequence of reckless and/or fraudulent acts” that demonstrated “a fraudulent management of the public institution with the sole purpose of giving privileged treatment” to J&F Participações, the Brazilian company through which the Batistas control JBS, Brazilian prosecutors said in their criminal complaint against Joesley Batista. The allegations never went to trial.

It is not suggested that JBS Australia is implicated in any wrongdoing.

To settle separate bribery charges brought by Brazilian prosecutors, in 2017 J&F agreed to pay US$3.2bn. Brazil gave the company generous terms – it got 25 years to pay.

The Batista brothers, meanwhile, entered into a plea deal that saw them avoid prosecution in a deal that included Joesley agreeing to spill the beans on his corrupt dealings and secretly record a meeting with the then president, Michel Temer – an event dubbed “Joesley Day”.

Having avoided that prosecution, Brazilian authorities claimed the brothers set out to financially benefit from the plea deal. They are said to have sold US$87.5m worth of JBS stock before it was announced, avoiding the fallout from a 30% fall in the company’s share price when the deal with prosecutors was made public.


Cyber-attack on JBS, world’s largest meatworks, temporarily shuts Australian operations

The plea deal was revoked and each brother spent about six months in jail before being released into house arrest – Wesley in February 2018 and Joesley in March 2018. The case remains unresolved.

As a result of the brothers admitting to bribery, in 2019 the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office re-examined JBS Australia’s purchase in 2015 of Kiwi company Scott Technology, which makes factory machines.

The deal had been approved on conditions including that Joesley and Wesley remain of good character.

It concluded that the bribery they had admitted to meant they no longer met the bar, and obtained assurances JBS Australia was not in their control. Anna Wilson-Farrell, the head of regulatory practice and delivery at Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand, said the settlement with JBS was still current.

“We would consider taking action if the settlement agreement conditions were breached,” she said.

Legal stoush with ATO

JBS’s sprawling company structure, which involves subsidiaries everywhere from Australia to Russia, Hong Kong and Kuwait, has also drawn close attention from banks and the Australian Taxation Office.

JBS’s bankers, Deutsche Bank, has repeatedly filed suspicious transaction reports related to the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars around the empire with the US equivalent of Austrac, Fincen. Fincen requires financial institutions to file suspicious activity reports in a range of circumstances and the filing of a report does not necessarily mean anything improper has occurred.

Reports, obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, show Deutsche Bank reported a flurry of transactions in late 2015, saying it was making the reports as a consequence of the ongoing investigations into the company in Brazil.

Back in Australia, the ATO also has JBS under a lens.

It has launched legal action in the federal court seeking access to a large number of documents JBS and its adviser, big accounting firm PwC, refused to hand over during an audit.


Brazil meat giant JBS vows net zero by 2040 amid record profits

JBS claims the documents are subject to legal professional privilege, which protects advice from lawyers being used as evidence.

Little information is publicly available about the legal stoush, which is due to go to trial next month.

However, the ATO has told the court LPP does not apply because “non-legal practitioners” were involved in creating the documents and because they were “not provided pursuant to a relationship of lawyer and client sufficient to ground a claim for legal professional privilege”.

JBS also told the court the ATO’s legal action should be put on hold because it feared being prosecuted for failing to hand over the documents during the audit.

However, the ATO told the court it had no intention of doing so and was prepared to provide an undertaking not to.

The ATO has been targeting what it says are invalid claims of LPP by big accounting firms for about two years – in December 2019, Guardian Australia reported that second commissioner Jeremy Hirschhorn had travelled to the offices of accounting firms, including PwC, warning them that it would closely scrutinise privilege claims.

The battle for Huon

The ACCC is expected to decide next month whether or not to oppose JBS’s takeover of Rivalea.

But the company hasn’t waited before pushing ahead with its attempt to buy Huon.

It is offering $3.85 a share, 60% more than stock was fetching on the ASX in February, when Huon decided to put itself up for sale.

The offer, which values Huon at more than $420m, is endorsed by the salmon farmer’s board but Forrest has accumulated a blocking stake of 18.5%.

File photo of Huon’s salmon farm at Hideaway Bay. Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest has questioned if JBS adheres to the concept of ‘no pain no fear’ for animals in the slaughterhouse. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

If it can defeat Forrest, JBS will then have to deal with Firb, which has shown itself more ready to knock back deals in the past 18 months, although it seems largely concerned with Chinese state influence.

In the battle for Huon, Forrest questioned whether JBS adhered to the concept of “no pain no fear” for animals in the slaughterhouse.

JBS rejects the criticism.

“JBS unequivocally supports the concept of no pain, no fear and upholds the highest standards of animal welfare in this country,” Brent Eastwood, the chief executive of JBS Australia, said in a statement.

“JBS has zero-tolerance for animal abuse from our own employees and third parties in our transport supply-chain, processing plants or feedlots.”

He said the company would “apply its uncompromising commitment to animal welfare and sustainability” to build on the legacy of Huon’s founders, the Bender family.

Guardian Australia also put detailed questions about the behaviour of the Batista brothers, its tax affairs and its international transactions to a JBS representative. They did not respond.

***STOUSH | Definition of STOUSH by Oxford Dictionary on ...

1. https://www.lexico.com/definition/stoush

   informal Australian, New Zealand A brawl 

UPDATED

One-fifth of U.S. beef capacity wiped out by JBS cyberattack 

Marcy Nicholson, Bloomberg News

JUNE 1,2021

A cyberattack on JBS SA, the largest meat producer globally, forced the shutdown of some of world’s largest slaughterhouses, and there are signs that closures are spreading.

JBS’s five biggest beef plants in the U.S. -- which altogether handle 22,500 cattle a day -- halted processing following a weekend attack on the Brazilian company’s computer networks, according to JBS posts on Facebook, labor unions and employees. Those outages wiped out nearly a fifth of America’s production. Slaughter operations across Australia were also down, according to a trade group, and one of Canada’s largest beef plants was idled.

It’s unclear exactly how many plants globally have been affected by the ransomware attack as Sao Paulo-based JBS has yet to release those details. The prospect of more extensive shutdowns worldwide is already upending agricultural markets and raising concerns about food security as hackers increasingly target critical infrastructure. Livestock futures slumped while pork prices rose

JBS suspended its North American and Australian computer systems on Sunday after an organized assault on some of its servers, the company said in a Monday statement. Without commenting on plant operations, JBS said the incident may delay certain transactions with customers and suppliers

“Retailers and beef processors are coming from a long weekend and need to catch up with orders,” Steiner Consulting Group said in its Daily Livestock Report. “If they suddenly get a call saying that product may not deliver tomorrow or this week, it will create very significant challenges in keeping plants in operation and the retail case stocked up.”

Ransomware attack

Impact on meat prices at the grocery store may not be immediately apparent. Retailers don’t always like hiking prices on consumers and may try to resist, according to Michael Nepveux, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation.

“How long it goes on will impact to what level consumers start to see something at the grocery stores,” he said in a phone interview.

The White House offered assistance to JBS after the company notified the Biden administration on Sunday of a cyberattack from a criminal organization likely based in Russia, White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday. Biden directed the administration to do whatever they can to mitigate the impact on the meat supply.

“Attacks like this one highlight the vulnerabilities in our nation’s food supply chain security, and they underscore the importance of diversifying the nation’s meat processing capacity,” said U.S. Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate’s No. 2 ranking Republican leader.

Any substantial disruption in meat processing would further stoke mounting political concerns about the concentration of the meat industry and complaints of the four giant companies that control more than 80 per cent of U.S. beef processing unfairly leverage their power over farmers and consumers.

JBS is the No. 1 beef producer in the U.S., accounting for 23 per cent of the nation’s maximum capacity compared to rival Tyson Foods Inc.’s 22 per cent share, according to an investor report by Tyson. JBS accounts for about a quarter of U.S. beef capacity and roughly a fifth of pork capacity.

JBS closed beef processing facilities in Utah, Texas, Wisconsin and Nebraska and canceled shifts at plants in Iowa and Colorado on Tuesday, according to union officials and employees. In Canada, an Alberta processing plant was expected to resume operations this afternoon after being idled since Monday, a union spokesman said.

Pork and chicken facilities including one in Minnesota were also closed by the owner of Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., the second-biggest U.S. chicken producer, said union officials and employees. At least five of the six U.S. pork facilities were cutting back operations Tuesday, according to Facebook posts from those plants.

“There are at least 10 plants I have knowledge of that have had operations suspended because of the cyberattack,” said Paula Schelling-Soldner, acting chairperson for the national council of locals representing food inspectors for the American Federation of Government Employees. She declined to identify the locations.

Chicago cattle futures slumped as much as 3.4 per cent Tuesday, its lowest since Jan. 12, before trimming losses to 1.9 per cent. The potential slaughterhouse closures at JBS plants exacerbated an existing supply glut. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s midday reports for beef and pork didn’t disclose prices due to “packer submission issues.” However, the CME Group’s pork futures contract jumped by more than 3.5 per cent.

The number of cattle slaughtered in the U.S. fell 22 per cent from a week ago, while hogs were down 20 per cent, according to USDA estimates.

Hackers now have the commodities industry in their crosshairs with the JBS attack coming just three weeks after Colonial Pipeline Co., operator of the biggest U.S. gasoline pipeline, was targeted in a ransomware attack. It also happened as the global meat industry battles lingering COVID-19 absenteeism after recovering from outbreaks last year that saw plants shut and supplies disrupted.

There have been more than 40 publicly reported ransomware attacks against food companies since May 2020, said Allan Liska, senior security architect at cybersecurity analytics firm Recorded Future.

JBS owns facilities in 20 countries. The U.S. accounts for half of the company’s revenue, while Australia and New Zealand represent 4 per cent and Canada accounts for 3 per cent, according to corporate fillings. Brazilian plants are operating normally, a JBS spokesperson said Tuesday by phone.

Backup servers fine

Backup servers were not affected, and the company is working to restore systems as soon as possible, according to a Monday statement from JBS USA. JBS’s shares rose 2.3 per cent Tuesday in Sao Paulo, outpacing the 1.6 per cent gain for Brazil’s Ibovespa benchmark index.

JBS is the largest Australian meat and food processor with a portfolio of beef, lamb, pork, and value-added branded products, according to its website. It exports to more than 50 countries and its Dinmore facility is the biggest beef plant in the southern hemisphere.

Still, the shutdown is a big concern for exports if it drags on, said Matt Dalgleish, manager of commodity markets insights at Thomas Elder Markets, noting Australia ships overseas about 70 per cent to 75 per cent of red meat products from sheep and cattle.

“Given the size of JBS globally, if they were offline for any more than a week, then we’re going to see disruption to supply chains for sure,” he said.

Meatpacking giant JBS believes Russia behind hack that hit plants

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
01 June, 2021
An American subsidiary of Brazilian meat processor JBS told the US government that it has received a ransom demand in a cyberattack it believes originated in Russia, which has forced some plants to cut production

The White House is engaging directly with the Russian government [Getty]

An American subsidiary of Brazilian meat processor JBS told the US government that it has received a ransom demand in a cyberattack it believes originated in Russia, which has forced some plants to cut production.

JBS received the demand from "a criminal organization likely based in Russia" following an attack that has affected its operations in Australia and North America, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday.

The White House statement comes as yet another major US sector finds its operations under duress, less than a month after a major cyberattack temporarily shut down the Colonial Pipeline network supplying about 45 percent of the fuel consumed on the US east coast.

"The White House has offered assistance to JBS, and our team and the Department of Agriculture have spoken to their leadership several times in the last day," Jean-Pierre said.

"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."

Brazil-based JBS is a sprawling meat supplier with operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and Britain.

"JBS USA determined that it was the target of an organized cybersecurity attack, affecting some of the servers supporting its North American and Australian IT systems," the company said in a statement Monday.
Numerous plants impacted

JBS said its backup servers were not affected by the incident, but the statement did not offer details on the status of its plants. The company did not immediately respond to AFP queries.

The company's Australian facilities were said to have been paralyzed by the attack, with up to 10,000 meat workers being sent home without pay, according to a union representative.

"It's affecting JBS processing facilities around (Australia)," AMIEU Queensland branch secretary Matt Journeaux told AFP. "They have stood down workers across JBS operations."

Journeaux said there was no word yet from the company on when operations will resume.

Several plants in North America were also affected by the incident.

The Facebook page for JBS' Green Bay, Wisconsin plant said there would be no production Monday. Another plant in Utah was also not operating, said a person who answered the phone and declined to give his name.

A plant in Iowa said four departments would not operate on Monday, while remaining units were working normally, according to its Facebook page.

JBS' Canada division canceled some operations on Monday and early Tuesday, but said on Facebook later in the day that normal production would resume.

The United Food and Commercial Workers local representing workers in Colorado and Wyoming said "kill" and "fabrication" shifts were cancelled on Monday, according to its Facebook page.
Cybersecurity vulnerabilities

Colonial's multi-day shutdown in May sparked panic buying in some eastern states, and ended when the company paid $4.4 million in ransom to the hackers.

The online vulnerabilities of US oil conduits led the federal government last week to impose cybersecurity requirements on petroleum pipelines for the first time.

The JBS and Colonial Pipeline incidents follow a 2020 hack of the SolarWinds software company. Last week, Microsoft warned that the state-backed Russian group behind the SolarWinds attack had re-emerged with a series of attacks on government agencies, think tanks and other groups.

"The cybersecurity landscape is constantly evolving and we must adapt to address new and emerging threats," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement Thursday.

#JBS
Report links world's top meat firm to deforestation

Issued on: 27/07/2020 -

In this file photo taken on August 25, 2019 cattle graze with a burnt area in the background after a fire in the Amazon rainforest near Novo Progresso, Para state, Brazil Joao Laet AFP/File Rio de Janeiro (AFP)

Brazilian firm JBS, the world's biggest meat processing company, was again accused Monday of "laundering" cattle from ranches blacklisted for destroying the Amazon rainforest.

The charge, leveled in a report by an investigative journalism consortium, marks at least the fifth time in just over a year that the company, which exports around the world, has been accused of cattle laundering.

That is a practice in which animals from a blacklisted ranch are transferred to one with a clean record to dodge a ban on sale

The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, British newspaper the Guardian and Brazilian journalism group Reporter Brasil said in the joint report that pictures posted on Facebook by a JBS truck driver appeared to show him and his colleagues transporting cattle from a blacklisted ranch, Estrela do Aripuana, to a "clean" one 300 kilometers (185 miles) away, Estrela do Sangue, in July 2019.

The drivers wore JBS uniforms and drove JBS trucks in the pictures.

Located in the west-central state of Mato Grosso, which is largely covered in Amazon rainforest, Estrela do Aripuana was blacklisted by Brazil's environment ministry in 2012 over the illegal deforestation of around 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of land.

Authorities also fined its owner 2.2 million reals (around $1 million at the time).

The consortium said it had obtained Brazilian government records indicating that at least 7,000 animals were shipped from the embargoed ranch to the "clean" one between June 2018 and August 2019.

Other documents show the latter sold 7,000 animals to JBS slaughterhouses from November 2018 to November 2019, it said.

JBS denies cattle laundering and says it is implementing measures to prevent third parties from sneaking such animals into its supply chain.

"We have adopted an unequivocal stance of zero deforestation," it said in a statement, adding it had opened an internal investigation into the latest allegations.

Brazil faces mounting pressure to slow surging deforestation after massive fires devastated the Amazon last year -- often set to clear land for ranching and farming.

Some European countries have threatened to scupper a trade deal between the EU and the Mercosur trade bloc, of which Brazil is a member, over the issue.

And global investment firms managing close to $4 trillion in assets last month wrote an open letter to far-right President Jair Bolsonaro urging him to change government policies blamed for accelerating the destruction.

© 2020 AFP

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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.

The Coronavirus Outbreaks In Meatpacking Plants Were Likely Much Worse Than Official Numbers Show

Of the 45 JBS, Smithfield, Tyson, and Cargill facilities around the country that recorded at least 50 confirmed COVID-19 cases, only 20 ordered full-scale testing for all employees, according to a BuzzFeed News investigation.

Karen Wang BuzzFeed Contributor Albert Samaha BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on November 27, 2020

Andy Cross / Getty Images
JBS Greeley Beef Plant president of safety, Jay Rawlings heads up to the plant from the new employee entrance that includes a temperature check with an infrared camera system April 23, 2020.


During the first wave of the pandemic, the meatpacking industry emerged as an early and shocking hot spot. Since then, around 40,000 meatpacking workers nationwide have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to news organizations tracking the industry. Around half of them were employed by JBS, Smithfield, Tyson, or Cargill, the four industry giants collectively responsible for more than 80% of the meat consumed in the US. At least 200 workers have died.

But a BuzzFeed News investigation has found that the real scope of the outbreaks — in an industry where workers stand shoulder to shoulder for hours in sometimes poorly ventilated warehouses — was likely far worse, because dozens of plants didn’t test all their employees even when scores of workers were falling ill and, in some cases, public health officials offered the tests free of charge.

As infections surge anew across the country, the extent of the spring outbreaks — and thus the true scale of the danger to the industry’s workers — remains unknown, shrouded by meatpacking companies’ patchwork testing practices. And even now, with federal officials giving meatpackers broad authority over how to keep their workers safe, the companies have yet to implement universal testing. All four companies told BuzzFeed News that they have minimized the risk their workers face through new safety gear, protective barriers, distancing protocols, screening programs aimed at ensuring that anyone showing symptoms stays home, and mandatory testing for employees who show symptoms or are exposed to a confirmed case.

But meatpacking workers are still getting sick.

Seven months after the JBS plant in Greeley, Colorado, briefly closed due to an outbreak in the spring that left six people dead, the virus has hit that workplace again: Last week, 20 employees at the facility and 34 more at the local corporate headquarters tested positive, according to state health department data.

The company attributed that to “the increase in the number of cases in the surrounding community,” JBS spokesperson Cameron Bruett told BuzzFeed News, noting that it was “not unexpected.”

“The rate of increase among our workforce is not nearly at the rate we are seeing in the local community,” he said. But the plant still does not conduct facility-wide testing, leaving the full scope of the new outbreak uncertain. At Greeley, as at many plants across the country, an early outbreak wasn’t enough to spur universal testing protocols.


Of the 45 JBS, Smithfield, Tyson, and Cargill facilities around the country that recorded at least 50 confirmed cases, only 20 ordered full-scale testing for all employees, according to interviews with local health officials, company statements, and a review of data compiled by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.

The four companies say that they responded to outbreaks by directing sick and exposed workers to quarantine for two weeks, implementing additional safety policies, and encouraging employees to stay home or get tested if they showed symptoms or were in close contact with someone who tested positive.

In Joslin, Illinois, where local officials announced that 194 employees tested positive at a Tyson plant in the spring, the Rock Island County Health Department told BuzzFeed News that the company declined its offer for a local clinic to set up facility-wide testing. Instead, Tyson partnered with mobile health clinics to test workers who had symptoms or were exposed to a known case.

“The decision to conduct facility-wide testing is handled on a case-by-case and has typically involved the input of state and/or local health officials as well as other outside medical experts,” Tyson spokesperson Gary Mickelson told BuzzFeed News, noting that the company conducted facility-wide testing at 17 of its 25 plants with outbreaks of at least 50 cases. “Other factors include the number of active cases involving our workers as well as the number of cases in the community.”

In Arkansas, seven meat processing plants owned by JBS, Tyson, or Cargill with at least 50 confirmed cases declined the state health department’s offer “to conduct testing on-site,” according to Danyelle McNeill, Arkansas Department of Health’s public information coordinator, and just two of those plants later arranged for all employees to be tested. In statements to BuzzFeed News, Tyson denied that the state offered mass testing for its Arkansas facilities, Cargill didn’t address specific plants, and JBS said that local testing was “widely available” and the company has “partnered with the health department on contact testing our team members.”

In Colorado, JBS officials turned down testing in the early days of the April outbreak. Though testing kits were scarce at the time, state officials secured enough tests to cover all 3,200 workers at the Greeley plant, where a coronavirus outbreak was emerging, according to the local health department. But on the day the testing was scheduled to start, JBS “got a hold of all the employees and told them that they weren't testing anymore,” said Rosario Hernandez, whose husband works at the plant. If they needed to get tested, she said, “they had to do it on their own.” Company and union officials confirmed her account.

The Greeley plant later emerged as one of the deadliest workplace clusters in the US, with six employees dying of COVID-19 complications in April and May.

The numbers at the Greeley plant were high, but "if they would have tested every worker, this would have probably been one of the highest in the whole country," said Kim Cordova, president of UFCW Local 7 of Colorado and Wyoming.

In all, that location logged a total of 312 confirmed cases as of mid-November, according to local health department data. Some plants of similar size that did facility-wide testing, such as Tyson’s pork processing operations in Waterloo, Iowa, and Logansport, Indiana, recorded around 1,000 confirmed cases each — a testament to the way the contagious virus raced through the plants, sickening some and making many others asymptomatic carriers.


The company maintains that it acted quickly to close the plant after the outbreak began and that local testing is available for everybody.


“If someone did not get tested, it was a personal decision,” JBS spokesperson Bruett told BuzzFeed News.


Courtesy the Hernandez family
Alfredo Hernandez
Rosario Hernandez’s husband was among those who got sick.

Alfredo Hernandez, who has worked at the JBS plant in Greeley for 31 years, developed a cough and felt unusually tired in mid-March, before he was aware of any cases at work. He thought it was a cold at first, but his exhaustion escalated, his temperature rose, and his back began to ache. On March 23, Rosario called her husband’s supervisor to say he was showing coronavirus symptoms. She left a voicemail message that was never returned, she told BuzzFeed News. JBS didn’t comment on specific cases.

Five days later, with her husband's condition worsening, Rosario drove him to the hospital, where he was immediately hooked up to an oxygen mask and tested for COVID-19. He was positive. Within days, more workers fell ill, Rosario and Cordova said. By April 1, county health officials were aware of at least 14 JBS workers who tested positive, including nine who "worked while symptomatic and therefore were contagious to others," the Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment stated in an April 4 letter to JBS's human resources director. By April 10, the number had risen to 43, including 14 hospitalizations and two deaths. "The rapid nature of the spread of disease among JBS employees is very concerning," state and county officials said in a letter to JBS that day, ordering the company to "identify ill workers" and implement "an ongoing testing and monitoring program."

And yet, the company quickly abandoned a plan to test all its workers.


Initially, JBS, in conjunction with local officials, announced plans for comprehensive testing. But the company changed course within 24 hours, instead deciding to close the plant for two weeks but let testing be voluntary, according to spokespeople for JBS and the state health department.

Though the state initially directed that all workers be tested before the plant reopened, officials retreated from the order. The state health department didn’t respond to questions about the reason for the shift. In a statement to BuzzFeed News, it noted that the two-week closure “provided quarantine or isolation time for employees who were exposed or sick.”

JBS spokesperson Bruett said that such mass testing had proven to be logistically unfeasible "given the short turnaround." The union, however, alleged that the company didn’t want to know how high its case count really was, fearing a public relations problem that could keep the plant closed even longer.

The company says the safety of its workers has always been its top priority; Bruett noted that JBS directed workers who needed or wanted tests to a drive-through-testing facility, although he acknowledged there was no way that site could accommodate the entire workforce.


The day the plant reopened, local health officials set up a temporary testing site for JBS employees and their relatives, but it only had capacity to test 300 a day and stayed open just five days, according to records obtained by BuzzFeed News. By the end of April, 245 workers had tested positive. Like at most plants that closed due to outbreaks, JBS reopened its Greeley facility without knowing for certain whether infected workers were cleared of the virus or untested workers were bringing it inside.

Employees could return once they were free from symptoms for 72 hours without having to get retested. While masks, face shields, fans, and plexiglass barriers have reduced exposure, at least 65 workers at the plant have tested positive in the months since it reopened, according to health department data.

The company “was just pushing for that plant to open regardless of testing or regardless of whether people were positive without symptoms,” Cordova, the union president, said. “The workers in this plant have been treated as just sacrificial human beings.”

JBS noted that public health officials approved their plans to restart operations at the plant. But while Weld County's health department signed off, the state health department did not, and requested that it be removed from the company’s statements about the reopening, according to emails obtained by BuzzFeed News. State health officials did not respond to questions about why they did that.


Andy Cross / Getty Images
The exterior of the JBS Greeley Beef Plant April 23, 2020.

Nine months into the pandemic, JBS tests a random sample of workers every two weeks, the company said, and Tyson conducts surveillance testing based on an algorithm tied to “the number of positive cases involving plant workers as well as people in the community,” according to a company statement. Smithfield says that it now requires all workers to be tested before a closed plant reopens.

But Cordova, the union president for JBS Greeley, noted that many workers are torn between protecting their health and avoiding “financial devastation.”

“There's a 'work while sick' culture in these facilities,” she said. “The workers feel like they can't afford to wait and not have a source of income.”

Two medical assistants contracted to conduct COVID screenings at the JBS Greeley plant after it reopened claimed in affidavits filed earlier this fall that the company encouraged workers to clock in even when they showed symptoms, such as a cough or a high temperature, the Greeley Tribune reported. The company, in a statement to the newspaper, called the claims “unsubstantiated” and said that its “screening process has been reviewed and approved multiple times by local, state and federal entities, including the CDC.”

Meatpacking workers are not assured paychecks if their illness exceeds their two-week sick leave. In Minneapolis, where more than 200 JBS employees tested positive in April, nearly 80% the 930 COVID-related worker’s compensation claims in the industry were rejected, with the rest still pending, and in Utah, where more than 300 JBS workers tested positive, the company rejected all seven claims filed through the end of July, Reuters reported.

“Given the widespread nature of viral spread, our third-party claims administrator reviews each case thoroughly and independently,” Bruett told Reuters.

Hernandez was in the hospital for a week. When he returned home on April 5, he was bedridden and hooked up to an oxygen tank. JBS provided two weeks of paid sick leave, but after that Hernandez had to apply for short-term disability, which covers around 60% of his salary, though he went four weeks without pay before the claim was processed, his wife said.

He provides the sole income in his household, and he is unsure when he will return to work. He still feels lingering effects of the infection months after testing positive, with body aches, fatigue, and difficulty breathing.

In September, the Department of Labor issued a fine to JBS for “for failing to protect employees from exposure to the coronavirus” at the Greeley plant. The total penalty was $15,615. While the union protested that the amount was so low as to be “insulting,” the company argued that it shouldn't have been fined at all, calling the citation “entirely without merit” because it “attempts to impose a standard that did not exist in March as we fought the pandemic with no guidance,” according to statements from both sides. JBS contested the fine, and the case will go to an independent arbitrator. ●


MORE ON THIS
Smithfield Foods Is Blaming “Living Circumstances In Certain Cultures” For One Of America’s Largest COVID-19 Clusters Albert Samaha · April 20, 2020

How A 4th Of July Meal Exposes The Coronavirus Risk For Thousands Of US Food Workers Albert Samaha · July 4, 2020

This Texas Town Is America’s COVID-19 Future Anne Helen Petersen · June 14, 2020


Karen Wang is a senior at the University of Southern California. She is based in Los Angeles.


Albert Samaha is an investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York