Meat processor JBS pushed Greeley instructors to falsify safety trainings, whistleblower says
JBS USA, the meatpacking giant headquartered in Greeley, pressures instructors to falsify safety trainings so its employees can get to work on production lines with a history of causing injuries, a whistleblower alleges in a recent lawsuit.
Salima Jandali, a former JBS worker who is Muslim and from Morocco, says in her complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, that JBS engages in “systematic workplace discrimination” based on her religion and retaliated against her after she refused to engage in the company’s “illegal, dangerous and exploitative practices.”
JBS did not respond to requests for comment. In court filings, the company denied engaging in any unlawful conduct and denied demanding Jandali falsify safety records.
From August 2019 until September, Jandali worked as a safety instructor at the Greeley plant, tasked with conducting mandatory safety training for new hires and production employees working with equipment on the meat-processing floor.
The courses — seven hours for current workers and a week for new employees — are meant to teach workers about health and safety protocols, including instruction on blood-borne pathogens, hand washing, knife sharpening and meat-related diseases.
But JBS only holds safety courses in a handful of languages — ignoring the fact that more than 30 dialects are spoken at the plant, Jandali said in an interview and in her lawsuit, filed June 24. As a result, many workers don’t learn anything from these trainings, she said.
Yet employees are required to complete multiple-choice tests on the subject matter. Jandali alleges that supervisors gave her a laptop and told her to take the tests instead of having the workers do them. Sometimes, the workers weren’t even in the room.
In other cases, Jandali said she was instructed to give new hires a fake device so it looked like they were engaging with the tests. In reality, Jandali and other instructors had the real devices, she said, which allowed them to select the correct answers.
Management puts immense pressure on the safety instructors to get their laborers to complete the courses as quickly as possible so they can get to work, Jandali said. She said she has seen examples of workers suffering serious injuries, including losing fingers and limbs, due to inadequate safety training.
Emails and text messages shared with The Denver Post show supervisors pushing Jandali and other instructors to get in line.
“What is going on here?” one supervisor wrote in a May 2024 email. “Why aren’t we getting them complete?”
In another email, a manager told Jandali to “fix this.”
In other messages, leadership sent Jandali lists of workers who hadn’t completed the courses, with the implication, she said, that she should finish for them.
Jandali, in May 2024, repeatedly told management that she didn’t feel comfortable falsifying these safety records, emails show.
“Simply taking the classes for them is not acceptable and unethical,” she wrote.
In response, supervisors took Jandali to Human Resources.
“They just said, ‘We need to work together to get these people to 100% (completed),’” Jandali told The Post. “‘If this is not something you’re willing to do, this is not a job for you.’”
In addition to the safety course allegations, Jandali alleges in the lawsuit that her manager belittled her and used slurs such as “stupid Muslim” or “stupid Arab.”
She would speak to Jandali condescendingly and disrespectfully, the lawsuit states, telling her to “do her damn job” when she asked questions. On at least 25 occasions, Jandali alleges she showed up to work to find her safety equipment missing or in the trash.
In September 2024, after enduring months of “unaddressed harassment, retaliation and pressure to engage in illegal conduct,” the lawsuit states, Jandali resigned.
The Greeley-based company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Brazil-based JBS S.A., the world’s largest processor of beef and pork, with more than $50 billion in annual sales.
JBS USA operates nine U.S. facilities, selling beef products to more than 44 countries on six continents. The company employs more than 37,000 people at these facilities.
The company has also been in the crosshairs of U.S. regulators for years, along with myriad allegations from its employees over poor or unsafe working conditions.
The U.S. Department of Labor, in January, found JBS relied for years on migrant children to work in their slaughterhouses.
Children as young as 13 were hired through an outside sanitation company and worked overnight cleaning shifts at slaughterhouses in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, federal investigators found. Their jobs included cleaning dangerous powered equipment, labor officials said.
The company agreed to pay $4 million to assist individuals and communities affected by unlawful child labor practices.
Last year, a union representing workers at the Greeley plant called for federal, state and local law enforcement and regulatory bodies to hold the company accountable for a collection of poor labor practices. The union, UFCW Local 7, accused the company of human trafficking via TikTok; charging workers to live in squalid conditions; threatening and intimidating workers and their families; operating with dangerously high production line speeds; and withholding mail from workers.
In October, an employee filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging JBS intentionally discriminates against Haitian workers by subjecting them to poor working conditions.
In 2021, JBS paid $5.5 million after the EEOC found the JBS plant in Greeley denied workers prayer breaks in the evening during the Muslim holiday month of Ramadan.
That same year, the U.S. Department of Labor cited JBS for exposing employees to safety hazards at its Greeley facilities, following the death of a worker. The fatality occurred after several other incidents at the same facility, including a worker who suffered an arm amputation, another worker who suffered laceration injuries and a worker who was exposed to a thermal burn hazard.
An ABC News investigation in Australia found JBS “has an appalling track record in the workplace, repeatedly failing to protect its workers from death or serious injuries — including hand amputations and third-degree burns.”
And at least seven workers at the JBS plant in Greeley died during the COVID-19 pandemic, part of a wave of worker deaths at meatpacking facilities around the country. The deaths prompted a congressional investigation into the largest meatpacking companies.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued JBS a $15,615 fine for those COVID-19 deaths.
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JBS USA, the meatpacking giant headquartered in Greeley, pressures instructors to falsify safety trainings so its employees can get to work on production lines with a history of causing injuries, a whistleblower alleges in a recent lawsuit. Salima Jandali, a former JBS worker who is Muslim and from Morocco, says in her complaint filed in…