U.S. Meat Plants Are Deadly as Ever, With No Incentive to Change

Stephanie Morales was weighing her coronavirus symptoms against an 8-pound hunk of fancy steak. That Saturday in April, her bosses at the JBS meatpacking plant in Cactus, Texas, had promised their 3,000 employees that anyone who worked that day would receive half of an Angus rib-eye. At the typical $9 a pound or more, this bonus equaled at least half a day’s wages for her and many other workers at the plant, where the pay starts at $16.20 an hour. She decided she couldn’t pass up the deal. Morales, 25, had had a fever the previous weekend, and that Thursday ...