State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box appears to be satisfied with the safety measures in place at the Tyson meat processing plant in Logansport.
“We have been up there and actually looked at the plant and saw the dividers that they’d put in and how they had staggered individuals on the line and social distanced individuals,” Box said during Thursday’s COVID-19 press conference. “I am not sure about their policy with regards to paying workers with regards to sick leave, but I do know that they have instituted pretty much every measure that we asked them to do with regards to this.”
Box was addressing a question of whether the state should step in to enforce the safety measures, protect workers from retaliation for raising safety complaints, and make sure they can get a certain amount of paid sick leave.
One thing the state can do in some cases is provide unemployment benefits to those who can’t work, according to Indiana Department of Workforce Development Commissioner Fred Payne. “Our goal is to make sure that there is direct interaction between employee and employer, and we’re looking at a variety of things like the safety of individuals who are over the age of 65, to make sure that we are being compliant with what the governor has set out in each one of those stages of our recovery plan and also the CDC guidance,” Payne said.
As of Thursday, Cass County has reported 1,469 positive COVID-19 cases, by far the highest rate per capita in the state.
