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Language barriers at shuttered Smithfield meat plant where employees speak 40 languages helped turn SD factory into coronavirus hotspot
dailymail ^ | April 24 2020 | Keith Griffith

Posted on 04/26/2020 10:23:24 AM PDT by rintintin

Language barriers were a key issue at the Smithfield meat processing plant that was shuttered earlier this month after a coronavirus outbreak infected 800 employees, according to a report from the Centers for Disease control and Prevention.

The CDC report issued this week criticized a number of practices at the plant in Sioux Falls, which processed 5 percent of the nation's pork before it was shuttered indefinitely on April 15.

The massive plant employing 3,500 is just one of a dozen American meat packing plants to shut down this month after outbreaks, spurring pork and beef shortages and higher prices for consumers.

The CDC report says that at the Sioux Falls plant, which has a large immigrant workforce, some 40 different languages are spoken, with the top 10 being English, Spanish, Kunama, Swahili, Nepali, Tigrinya, Amharic, French, Oromo, and Vietnamese.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; US: South Dakota
KEYWORDS: coronavirus; immigration; invasion
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To: jjotto

I know, I don’t recall us not being able to afford meat as kid growing up.


41 posted on 04/26/2020 11:42:33 AM PDT by brianr10
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To: All

I would be super surprised if our college of agriculture and ag engineering are not developing robots to do meat packing. There’s no reason not too. It’s very repetitive. Robots don’t have language barriers, come to work sick, come to work high or drunk, or not show up at all ... need time off for Grandma’s funeral for the third time this year ...


42 posted on 04/26/2020 11:49:06 AM PDT by Cloverfarm (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem ...)
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To: rintintin

After all the data re the ChiComs owning Smithfield and this data, we would starve before eating anything from Smithfield.


43 posted on 04/26/2020 11:49:21 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (Are the ChiComs/PRC, ownership of America's, fake news media/CNN, Democrats, the real Deep Staters?)
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To: rintintin; All

China Government owns Smithfield here’s what happend to to Italy
Most Americans including this one were not aware that that the Italian socialist government had actually allowed the Chinese communists to purchase thus remove Italian ownership of a large segment of their fashion industry producers. Then replace the Italians working at those companies taken over by the Chinese and have them manned by thousands of Chinese nationals allowed to be brought in to work there.

When that CCWV breakout occurred in Wuhan the politburo closed off Wuhan but did not warn the Italian Socialist government or the Pope with whom the Chinese government had good relations with but certainly violated when the socialists should have been informed and allowed to deny those Chinese workers travel to and from China particularly for their New Year while this was occurring.

Which Trump did with the exception of only allowing American citizens returning.Our approach to deal with this plague was highly influenced by the death and sickness due to the CCWV ( Chinese Communist Wuhan Virus) reports coming out of Italy.

Those statistics being reported always indicated the casualties were aged Italians no focus was permitted on China or even if the victims were from China and the emphasis was on the speed of contagion. While doing so also ignored the direct connection those producers have with the Chinese Communist government which owns them.

To stop the return of manufacturing of products back to the US that went to China. China backers here who’s family members are making millions from China through their political connections will be hit hard are also claiming that Trump’s alleged stock ownership in a quinine pills maker claim its a controlling interest in a product to be totally ineffective and when used requires a severe restriction of movement when near a possible carrier known as a shutdown because of its rapid transmission .


44 posted on 04/26/2020 11:51:02 AM PDT by mosesdapoet (mosesdapoet aka L.J.Keslin posting here for the record hoping somebody might read and pass around)
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To: rintintin

Not Focusing on the Chinese ownership of this particular plant is a sick diversion attempt!


45 posted on 04/26/2020 11:52:13 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (Are the ChiComs/PRC, ownership of America's, fake news media/CNN, Democrats, the real Deep Staters?)
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To: TheConservativeBanker

Chicom owned companies should be nationalized, Chicom assets in the US should be seized, and all financial transactions involving China and Chinese assets should be forbidden.


46 posted on 04/26/2020 11:53:39 AM PDT by motor_racer (If you don't read the news, you are uninformed. If you read the news, you are misinformed.)
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To: rintintin

We should have all meat packing plants manned by robots, as some plants are in Denmark now. Totally clean and dependable, it’s an infinite improvement over low-wage human workers. It would be worth paying more for meat and vegetables processed in sterile conditions.


47 posted on 04/26/2020 11:55:45 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: rintintin

How many unemployed native americans were on the reservations in western SD when these foreign workers were imported?


48 posted on 04/26/2020 11:56:05 AM PDT by JohnBovenmyer (waiting for the tweets to hatch)
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The make up of employment at a lot of the basic food production
facilities are now of foreign decent. This has been changing over
time and will continue is my guess. Even though farming is a physical
labor type the processes have changed with machinery and the work force
used.

If you live in a rural are go to the local town stores on Sat and look
at the families there doing the shopping.


49 posted on 04/26/2020 12:08:37 PM PDT by deport
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To: rintintin

My brother runs a large meat plant for a competitor.

They hire the immigrants because they show up. The so-called “Americans” blow off work, show up high, or get into fights.

The last thing you need in a meat plant is some high redneck around a grinder.


50 posted on 04/26/2020 12:09:16 PM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: rintintin

The deer that roam on my property are looking very nervous.


51 posted on 04/26/2020 12:17:32 PM PDT by Gator113 ( ~~Trump 2020 and again in 2024. EPSTEIN WAS MURDERED. "Seditious Conspiracy" is everywhere.)
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To: rintintin
Because owners are paying dirt wages and choose to import immigrants (mainly illegal?)

No doubt, but the point is that these immigrants are spreading coronavirus in places that would not otherwise appear. Compare counties in Nebraska, Kansas, and South Dakota who do not have meat packing plants.

The Democrats and the media don't mention this relationship because they love illegal immigrants and will suppress any indication that might cast them in a bad light. As for the plant owners, the come in both Republican and Democrat form and as Communist Chinese as well.

52 posted on 04/26/2020 12:17:43 PM PDT by centurion316 (.)
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To: motor_racer

Call it liquidated damages from CCP induced pandemic.


53 posted on 04/26/2020 12:18:33 PM PDT by TheConservativeBanker ($)
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To: centurion316

Why are we letting people into this country who can’t speak English? These people are carrying all kinds of viruses, bacteria and parasites and they’re working in a meat packing plant. Crazy.


54 posted on 04/26/2020 12:21:31 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: rintintin

The ‘official’ language within the plant was probably Mandarin, hence the inability to understand for those folks who have learned a smattering of English while living in the USA.


55 posted on 04/26/2020 12:28:54 PM PDT by Presbyterian Reporter
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To: ladyjane
Why are we letting people into this country who can’t speak English?

Wrong question. We are letting illegal immigrants into the country. Legal immigrants must show that they have the education and work skills to get a job. They can learn how to speak English as many of our ancestors have done before us.

56 posted on 04/26/2020 12:39:47 PM PDT by centurion316 (.)
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To: centurion316
They can learn how to speak English as many of our ancestors have done before us.

Apparently the people working at the Smithfield plant were not able to do that.

Many Mexican illegals seem unable to learn English as well.

57 posted on 04/26/2020 12:54:57 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: ladyjane
Apparently the people working at the Smithfield plant were not able to do that.

They certainly can, they don't want to do it. And, our government encourages this behavior.

58 posted on 04/26/2020 1:08:22 PM PDT by centurion316 (.)
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To: traderrob6

FACT, my brother and several friends worked at a meat packing plant within a small city of 35K people, in Washington State.

I say this because they didn’t centralize so much of the packaging. They would ship out meat sans hide, and they processed it for local sales.

It was a union job, they had very high grade beef. Prime or Choice was all you could get of meat not ground up.

He was making $16K a year in 1976 which was great pay, and he quit to go there. They were getting about $8-12 an hour plus full benefits.

I think that method of distribution is long gone. Of course all spoke English, and the Christmas parties were legendary.


59 posted on 04/26/2020 1:32:58 PM PDT by Glad2bnuts (“If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer)
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To: txrefugee

...would be worth paying more for meat and vegetables processed in sterile conditions.

________________________________

Why would we pay more? The initial cost of the robots would be quickly amortized and then, the continuing costs would be less than salaries, taxes, health care, providing locker & break rooms, toilets, protective equipment,parking lots. No absenteeism. No unions.

Employers would save a fortune.

I’ve always wanted to be able to buy or rent a robot for household and yard chores.


60 posted on 04/26/2020 4:23:27 PM PDT by reformedliberal
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