JBS plant in Rio Grande do Sul. Photo: Fabio Imhoff/Shutterstock
A court has decided to close an abattoir belonging to meat-processing giant JBS for two weeks. The decision came after 21 of the site’s 1,700 workers caught the coronavirus. The plant is located in Caxias do Sul, an industrial city in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul.
Earlier this week, labor courts had already closed another JBS plant in the northern state of Rondônia.
In response to the decision, JBS said it has the “primary goal” of protecting employees’ health. It added that “since the start of the pandemic, it has adopted a strict prevention protocol against Covid-19.”
Last week, The Brazilian Report’s José Roberto Castro explained that slaughterhouses have played a key role in the spread of Covid-19 to inland Brazil. In Rio Grande do Sul, workers in meat-processing plants make up for around 14 percent of all coronavirus cases.
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