CRETE – Governor Pete Ricketts is promising to boost his coronavirus outreach efforts to the town of Crete after its meatpacking workers staged a brief walkout on Tuesday.
Saline county is becoming one of the state’s newest coronavirus hot spots, where cases have surged from 7 cases on Monday, April 20th to 60 confirmed cases on Monday, April 27th.
Yesterday, local meatpacking workers in Saline county’s city of Crete staged a brief, impromptu walkout “out of fear for their own safety,” said one walkout participant who asked not to be named. About 50 workers at the Smithfield Foods pork plant in Crete walked off the job after company officials announced that the facility would remain open, just hours after they had said it would close to contain an outbreak.
The walkout wasn’t union-sanctioned, and the workers eventually went back into the plant to discuss their concerns with managers. Their local union representative says the incident highlights the stress many workers are feeling when plants don’t clearly communicate plans or take appropriate precautions.
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