WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (AP) — Some workers at a Kraft Heinz facility in western Michigan are in self-quarantine after two tested positive for COVID-19 and three more are presumed to have the virus, a spokesman said Tuesday.
The food production plant in Holland was closed Sunday for cleaning and reopened Monday, Kraft Heinz Corporate Affairs Senior Vice President Michael Mullen said in a statement.
Holland is in Ottawa County, about 32 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of Grand Rapids. On Monday, the county reported that 130 residents have tested positive and seven have died.
A union representing 227 employees at the 240-worker facility said Kraft Heinz has been slow in providing personal protective equipment to workers, and that there have been no “real negotiations around essential pay and quarantine procedures.”
“Weeks ago, workers were promised masks, and they’re still yet to arrive, despite promises from management day after day that they would,” the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Local 705 said in an emailed statement.
Protective masks should arrive at the plant this week, Mullen said, adding that the company is giving workers a $100 per week bonus.
But the union said Kraft Heinz, which has headquarters in Chicago and Pittsburgh, has tied that pay bump to worker attendance, meaning if you’re out sick or in quarantine you don’t qualify.
“Tying extra pay to attendance encourages workers to come to work when they are sick,” it said.
The union also said members were initially told to use vacation days if they had to be quarantined after coming into contact with infected colleagues.
“The company is now not requiring employees to take vacation days if they are in self-quarantine or need to stay home for COVID-19-related reasons,” Mullen said.
Employees who don’t feel well have been asked to stay home, and social distancing has been added to production lines and other areas, he added. Temperature checks of employees were expected to start this week.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe life-threatening illness, including pneumonia, or death.
Coronavirus outbreaks have sickened dozens of workers at meatpacking plants in the Midwest, including one in western Michigan’s Allegan County. Sixty people at the plant have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.
