COVID-19 ravaged meat plants: My refugee mother's life is worth more than the bottom line

Meat packing company JBS helped take away what our family treasured most: My mom. And then the government took more: our belief that every life matters, no matter how much money you make.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited JBS last month for failing to protect its employees in Greeley, Colorado, from being exposed to COVID-19. The company’s negligence cost one corporate employee and six workers at the plant their lives, including my mom, Tin Aye. Another 290 workers have confirmed positive cases as of mid-September.

JBS denies it did anything wrong, but my mother, who worked for JBS for 12 years, was almost certainly exposed to COVID-19 in the Greeley meat packing plant, where she worked long, hard hours to keep America’s grocery stores well-stocked, and an endless supply of meat available for summer grilling. It made me sick to hear OSHA only fined JBS $15,615, the maximum allowed. That’s less than $3,000 per death. My mom’s life is only worth $2,230?

You haven't heard my mother's story

My mom sacrificed her whole life to give my brother and me a better future. Tin Aye fled persecution in her native Burma (Myanmar), only to land in a refugee camp in Thailand. My parents lived there for 12 years, and it is where we were born. They taught us that coming to the United States was the first step on the road to the American dream. It sure seemed that way when we moved to Colorado, and my mom started working at JBS. We had no idea what a nightmare it would turn out to be.

When the pandemic started in early March, I was 9 months pregnant. My mom was a healthy 60-year old working woman with no preexisting conditions, and excited to meet her first grandchild. Then one day at work, she started showing symptoms of COVID-19. When she went to the on-site clinic at JBS, they told her it was just a common cold, or a mild flu, and sent her right back on the floor. But as the weeks went on, she never got better. Wouldn’t a common cold have passed by now?

At one point she asked her supervisor if she could take a break and go to the bathroom. He told her no. And my proud, beautiful, hard working mother urinated on herself. Soaked in urine, she put her head down and kept working. And all the while, the virus was wreaking havoc on her body.

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You wouldn’t have heard this story. After all, she was just a refugee-turned-meatpacker. You were more likely to hear a JBS executive claim that “since February, we have invested millions of dollars to implement hundreds of safety interventions, often exceeding guidance.” It sounds so much better than a sick woman peeing on herself while being told, don’t worry, you’re fine.

Workers abandoned, left unprotected

The Greeley plant's first positive COVID-19 case was confirmed on March 26. Workers were made aware in a rather informal announcement, delivered just before the line started. They had no time to ask questions, let alone leave. The message was clear: Keep working.

They trusted the company to do its best to protect them, as the virus was silently spreading throughout the plant. My mom’s union leaders sent letter after letter to JBS, pleading with them to give the meatpackers protective gear. The company didn't even implement necessary social distancing.

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When the state of Colorado shut down at the end of March, only essential workers were authorized to keep going to work. Americans might panic if there were suddenly no meat on the shelves. And yet, JBS still did not outfit workers with personal protective equipment; did not clearly communicate that workers with COVID-19 symptoms should stay home; and did not spread everyone out at a safe distance. What happened next wasn’t surprising: hundreds of JBS workers and their dependents started flooding the emergency rooms and clinics in Greeley. They were sick with a deadly virus. My mom was sick with a deadly virus.

And JBS’ response? The company offered workers a bonus based on attendance and championed a "work while sick" culture, as the county's Department of Public Health and Environment described it on April 4. The county's investigation even found that 64% of the workers who tested positive had “worked while symptomatic and therefore were contagious to others.”

It got so bad, state authorities were forced to temporarily shut the plant down.

Lives for the bottom line

I went into labor at the end of March. As a precaution, the nurses tested me for COVID-19 and I came back positive. Knowing my mom’s symptoms, I immediately gave her a call before I went in for an emergency C-section. The day after my son, Felix, was born, my mom was admitted to the hospital and almost immediately put on a ventilator. She would never come off it. My mom lost her battle with COVID-19 on May 17. She never got to meet her grandson.

I don’t enjoy telling our story. It hurts to remember. But the most painful thing is going over all the what ifs? If JBS had closed earlier. Or cleaned the plant more thoroughly. Or gave the meatpackers personal protective equipment immediately. Tin Aye, my mom, didn’t matter nearly as much as the bottom line.

But I thought she would matter to the federal government, to the agency that’s supposed to make sure workers are protected, when they can’t protect themselves. OSHA’s $15,615 fine makes it clear: No one cares. Not JBS. Not the Department of Labor. Not the U.S. government.

My mom was a meatpacker. It’s the kind of job where you come home dirty every night, dead tired. It’ll never make you rich, or bring you glory. But it’s the kind of job America was built on, the hard work of everyday people. My little brother is a Marine, deployed overseas. He’s willing to risk his life for his country. My mom never should have been forced to risk hers, especially for a company that doesn’t care about its people.

San Twin is a grocery worker living in Englewood, Colorado.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID-19: My refugee mother died after working in a meat packing plant