ON HER PHONE, Crystal Rodriguez keeps a photo of her father hooked up to a ventilator. Nurses at the hospital sent her the image after he’d spent close to a month in the intensive care unit at UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland, Colorado, battling severe complications from COVID-19. At 58, he was unable to speak or visit with family. Rodriguez is convinced that her father was exposed to the coronavirus at work on the meatpacking line at JBS, a Brazilian- owned multinational that brings in $50 billion annually as the world’s largest meat processor. “They have so much money and so much knowledge of everything,” Rodriguez says. “Why didn’t they help protect us?”
A 33-year-old single mother of four, Rodriguez grew up in Greeley, Colorado, home to JBS’ American headquarters and a massive plant that employs 6,000 workers. Rodriguez has worked there, on and off, alongside her father since she was 18. In the photo on her company ID, she has thick black hair and a wide smile, but her happy expression belies the reality at work. She saysJBS is like a bad ex-boyfriend who you keep trying to leave, “but you still go back for some reason.”
This story is from the July/August 2020 edition of Mother Jones.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the July/August 2020 edition of Mother Jones.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Let Them Eat Kelp
Is seaweed farming the wave of the future?
To Match a Predator
Dating apps promise to hook you up with romance. But they can deliver con artists, rapists, and murderers.
A Pennsylvania Prophet
Meet the Christian nationalists who want to assert dominion-starting with the Keystone State.
"I'm Not Turming the Other Cheek Any More"
Radicals took over the Michigan GOP. Now they can't stop losing.
"Absolutely Do Not Send Them There"
Foster kids have few advocates and little agency. That makes them the perfect cash cow for the country's biggest psychiatric hospital chain.
RICH DOC, POOR DOC
Why do the most important kinds of doctors earn the least money?
FREEDOM READERS
Authors of banned books-like me-are battling right-wing censorship daily. But we can't do it alone.
VAPOR TRAIL
After a cannabis product turned up at my kid's school, I rode into the Wild West of unregulated pot.
MEDICAL RESTRAINTS
How health care companies use debt to trap nurses on the job
Bad Neighbors
Tightly packed poultry and pig farms could be incubating the next deadly flu.