One Tyson Foods official fired for betting on how many workers would hire COVID-19 at its Iowa pork plant, said the office pool was spontaneous and intended to boost morale.
IOWA CITY, Iowa – One Tyson Foods official fired for betting on how many workers would hire COVID-19 at an Iowa pork factory, said the office pool was spontaneous fun and intended to boost morale .
Don Merschbrock, a former night manager at the Waterloo, Iowa plant, said he was speaking in an attempt to prove the seven fired supervisors are not “the evil people” Tyson has portrayed.
“We want to erase our names,” he told The Associated Press. “We’ve really worked hard and taken good care of our team members.”
Tyson announced the layoffs of Waterloo administrators on Dec. 16, weeks after the gamble allegation appeared in unjustified death lawsuits filed by the families of four dead COVID-19 workers.
Tyson said an investigation led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder found enough evidence to end those involved, saying his actions violated the company’s values of respect and integrity. The company had asked Holder’s law firm to investigate the allegation after a public reaction threatened to damage its brand and demoralize its workers.
The Springdale, Arkansas-based company, one of the world’s largest meat producers, did not release Holder’s findings and the fired administrators have complained about letting them go without explanation.
Merschbrock issued a statement and explained in an interview that he was more willing to speak than the other fired executives, as he is not a defendant in the lawsuits.
He said managers conducted the office reservation last spring just minutes after mass testing of the plant’s approximately 2,800 workers.
County officials said last May that more than 1,000 workers tested positive for the virus, which hospitalized several and killed at least six. They have exploited Tyson for not providing workers with adequate protective equipment and for not running the plant at idle after the outbreak had taken over the city.
Lawyers on the estates of four dead workers have portrayed the betting group as indicative of the company’s callous attitude towards safety and health. They have alleged that managers downplayed the severity of the virus, sometimes allowing or encouraging workers to get sick.
Tyson said the plant, the largest for pork and capable of processing 20,000 pigs daily, was designated as critical infrastructure by the federal government in March and that its leaders worked to “safely continue operations to ensure the national food supply “.
Merschbrock, who had been with Tyson for a decade, said managers had the “impossible task” of maintaining production while implementing virus safety precautions. They had been working 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, he said.
The office group involved about $ 50 in cash, which was for the winner who chose the right percentage of workers who tested positive for the virus, Merschbrock said. He added that those involved did not believe the group was violating company policy and thought the plant’s positivity rate would be lower than the community rate due to its mitigation efforts.
“It was a group of exhausted supervisors who had worked so hard to solve many unsolvable problems,” Merschbrock said. “It was just a funny thing, kind of a boost in morale for making an incredible effort. There was never any malicious intent. No one was ever underestimated.”
A Tyson spokesman declined to comment on Merschbrock’s claims.
Mel Orchard, a lawyer representing families of dead employees, said protecting workers from the virus was not “an insoluble problem.” He said the issue was a corporate culture where executives prioritized production and sales and treated line workers as expendable.
“Listening to the stories of those who lost a father, a brother or a wife, I find it hard to have sympathy for managers who worked overtime and were tired,” he said. “But I understand why and how this could have happened.”
Orchard represents the estates of 58-year-old Sedika Buljic; Reberiano Garcia, 60; Jose Ayala Jr., 44; and Isidro Fernández. Buljic, Garcia and Fernandez died in April and Ayala died on May 25 after a six-week hospitalization.
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This story corrects the spelling of Don Merschbrock’s last name in a reference.