Maple Leaf worker tests positive

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This article was published 06/08/2020 (2098 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A worker at Maple Leaf Foods’ pork processing plant in Brandon has tested positive for COVID-19, according to an email sent out by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 832 to its members.

According to the email, the worker in question has not been at the plant since July 28 and all workers who came in contact with them have been sent home to self-isolate for 14 days. These workers are still being paid while they are at home.

A copy of the email was sent to the Sun and subsequently verified to be authentic by UFCW Local 832’s communications director, Chris Noto.

Noto said the union was made aware of the case during the long weekend and the email notifying its members went out Tuesday afternoon. He said it’s believed that the case was isolated.

Because of the long weekend, Maple Leaf had three days to deep-clean parts of the plant before workers returned on Tuesday, union secretary-treasurer Bea Bruske told the Sun during a phone interview on Tuesday afternoon.

“The timing of things was somewhat fortuitous in that regard,” she said.

The worker who tested positive received their test result on Friday and was not working on the production line before self-isolating. With a positive result on Friday, it’s possible the case was one of 10 said to have been discovered in the Prairie Mountain Health region over the Terry Fox Day long weekend.

However, unlike previous cases detected among employees at Asian Spices of Brandon or at Blazers Mini Mart in Minnedosa, Manitoba Health has not yet made official note of any cases at the Brandon plant.

Bruske said there are approximately 70 workers at the plant either self-isolating due to possible exposure at the plant or in the community. So far, all workers tested after the positive result have tested negative for COVID-19.

Both Bruske and Maple Leaf’s vice-president of communications, Janet Riley, said the employee passed a health screening and temperature check when entering the plant on July 28. Bruske said the employee started exhibiting symptoms later in the day.

“Upon learning of the positive test, we immediately implemented our COVID-19 response plan,” Riley wrote in an email to the Sun. “We also informed our Team Members and the union. In addition to our regular daily cleaning of the plant and our multiple times per day ‘high touch point’ cleaning, we also deep cleaned all areas of the plant, including employee welfare areas and offices, over the weekend and the plant is continuing to operate.”

Riley said that a review of the situation done by Maple Leaf in co-operation with public health authorities concluded that the worker likely contracted COVID-19 in the community. This worker was wearing a face covering and personal protective equipment while working, as is current company policy.

In other cases where one or more workers tested positive for COVID-19 at food processing plants, such as at Cargill’s beef processing plant in High River, Alta., positive cases led to shutdowns. According to the Calgary Herald, two workers at that plant died of COVID-19 and nearly 1,000 more were infected.

Some families of workers at that Cargill plant have since filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, alleging it did not take appropriate measures to keep employees and their loved ones.

Another Maple Leaf plant in Montreal had an outbreak earlier this year that led to the death of at least one employee.

Bruske said that operations have not yet been affected at the Brandon plant either because of the positive test or absent workers self-isolating. The union’s standpoint is that if an employee who is actively working tests positive, there should be a complete shutdown.

In May, a security contractor who worked at the Maple Leaf plant in Brandon tested positive for COVID-19, but it was believed that he came in contact with a COVID-positive acquaintance two days after his last shift at the plant.

As far as UFCW is aware, that case and the case in the contractor are the only two that have been linked to Maple Leaf locally.

“Regardless of whether it’s in a workplace or in public, people need to be mindful that this is a serious issue and they need to be following the proper protocols,” Bruske said.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

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